Laws of Kings

Here God predicts that Israel will want a king over them like the other nations of the land.

God says that He must choose the king that they set over themselves. Furthermore there are rules this king must follow.

1. Don't multiply horses for himself, or cause the people to return to egypt to multiply horses.

2. Neither shall he multiply wives for himself

3. He should not greatly multiply silver and gold for himself.

4. When he becomes King he is supposed to go to the Levites and copy out the entire Law (from their master copy) into a book for himself. Which is amazing, because David might have been the only King of Israel to do this. Psalm 1 and Psalm 119 come to mind as Psalms of David that praise the Law of the Lord and how he always meditated on it.

This truly shows that Kings were to be servants of their people. Protecting the nation in war, and preserving the individual rights of the people. Yet, historically what Kings have really lived up to this?

Even David messed this up himself. Let's see how he stacked up?

#1 He was against using horses and fought all his battles on foot as infantry. (Passed)

#2 He had 2 wives when he was King of Judah, but then got 2 more (2 Sam 2-3), and got Michal back for a total of 5 wives. After becoming King over Israel, he took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem, though a number isn't given, but we'll call it "x". Then he took Bathsheba from one of his mighty men, for a total of 6 x. From the ordeal with Absalom, we find that David had at least 10 concubines, so now we have 16 x . So it might be safe to say that David had probably had no more than 30 wives, which was probably reasonable for a king in his time, but we know David had a weakness for women and intense lust was involved when he was willing to kill another man to cover up his sin of adultery. (Failed)

#3 David dedicated to the Lord all the gold and silver from all the nations he conquered. He spent the rest of his life gathering wealth for God's Temple that Solomon would build and gave it all as a gift to God at the end of his life (1 Chronicles 29). (Passed with flying colors!)

#4 I don't know of any verses saying that David copied out the Law with his own hands. But because of the verses in Psalms that show his intense love for the Law of the Lord and his studiousness, he probably did follow this commandment. It's obvious from David's dealings with the people he conquered that he read the Laws and understood the "chawram". Saul did not understand chawram and lost his kingdom because of it. David read and loved the law, though he didn't follow all of its rules, he attempted to, like the rest of us good Christians do (Passed).

So David met 3 of the 4 requirements of a King, and God loved him more than any other King of Israel. That is true evidence of God's mercy. 75% is a passing grade.

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