“Likewise, he is not to acquire many wives for himself, so that his heart will not turn away; and he is not to acquire excessive quantities of silver and gold.”-Deuteronomy 17:17
In Deuteronomy 17:17, the Lord warns that kings of Israel should not make it a goal of their rulership to amass a personal fortune on the backs of their subjects.
How exactly would a king attempt to do that?
Primarily in two ways.
One way would be to heavily tax the people to the hilt AND…
…the second way would be to confiscate all the wealth from the smaller nations and city states a king conquered.
That was the standard way Canaanite kings operated.
However, a king of Israel was NOT to behave in such a fashion.
The money that he gathered was to be used to fund a proper army, care for the poor in society, and invested into infrastructure projects that would lead to the creation of roads and bridges etcetera that would benefit all of the people.
Now concerning David’s son King Solomon, unfortunately Scripture informs us that he broke all of these provisions of the law.
He created a massive-sized military.
He had a ton of wives and concubines (in other words, political alliances).
And he stored up quite a bit of personal wealth.
Here’s what we’ve got to understand about the laws we’re reading here in Deuteronomy concerning a king in Israel.
They were designed to make sure that at the end of the day, ultimately, it was God Himself who retained kingship in Israel.
The human king was to simply be God’s representative on earth accomplishing the Father’s Will to such an extent that both the king and the Father were practically one and the same (and no I’m NOT preaching some literal God-in-human-flesh hypostatic union nonsense. So calm down.)
This leads me to my next and final point for today.
What do you think is the biggest difference between a Hebrew King and gentile king?
The answer is simple.
Gentile kings created laws for the people but they exempted themselves from having to obey those laws.
However, since the laws of Israel proceeded directly from the mouth of God, a Hebrew king was just as much under the Laws of God as any other common citizen.
In fact, a king of Israel through his lifestyle was to demonstrate a thoroughly Torah-observant lifestyle.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“Do not think that I have
come to abolish the
Law or the Prophets;
I have not come to abolish
them but to fulfill them.”
-Matthew 5:17
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