Three Things You Always Thought God Wanted… but He Didn’t (Part 2): King

Keith D. Stanglin

David and Saul, Ernst Josephson, 1878

And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.”  1 Samuel 8:7

In my previous post, I claimed that there are at least three things or institutions in Scripture that God didn’t really seem to desire in the first place.  Yet, despite that original will, he accommodated and regulated these things, which were ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ and in his body, the church.  I plan to discuss these three institutions in order from “pretty clear God didn’t want this” to “perhaps less clear, but I think a good case can be made that God didn’t want this.”

(By the way, a few readers managed to guess the three items I intend to discuss.  But the guy that guessed “youth ministers”—now that was just mean.)

First, as an instance of “pretty clear God didn’t want this,” is the king.  At the origin of kingship in Israel, the ambivalence comes through sharply in the narrative.  In fact, some scholars posit at least two different sources in this narrative from 1 Samuel, because the attitudes expressed toward the monarchy are so divergent.  The view is generally favorable in 1 Samuel 9:1–10:19 and 11:1-11, but unfavorable in 7:1–8:22, 10:17–27, and 11:14–12:25.  The text itself does not really harmonize the two outlooks.

The elders of Israel, in contrast to their reputation for defending the status quo, favor the novel idea of Israel having a king, with the following arguments.  1) Samuel is old and can no longer lead (8:5).  But that’s more an argument for a new successor, not a new office.  2) Samuel’s sons, Joel and Abijah (8:2), are spiritually corrupt—including guilty of taking bribes—and therefore unfit to succeed Samuel as judges over Israel (8:1–5).  But again, that’s an argument for a better successor, and it actually undercuts an institution like monarchy, in which family succession is typical.  3) The Israelites need a king to govern or judge them (8:5, 20).  The end of the book of Judges, looking back after the monarchy, cites the lack of a king as a problem, leading to anarchy and immorality.  4) They need a king to lead them in battle (8:20; 12:12).  5) They want to be like the other nations (8:5, 20).  That is, the surrounding nations are stable and powerful because they have organized monarchies.  By the way, this last observation reinforces my point that God didn’t want this.  The kingship that Israel’s elders desired originated and was common in pagan nations.  (To be more precise, I’m not suggesting that everything common to archaic, pagan human culture or “religion” was against God’s intent. But its anthropological universality at least indicates the most plausible origin of the practice—Israel was imitating its neighbors, not following a divine mandate.  It is explicitly the case with kingship in Israel; it will be the case implicitly with subsequent entries in this series.)

Those latter arguments of the elders in favor of having a king, by the way, aren’t horrible; they make a kind of rational sense.  But Samuel was against the idea and took it as a rejection of himself and ultimately of God.  From the time of Moses through the life of Samuel, Israel understood itself as a theocracy (8:7), ruled by humans, of course, but humans who had direct prophetic access to God, allowing God the ultimate say.  Samuel sees the proposal of a monarchy as a departure, and his assessment is matter of fact.  (Samuel convened the world’s first “no kings” rally; he was the only who showed up.) 

Samuel’s words in 1 Samuel 8:10-18 are presented as communicating the Lord’s assessment.  The repeated verb that reflects the tone is “take.”  What would the king “take” from them?  Everything.  Your sons, to serve in his standing army and plow his fields.  He will take your daughters.  He will take the best of your fields and their produce.  He will take a tenth of your grain and vineyards.  He will take your servants and best of your young men, as well as your donkeys.  He will take a tenth of your flocks.  And, to sum it all up, “you shall be his slaves” (8:17).  The bigger and more centralized and more powerful the human government, the more they “take.”  “Is that what you want?” Samuel and the Lord seem to be asking.

Based on Samuel’s inspired speech, it’s “pretty clear” that the Lord did not want this for Israel.  Yet, surprisingly, there is a third, perhaps mediating position, which I’m calling the accommodation (8:19-22).  God agrees with Samuel, but, where we might expect strict prohibition of a human monarchy—“thou shalt have no other king”—God instead accommodates the people’s wishes and allows a king.  “Obey the people,” God says, and give them a king (8:7, 22). 

What did God want for Israel?  King, or no king?  Some suggest (for example, John Walton and Andrew Hill) that the real problem was not kingship per se but the people’s motivation—especially, to be like other nations.  But that alone doesn’t seem to account for Samuel’s speech, which is more consequentialist in nature, highlighting what will happen as a result of having a king.  Samuel’s warning is fixed on the king’s motivation and action, namely, to take everything for himself (note the recurring “a tenth,” which should be God’s share).

Whether it’s the people’s motivation or the king’s motivation and actions, the danger is the temptation to see the king as a God substitute.  Indeed, kingship in archaic societies had a religious significance.  Kings were seen in a quasi- or fully-priestly role—as mediators between God and man—and often as semi-divine figures.  Typically, ancient kings thought of themselves as godlike, and the people feared, loved, and treated them as such.  This is the meaning behind God’s declaration that the people have rejected not Samuel but God (8:7). 

As part of the accommodation, God regulates the institution.  Upon Saul’s acclamation as the first king, Samuel records the rights and duties of the king (1 Sam. 10:25).  These responsibilities are further delineated in Deuteronomy 17:14-20, which grants Israel the right to have kings, like the other nations around them (Deut. 17:14).  The most important command was the final one (17:18-20): The king was to write down God’s law, keep it with him and read, so that he could take it to heart and follow it and not exalt himself over his brothers.  Of the first three kings of united Israel, David is perhaps the only one who took this command seriously, but even he could fall into the royal pattern of “taking” what was not his (2 Sam. 11:4).  If we step back and look over the entire history of the monarchy and Israel’s life under earthly kings, it was an overall negative.  And by the first century, the so-called kings in Israel were mere puppets of the Roman Empire.  Kingship in Israel, as envisioned by the elders who presented their idea to Samuel, had become obsolete.

As an aside, although government of humans by humans is necessary for any political organization—from the household on up—and can be good and accomplish good, nevertheless Lord Acton was right: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  What Samuel warned about the king “taking” for himself pales in comparison to what today’s Leviathan takes for itself.  Would that our government took only “a tenth.”  And as the late modern nation-state increasingly claims the prerogative of God over its citizens, its godly citizens should be proportionately suspicious of the institution (earthly kingship or whatever) today.  Samuel’s warnings to the elders sound very current.

The idea of an earthly king was not something God ever really wanted for his people.  It was an idea by the people, for the people.  God never really figured into their equation.

By accommodating something the people wanted for themselves, however, God took a flawed institution and filled it with significance that would be filled up and completed in Jesus Christ.  The king is the “anointed one” (that is, Messiah or Christ), and God’s covenant with David anticipates the seed of David, the son of God, whose kingdom will have no end (2 Sam. 7:12-16).  Jesus comes as the son of David (Matt. 1:6; Acts 2:30; Rom. 1:3), proclaiming the coming of God’s kingdom.  The regal language and metaphor are central to Jesus’ identity and mission.  Jesus Anointed One is king! 

Yet, his kingdom is not of this world.  His is a “forever kingdom” precisely because his reign is not subject to the contingencies of historical circumstances and political instability.  It is forever not only because he fulfilled the ideal of the king who embodied God’s law and was “made like his brothers in every way” (Heb. 2:17), but also because he is by nature the divine Son, fulfilling the original ideal of having God as the only true king.  In other words, with Jesus, God’s intent comes full circle—the earthly king, the anointed seed of David, is also true God, and, in Christ God’s people have God as their king.  No other is needed.

Finally, kingship will be completed when God’s people are summoned from death and restored to share his reign eternally.  In the new creation, God’s redeemed people will take on his name and share his throne forever (Rev. 22:4-5), just as God and his Christ reign (11:5).  The kings of the earth will bring their glory in to the

eternal kingdom (Rev. 21:24), and all people will come to reflect God’s creational intent for his image—that humanity would co-rule with God over his creation.

See Post 1 of this Series

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