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AN ACCOMMODATION OR GOD'S INTENTION? |
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by
Doug Ward |
The Bible teaches that God, who reigns over all the earth
(Psalm 47), is also in a special sense the king of the people of Israel. "He
was king over Jeshurun when the leaders of the people assembled, along with the
tribes of Israel," we read in Deuteronomy 33:5 (NIV).
Because
the ancient Israelites had a divine king, they did not necessarily require a
human ruler. God did, however, give them the option of establishing a monarchy.
Shortly before the nation entered the Promised Land, Moses gave the following
instructions:
"When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving
you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, `Let us set
a king over us like all the nations around us,' be sure to appoint over you a
king the LORD your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites.
Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite" (Deut 17:14-15).
Israel
eventually did exercise this option about 350 years later, and Saul from the
tribe of Benjamin became the nation's first human king. Since Israel's request
for a king at that point received a stern reprimand (I Sam 8), an interesting
question arises: Did God intend for Israel to have kings, or was a monarchy
merely allowed as an accommodation to human weakness, as with regulations
permitting divorce (Matt 19:3-9)? To answer this question, it will be helpful
to consider the entire biblical witness on the subject. We begin by examining
the rest of the divine instructions communicated by Moses in Deuteronomy
17:16-20.
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What
Kind of King? |
We have already seen that Israel's kings were not to be foreign
nationals. There were also several restrictions on the policies the king should
pursue:
"The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of
horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for
the LORD has told you, `You are not to go back that way again.' He must not
take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large
amounts of silver and gold" (Deut 17:16-17).
There
is great wisdom in these restrictions. A large harem of foreign princesses would
be a temptation to idolatry, as later would happen with King Solomon (I Kings
11:1-8). A king who concentrated on building a large standing army and growing
in wealth would be tempted to believe that he was supremely powerful and
answerable to no one. Such a king could easily come to see the nation as
existing for his sake, rather than the other way around. This kind of king
might decide to sell some of his subjects into slavery in order to obtain more
horses or gold.
Verses
16-17 list some things that a king of Israel should not do. What the king should
do is specified in verses 18-20:
"When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to
write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the
Levitical priests. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of
his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully
all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better
than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left.
Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in
Israel."
The
king described in these verses is much different from most human kings. While
many kings proclaim themselves to be gods and a law unto themselves, a Deuteronomy
17 king would be subject to God and to the rule of the law of God. History has
shown how much harm can be done by rulers who believe they are not subject to
any higher law. Such rulers, like the Pharaoh of Exodus 2 or Adolph Hitler,
might try to commit genocide. Like Stalin or Mao, they might cause the deaths
of multiple millions of their subjects. In contrast, the king of Deuteronomy 17
is a servant leader, leading Israel in keeping the covenant, which would
promote the the nation's longevity and prosperity in
the Promised Land.
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Kings
in Promise and Practice |
In investigating the divine will in the matter of an Israelite
monarchy, we should remember God's promises to the patriarchs. In Gen 17:6, God
promises to Abraham, "I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations
of you, and kings will come from you." To Abraham's wife Sarah, he says,
"I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of
peoples will come from her." This promise of future kings is repeated to
Abraham's grandson Jacob in Gen 35:11: "A nation and a community of
nations will come from you, and kings will be among your descendants."
Then Jacob later predicts, concerning his son Judah,
"The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the
ruler's staff from between his feet, until he to whom it belongs shall come and
the obedience of the nations shall be his" (Gen 49:10).
These
promises and predictions suggest that Israel would have a series of human
kings, culminating in the coming of the Messiah, and that these kings would
constitute a blessing for Abraham's descendants.
We
should also consider the lessons of Israel's history. In the premonarchial
period, the nation experienced some times of anarchy and moral degeneration, as
chronicled in the book of Judges. This book concludes, "In those days
Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit" (Judges 21:25). This
verse is certainly referring to the fact that the people had strayed from God,
their divine king. But it also seems to imply that the appearance of a Deuteronomy
17 king would fill an obvious leadership vacuum.
Indeed,
a number of ancient Israel's best periods as a nation came under the kings that
came closest to the Deut 17 ideal. Israel was united under King David, whose
obedience to Deut 17:18-20 is evident in the Psalms-e.g., numbers 1, 19, 119.
David sought God's will and let God direct the nation's battles (2 Sam
5:17-21).
Another
Deut 17 king was Hezekiah, who trusted in God and led Judah in obedience to the
Torah (2 Kings 18:5-6). When Judah was attacked by the powerful Assyrian
Empire, Hezekiah relied on God for deliverance, and Israel was miraculously
rescued (2 Kings 19). A third Deut 17 king was Josiah, who delayed Judah's time
of captivity by leading them in repentance and revival (2 Kings 23).
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What
About I Sam 8? |
In light of the foregoing, let us now consider Israel's original
request for a king in the days of Samuel. At that time, God states that Israel
is rejecting him by asking for a king (I Sam 8:7). A close examination of I Sam
8 suggests that the problem lies in the type of king the Israelites have in
mind. They ask for a king "such as all the other nations have" (v. 4)
rather than a Deut 17 king. In particular, they want a king who will be a
strong military leader (v. 20), an authority in competition with God instead of
a servant of God. It is this kind of a king that Samuel warns against in verses
11-18.
The
biblical evidence leads to the conclusion that God did intend for Israel to
have human kings. The main question was not whether the Israelites should have
a king, but what kind of king they should have.1
A Deut 17 king would lead the people closer to God, while a king "such as
all the other nations have " would tend to have the opposite effect.
This
conclusion is supported by the mainstream of Jewish tradition. For example,
Maimonides listed the responsibility to appoint a king as one of the positive
commandments in his compilation of the 613 commandments of the Torah. The
Talmud (b. Sanhedrin 20b) records a tradition, attributed to Rabbi Judah, that
three key responsibilities for Israel to fulfill in the Promised Land were to
appoint a king, destroy Amalek, and build the Temple. The implication is that
Israel would require a king in order to be able to successfully carry out the
other two tasks.2
On
the other hand, I am not claiming that a monarchy is the ideal form of human
government, or that a highly centralized structure is best for an
ecclesiastical government. A number of governmental structures are possible,
but what is most important, I think, is that the group and its leaders live in
submission to the kingship of God, following his commandments.
1The case for this conclusion
is made in more detail in two excellent articles by Dr. David M. Howard: "The
Case for Kingship in Deuteronomy and Former Prophets", Westminster
Theological Journal, vol. 52, no. 1, 1990, pp. 101-115; “The Case for
Kingship in the Old Testament Narrative Books and the Psalms,” Trinity
Journal, vol. 9, no. 1, 1988, pp. 19-35.
2For
more information, see “What
is the Torah’s Ideal Political System?”, a commentary on Torah
portion Shoftim by Rabbi Elchanan
Samet.
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