“However, he is not to acquire many horses for himself or have the people return to Egypt to obtain more horses, inasmuch as Adonai told you never to go back that way again.”-Deuteronomy 17:16
In Moses’ day, horses were used for mainly one thing: to pull chariots.
And chariots were only used for two things:
–to serve as royal forms of transport for the king and his court
…and…
–to be used as key instruments in ancient warfare.
Now here’s the thing.
Israel’s power as a nation was NOT to come from advanced weaponry or military strategy.
Instead, their power was to come from their faith in God.
Heck, God had already demonstrated that faith in Him is more than enough when He literally drowned the whole Egyptian Army in the Red Sea.
Therefore, there should have been no hesitation on Israel’s part to place their whole trust and faith in God when it came to being protected from other nations who would seek to destroy them.
Yet, God knew that Israel’s faith might waver.
That’s why He inserted the command into His Torah that a King of Israel is NOT to amass too many horses.
God wasn’t necessarily against Israel having an army or even against them being well-armed and well-prepared militarily,
It’s just that the Lord wanted to make sure Israel’s hopes of victory would be based on their faith and obedience to Him instead of earthly things.
This is also the reason why the Lord cut down Gideon’s army from 32,000 (I think that was the original number) down to a mere 300.
The reason the Lord gave for doing so was as follows…
“And the LORD said to Gideon, ‘The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, lest Israel become boastful, saying, My own power has delivered me.’”
This makes good sense to me.
The source of a people’s power and ability to survive…
…who have been chosen by God…
…should be…
…well, God Himself.
Don’t you think?
Plus, it’s darn right dangerous to pin your hopes of survival on an enemy nation that could easily pull the plug on that power source at any time.
Finally, there’s actually yet another reason why a king was not to acquire too many horses for himself.
Kings, once they have tasted great power, are jealous to keep it.
So, in order to maintain their power, historically, we know that kings have often used their military against their own civilians.
Heck, even the Godly King David abused his royal power and his military with the whole adulterous Bathsheba affair.
Bottomline, God does not want Israel’s kings to be so strong and full of themselves that they forget they are supposed to be serving those who they are ruling over.
The next time we meet, we’ll examine the Lord’s injunction concerning why a king should not have too many wives.
Now note I said “too many” and NOT “more than one”.
See you all next time.
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