The Kings of Israel

Introduction

God has intended for his people to live in obedience to him from the beginning. God led the Israelites out of Egypt and provided for their daily needs. God gave them leaders to guide them. He provided victory over their enemies. They responded with grumbling, complaining, and by turning away because they wanted a god that they could see, ultimately leading to their demand for an earthly king.

God’s intent for the Israelites

God’s intent for the Israelites is that they would look to him and only him as their king. God told the Israelites “You shall have no other gods before me” (May & Metzger, 1977, p. 92). It is easy for us to make people and objects more important than God by making them our idols, our gods. Moses left the Israelites under the direction of his brother Aaron when he went up Mt. Sinai to talk to God and before he could return the people had already made and idol. Prior to the Israelites demanding that a king be appointed to rule over them the God chose leaders like Abraham and Moses as well as the judges to lead and guide them. One of the judges, Gideon, defeats Midian and then he is asked to be king, but “he refuses by affirming that “the Lord will rule over you”” (Birch, Brueggemann, Fretheim, & Petersen, 1999, p. 217). Gideon knew what God wanted as did others, but “in time, there came pressures upon Israel to become like other nations” (Grand Canyon University [GCU], 2007, p. 1). “At God’s behest Samuel delivers a severe lecture on the evils of kingship before yielding” (May & Metzger, p. 340) to their request.

God’s “ideal king”

God chose Saul to be the first king over Israel. Samuel told Saul that “the spirit of the Lord will come mightily upon you” (May & Metzger, p. 343). The role of king was a great won and God realized this so he added to the role of the prophets to include “intercession and guidance” (Birch et al., 1999, p. 233) for the kings. This is seen most notably in the role that Nathan plays in David’s life. God chose David to take Saul’s place as king of Israel. When this happened, the spirit of the Lord leaves Saul and goes to David.

David knew what God wanted in an “ideal king” and he wrote about them in Psalm 72. “Give the king thy justice, O God, and they righteousness to the royal son! May he judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with justice! May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor” (May & Metzger, p. 709)! Even before he was made king, David cared about those who were being oppressed. Before becoming king David heard that the Philistines were fighting against Keilah so he went to the Lord and asked “Shall I go and attack these Philistines” (May & Metzger, p. 362)? God told him to go.

David was righteous, but as it is with all of us, he had his faults, his sins. God knows we are going to sin and he knew that David would also sin. We see this in 2 Samuel 11 when David covets Uriah’s wife Bathsheba with whom he commits adultery and when they find out she is pregnant with his child he has Uriah murdered. After being rebuked by Nathan David admits his sin and by God’s grace is spared. The child that was born to Bathsheba dies after which David “went into the house of the Lord, and worshipped” (May & Metzger, 1977, p. 390).

Was David God’s “ideal king?” He likely was God’s ideal earthly king, but not his “ideal king.” God knew David’s limitations and he knew that David would fall short. No one on earth could fill this role.

A king’s sovereignty

God’s sovereignty is not limited to ruling over a region or a people. “God’s sovereignty is not morally and theologically neutral” (Birch et al., 1999, p. 220). By the time the Israelites were demanding an earthly king they no longer understood God’s kingship. An earthly king was incapable of maintaining the neutrality that God could. How could they? They had not created the heavens and the earth. God set the moral standard and there has been no one in since the beginning of time that has been able to live up to that standard except for Jesus.

Saul and David were both chosen by God to be king. This immediately limits the extent of their sovereignty to what God wants it to be. God sent the prophets to guide the kings. The earthly kings’ sovereignty is much different than God’s.

Today we say that nations are sovereign. This sovereignty is similar to that of the kings of ancient Israel in that the sovereignty covers a specific area and people. They differ because the kings of ancient Israel were appointed by God. Today Kings are in power because of their lineage, not divine appointment. Nations are sovereign because, not because of God, but because in most cases the land that they hold was either bought or taken by force.

Conclusion

The Israelites should have listened to the warning that Samuel gave them from God about the earthly kings. Whereas God is not susceptible to sin, we are. God is the same today as he was yesterday, but man changes many times over the course of his life based on the many influences that he will experience. We see over and over in the scriptures man’s inability to keep covenants with God or with other men. The constant pressures that we face each day prevent us from ever being able to fulfill the role of the “ideal king.” God’s “ideal king” came to be in Jesus Christ and who is sovereign over all creation and whose kingship is for all eternity.

References

Birch, B. C., Brueggemann, W., Fretheim, T. E., & Petersen, D. L. (1999). A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament. Nashville, TN: Abington Press.
Grand Canyon University (2007). BIB 113 Lecture Five, Monarchy and God's Sovereignty. : .May, H. G., & Metzger, B. M. (1977). The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha Expanded Edition and Revised Standard Version. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc.