He will "Take"

This is the typical behavior of Kings from then, all the way till today. They will "take". Monarchy has always been held in a romantic light in my own mind, and I have always recognized that the monarchs of today, though they don't have the power that they used to, are extremely wealthy because of the sacrifices made by their ancestors. After all, kingship comes with responsibility, like risking life and limb to protect your country in times of war. Nevertheless, the payment for that "service" can be steep. Like if the King fancies your wife, you can be intimidated into divorce, killed, or simply disgraced while he openly cheats with her. All three have happened in modern history.

I studied a little bit of the history of the English Monarchy and really all the land and wealth that they have is because of war and bloodshed. So when you see a European prince driving out of a Castle in a Rolls-Royce and being pursued by paparazzi despite having accomplished nothing with his life. It's because of the blood shed and wars won by his ancestors.

America has America because it all but exterminated the Native Americans and waged war against England, France, Spain, and Mexico.

I don't think it's necessarily malevolent of their ancestors, because the only reason anyone has anything today is really because of the exact same thing. It is "evil" yes, but the world only operates this way because of sin. It seems God tolerates certain human behaviors simply because it's the only way we can survive or have any semblance of order in a sinful world.

It's easy to ignore, but the reason we sleep well at night is because rough men are executing violence on our enemies in foreign lands to keep our borders safe. It's only the truly naive person that thinks American soil has never been invaded since the Revolutionary war due to us being pacifist. Every war we fight is on foreign soil. Imagine a firefight in the middle of your Walmart, or an Iraqi tank firing off rounds at your children's school playground. It's unimaginable.

But the moral of this passage, besides the fact that the land the Israelites now have was taken from the Canaanites, is that once they have a king He will "take" from his subjects. Saul did this, and so did David though to a lesser degree.

Created over 2 years ago