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[Who better to be King than the King of kings, the Lord of lords, Creator and Master of the universe—YHWH Himself? What better form of government than that which He instituted for His chosen people, a theocracy?
Who else but the predictable answer: the true and only Divine King, Who leads and guides and directs with perfect wisdom, justice, righteousness, kindness, mercy, and Power that overcomes all enemies of His people. YHWH, King of kings!
And yet, folly of all follies, the Israelites clamor for a king just like themselves, human, fallible, someone they can see, just so they could be just “like all the other nations” with human kings! Oy vey as the Jews would say!
Disappointment of all disappointments, this is exactly what does happen during the time of the prophet Samuel . . . yet the wonder of it is—this is prophesied as early as Deuteronomy, way before there was even a Kingdom in the Promised Land.
The bigger wonder of it is — Israel’s God/King condescends and will accede to the people’s clamor: ‘You want it, you got it!’ And the rest will be Israel’s ‘future history’ at least from this vantage point of pre-entry into the Promised Land. But that is not the last word, thank YHWH; while He does allow human kingship to replace His Divine Kingship, He sets rules for the king, just as He sets rules for the Priests and all Israelites. At the end of this chapter are additional notes which you should not skip if you really wish to understand the Divine perspective on earthly ‘kingship and kingdom’.
Commentary comes from the best of Jewish minds, as collected by Dr. J.H. Hertz in his excellent resource Pentateuch and Haftorahs; this website uses EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses..—Admin1.]
Deuteronomy/Davarim 17
1 You are not to slaughter-an-offering to YHVH your God (of) an ox or a sheep that has on it a defect, anything ill, for it is an abomination to YHVH your God!The sacrificing of blemished or injured animals (XV,21; Lev. XXII,20-22) is a profanation of the service of God; Malachi I,8.
2 When there is found among you, within one of your gates that YHVH your God is giving you, a man or a woman that does what is ill in the eyes of YHVH your God, to cross his covenant,2-7. DETECTING AND PUNISHMENT OF IDOLATRY
3 going and serving other gods and prostrating oneself to them -to the sun or to the moon or to any of the forces of heaven that I have not commanded,which I have commanded not. i.e. which I have not permitted you to worship.
4 and it is told to you, you are to hear and you are to inquire well, and (if) here: true and correct is the matter -this abomination was done in Israel-it be told thee . . . the thing certain. The judges were not to act on mere report, but must institute a process of searching inquiry; see XIII,15.
5 then you are to take out that man or that woman who did this evil thing, (out) to your gates, the man or the woman; you are to stone them with stones, so that they die.6 On the statement of two witnesses or three witnesses shall the one worthy-of-death be put-to-death; he shall not be put-to-death on the statement of one witness.
two . . . witnesses. Whose validity as witnesses is unimpeachable, and who must agree in their testimony, if the sentence is to be carried out. There was no torture of the accused to compel confession, or to exact the testimony desired by the Court, such as there was in Greece and in the trials of the Inquisition. A leading principle of Jewish law is, No man can by his own testimony incriminate himself in a capital charge.
7 The hand of the witnesses is to be against him, at the beginning, to put-him-to-death, and the hand of the entire people, afterward; so shall you burn out the evil from your midst!shall be first. On the convicting witnesses rests the duty of being first to inflict the extreme penalty with their own hands; so they would feel more seriously the responsibility of their testimony.
8-13. THE SUPREME COURT
Not a Court of Appeal, but a High Court at the Central Sanctuary for cases too hard for the local courts. Such a Court is mentioned in II Chronicles XIX,8. Jewish Tradition—both Talmud and Josephus—attests to the continued existence of such a Court from the days of Moses to the destruction of the Jewish State, and beyond. In the first century of the present era, the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem made the laws and acted as Court of Appeal. It consisted of 70 members in addition to the presiding officer, who was generally the High Priest. In the Provincial towns, there were smaller Sanhedrins of twenty-three members.
8 When any legal-matter is too extraordinary for you, in justice, between blood and blood, between judgment and judgment, between stroke and stroke, in matters of quarreling within your gates, you are to arise and go up to the place that YHVH your God chooses,hard. Or, ‘extraordinary.’
between blood and blood. Whether the act of killing was intentional or accidental (Biur).
plea and plea. Cases of disputed rights and claims regarding property.
stroke and stroke. Cases where bodily injury has been inflicted, and it is hard to assess the damages fairly.
matters of controversy within thy gates. i.e. the local judges are of divided opinion (Rashi).
9 you are to come to the Levitical priests and to the judge that there is in those days; you are to inquire, and they are to tell you the word of judgment.the priests the Levites. i.e. the priests who were of the tribe of Levi.
the judge. the head of the Court of the Central Sanctuary.
in those days. ‘Even though he be inferior to the judges who preceded him, you are duty-bound to accept his decision. Only the judge of your own day must be your judge’ (Rashi).
declare. lit. ‘announce’.
10 You are to do according to this word that is told you, in that place that YHVH chooses; you are to take-care to observe what they instruct you.11 According to the instruction that they instruct you, by the regulation that they tell you, you are to do; you are not to turn-away from the word that they tell you, right or left.
not turn aside. ‘Even if in your eyes they seem to tell you that right is left, and left is right, hearken unto them’ (Sifri).
12 Now the man who does presumptuously, by not hearkening to the priest that is standing in attendance there on YHVH your God, or to the judge: dead is that man, so you shall burn out the evil from Israel!the man that doeth presumptuously. The decisions of this Court must be strictly obeyed. Refusal to do so would, in a theocracy, be tantamount to revolt against the Constitution, and involve capital punishment for the offender. Tradition explains this v. ti refer to a judge who defies the ruling of the Supreme Court.
the priest. The ecclesiastical president of the tribunal
13 And all the people will hearken, and be awed, and will act-presumptuously no more.(b) THE KING
14-20. These verses define the selection, the qualifications, and the duties of the king. It is legitimate to have a king, but he must be a native Israelite and be a constitutional monarch who governs in accordance with the Torah. He was to have no standing cavalry to keep his people in subjection, nor establish a harem; and he was himself to study and obey the laws of the realm.
14 When you enter the land that YHVH your God is giving you, and you possess it and settle in it, should you say: I will set over me a king like all the nations that are around me-15 you may set, yes, set over you a king that YHVH your God chooses; from among your brothers you may set over you a king, you may not place over you a foreign man who is not a brother-person to you.
thou shalt in any wise set. lit. ‘thou mayest certainly set.’ Monarchy is not commanded, like the appointment of judges, but permitted. This explains the possibility of the opposition to the setting up of a king in I Samuel VIII.
shall choose. The king must be God’s choice; I. Sam. X,24, ‘See ye him whom the LORD hath chosen.’ God’s choice was expressed through the Prophet of that particular generation.
foreigner. In the latter days of the Second Temple, the Romans made Herod and his kinsmen—who were of Edomite descent—kings of Judea. When one of these Herodian kings, Agrippa I, read this v. in the Court of the Temple at the close of a Year of Release, ‘he burst into tears, deeming himself unworthy of kinghood on account of his alien ancestry; whereupon the people reassured him with words, “Thou art our brother, thou art our brother”‘ (Talmud).
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not multiply horses. For war. He was not to cherish military ambitions. ‘The early kings possessed horses in direct proportion to the strength of their military establishments; and the mark of their strength was the number of their horses’ (Radin).
the people. This cannot mean ‘the whole people’; otherwise, it would mean self-annihilation for him (Dillmann). Scripture warns against a body of Israelites being devoted by the king for the purchase of horses in Egypt.
return to Egypt. Exod. XIII; XIV,13 and Num XIV,3; XXVIII,68.
to the end . . . horses. ‘Several of the Hebrew kings’ said a German Professor some years ago, ‘seem to have plied a considerable trade in horses’–a remark that was greeted with ironic applause by his students. The Professor continued, however, ‘This trade, though not very honourable for kings, is not quite as dishonourable as the trade in human beings that was carried on by German princes during the 18th century, in the sale of their subjects as mercenaries in foreign wars.’ See also I Kings X,28.
17 And he is not to multiply wives for himself, that his heart not be turned-aside, and silver or gold he is not to multiply for himself to excess.turn not away. To idolatry, as did Solomon’s (I Kings XI,4). The evils and intrigues of harem-rule are commonplaces in the history of every Eastern court.
silver and gold. This warning is necessary in order to protect the people against exploitation by a despotic monarch.
18 But it shall be: when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he is to write himself a copy of this Instruction in a document, before the presence of Levitical priests.a copy of this law. lit. ‘a repetition of this law,’ wrongly understood by the Septuagint to refer to the whole of the Fifth Book of Moses, and therefore they called it Deuteronomy, ‘the Second Law.’ According tot he Talmud, the king possessed two copies of the Torah; one in his private treasure, and one which he carried about with him. At the crowning of a British monarch, the Bible is delivered to him with the words, ‘We present you with this Book, the most valuable thing the world affords. Here is wisdom; this is the royal law; these are the lively (i.e. living) oracles of God’; II Chron. XIII,11.
the priests the Levites. The custodians of the Law, which was kept by the side of ‘the ark of the Covenant’; see XXXI,26. The king’s copy had to be transcribed from their codex.
19 It is to remain beside him, he is to read out of it all the days of his life, in order that he may learn to have-awe-for YHVH his God, to be-careful concerning all the words of this Instruction and these laws, to observe them,all the days of his life. It was to be his vade mecum, the object of his continual meditation and the guide of his daily life; Josh. I,8; Psalm I,2.
and these statutes. Or, ‘and especially these statutes’ (Koenig). Whenever a king in Israel threw off the yoke of the Torah and disregarded its precepts of righteousness, then the evils of despotic Oriental rule made their appearance unchecked. Cruelty, callous indifference to the welfare of the weaker and poorer classes, avarice, corruption, and disorder in all public affairs were rampant; and these are precisely the sins which the true prophets of Israel were continually denouncing (Harper).
20 that his heart not be raised above his brothers, that he not turn-aside from what-is-commanded, to the right or to the left; in order that he may prolong (his) days over his kingdom, he and his sons, in the midst of Israel.his heart be not lifted up. ‘If pride is to be shunned by a king, how much the more is it to be shunned as a besetting sin in an ordinary mortal’ (Nachmanides).
above his brethren. To the Israelite king his subjects were to be his ‘brethren’.
may prolong his days. The king’s loyalty to the Torah and its regulations concerning the monarchy would establish his throne in the affections of his people and secure it to his children after him.
ADDITIONAL NOTES – THE KING
Among all other Oriental peoples, the word ‘king’ connotes an irresponsible despot, vested with unchallenged authority. All law is the expression of his will; and, while it binds every other member of the community, the monarch himself is free to disregard or to supersede it. He owes no formal duties to his subjects, and is answerable to none for his actions. To the Eastern mind, a ‘limited monarchy’ was a contradiction in terms.
It was otherwise in Israel. There it is God who is the real King and the sole supreme authority; and the monarch is but the agent of the Divine King, entrusted with an indicated commission for which he is responsible to God who chose him. No Jewish ruler would ever have dared to claim Divine honours, and, like the Egyptian and Roman emperors, order sacrifices to be offered to him. In Israel, the monarch is under the LAW, and is bound to respect the life, honour, and possessions of his subjects. We must keep these things in mind if we are to realize Israel’s unique and original attitude to the monarchy. And then let us turn tot he 21st chapter of the First Book of Kings.
Naboth’s vineyard was by king Ahab’s palace at Jezreel. Ahab was anxious either to buy it, or to give Naboth a better vineyard in exchange. However, as Jezreel was a walled city, the law of Jubilee did not apply to it, and the inheritance of his fathers, if sold by Naboth, would not eventually revert to the seller, but would be forever lost to the family. He therefore received the king’s proposal with horror, and refused. Ahab showed his annoyance. When Jezebel, his foreign queen, hears the story, she is quite unable to comprehend her husband’s difficulties. A king is nothing, who is not prepared to take what he wants, is her view of the situation. ‘I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite,’ she says. The law which could not be changed by force she evades by fraud. With Ahab’s acquiescence she assumes royal powers for the purpose. It may be that Naboth in his indignation at the king’s proposal had uttered some hasty words, though quite insufficient to warrant the course adopted by Jezebel. She has Naboth accused of blasphemy and treason; he is duly tried in the local courts; and, having been found guilty in the perjured testimony, is made to pay the supreme penalty for his alleged crimes. When Ahab is about to take possession of the vineyard, he is confronted by Elijah. The Prophet of Truth and Justice denounces him as a murderer and robber, and foretells the vengeance of Heaven that would descend upon his entire House. It is interesting to compare this incident in Scripture with the conduct of the later Roman Emperor Diocletian. It was his habit to charge with treason any of his subjects whose estates he desired; to have the owner executed; and then confiscate those estates. Of course, there was no Elijah to raise the voice against the Imperial procedure. The Diocletian incident is typical of Roman rule in the Provinces of the Empire. It was unbelievably merciless. The hideous misgovernment of Palestine by the Roman Procurators as recorded by Josephus is not exceptional. ‘Roman administration sucked the life-blood out of its Eastern subjects, and diminished their will to live’ (W.R. Inge). In the matter of humane government, Rome has as little to teach us as has Greece.
Normally—i.e. outside of Israel—the subject’s life, honour, and property where throughout antiquity at the absolute disposal of the sovereign. This was so not only in regard to individuals. In Egypt, the lives of vast multitudes of men were sacrificed in connection with the frenzied building schemes of the Pharaohs. Herodotus tells us that in the time of Necho II (609-588 B.C.E.), no less than 120,000 labourers were worked to death in the construction of a canal connecting the Nile and the Red Sea. The contemporary Jewish ruler, king Jehoiakim, tried to emulate the example of Necho II, and he built himself palaces by means of forced labour. In other countries, such a thing was taken to be the unquestioned prerogative of the king. But absolute power in a ruler was incomprehensible to the Jewish mind; and that enterprise was deemed an outrage against law and reason, against immemorial custom and all human decency. Like Elijah before him, Jeremiah the Prophet arose, and came to the door of Jehoiakim’s palace, crying: ‘Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by injustice; that useth his neighbour’s service without wages, and giveth him not his hire . . . . He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem’ (Jer. XXII,13,19).
The king in Israel recognized his responsibility not only to God and the Divine Law, but to the human community that had enthroned him as its leader as well. It is not the king but the people who is in possession of sovereign rights, and the people was free to impose fresh conditions on each new monarch at his accession. A refusal to accept these new conditions cost Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, the greater part of his kingdom (I Kings XII,16). And, as a rule, the kings did not dare to break the covenant entered into with their subjects at their accession. the exceptions to this rule are, Ahab, who was dominated by his Tyrian wife; and Jehoiakim, who was imposed on Judah by a foreign conqueror. Thus it comes that even the great Prophets, who certainly never shrank from denouncing social iniquity wherever it was found, say little of royal malpractices in either realm. And the Psalmists could bid their royal ruler ‘ride on prosperously in behalf of truth, and meekness, and righteousness’ (Ps. XLV,5); and could pray, ‘Give the king thy judgments, O God. In his days shall the righteous flourish, and the souls of the needy shall he save. He shall redeem their soul from oppression and violence, and precious shall their blood be in his sight‘ (Ps. LXXII,1,7,13,14). They all cherish the Messianic dream that days are coming when the king shall shepherd to his people, when the king’s sceptre shall be a sceptre of peace, and upon him shall rest the spirit of wisdom and counsel and the fear of the LORD (Isa. XI,2).
This truly democratic relation between the governor and the governed in Israel is indicated in the Scriptural words, ‘And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book . . . and he shall read therein all the days of his life . . .that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren.’ On this a recent Schweich lecturer has the following admirable comment: ‘In Israel, the king exists for the sake of his people. He has power and authority; but they are not given him for his own pleasure, but for the safety and wellbeing of the nation over whom he rules. He does not stand on a higher level than others, except in so far as his duties give him a loftier place. He is primus inter pares, and though he must of necessity have special authority, yet he belongs to the same order as his people: he is one of them. While to every other ancient monarch the subject was a slave to the Israelite king he was a brother’ (T.H. Robinson).