1 Samuel 10:19

Samuel, therefore, protests unto them, Ye have this day rejected your God, because what you want is a divorce of your national well being from religion. Nevertheless, God granted their request, it being a law of his providence to leave men free to choose. The king was, however, to be appointed by him, the selection being by lot. By your thousands. The natural subdivision of a tribe is into families; but when Moses distributed the people into thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens ( Exodus 18:25 ), the numerical arrangement was probably made to yield as far as possible to the natural, so that about a thousand men more or less of the same kin should be classed as a family. Hence the terms are synonymous here, and in Numbers 1:16 ; Numbers 10:4 ; Joshua 22:14 , etc.