Daily Thoughts from Deuteronomy 17:14-17: King (Melech)

19. King (Melech)

When you have entered the land Yahweh your God is giving you, have taken possession of it and are living there, you may say, ‘I want to have a king over me, like all the other nations around me.’  In that event, you must appoint as king the one whom Yahweh your God will choose. He must be one of your kinsmen, this king you appoint over you — you are forbidden to appoint a foreigner over you who is not your kinsman.  However, he is not to acquire many horses for himself or have the people return to Egypt to obtain more horses, inasmuch as Yahweh told you never to go back that way again.  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.

(D’varim, 17:14-17)

It was not lost on him that John had prophesied that the one coming after him was greater than him and that he wasn’t worthy to carry his sandals.  The prophecies were of a coming king, the coming of Yahweh as king, in fact.  There never should have been a human kingship in Yisrael.  But Yisrael had abandoned the rule of Yahweh’s judges over them.  And Moshe had anticipated this as Yahweh taught him.

Why hadn’t Yahweh simply abandoned Yisrael?  And Yeshua remembered the aromatic plant he had come across now over two weeks ago.  “You love them, Father,” and the words caught in his throat.  The Father’s love was so pure, so unselfish, so painfully loyal.  “I love what You love, Father.”

And here he was, David’s son and his Father’s son.  John was talking about him as Yisrael’s coming king.  But being king did not mean power and wealth and privilege to him.  It meant fearing Yahweh and keeping His torah so that he could serve his kinsmen and prolong their blessing forever.  And he must take the brunt of the curse for them.

“You seem to be very proud of yourself right now!”

The words startled him.  He had thought himself on the road all by himself.

“My boast is in my Father.  Woe to me if I find reason for boasting in myself as if none of what I have came from Him.”

“Where are you going son of God?”  He could feel the sarcasm seeping from between his teeth and he had a mind not to answer.

“I don’t know for sure.  He is leading me south toward the sea.  Of what matter is it to you?”

“Everything you do is of concern to me, O King!  It is all about you, is it not?  You are Yisrael’s hope, are you not?”

“I know why you associate being the hope of the world with arrogance.”

“It is folly to act as if your stellar attributes are not something to be praised, something to be proud of.  It is folly to treat your abilities as nothing.”

“They are not nothing, but rather a wonderful something, something birthed in us by God Himself, a testimony to His greatness.  They are only diminished when we forget where they came from.”

“Fine.  Your humility is commendable.  But you know, do you not, that a people do not flock to the one who does not assert himself, who does not have the trappings of greatness.  They expect their king to look and act like a king.  You’ll get nowhere with your cheap robes and dusty feet.”

There was truth to this, but it did no good to argue the fallacy of it with this one.  It nevertheless became the source of his reverie for the next several hours.  A king did deserve regal accoutrement and respectful attention.  What were the essential trappings of a king?  But what would keep the accoutrements from turning the head of the regal one?  At some point he realized that this was a very successful temptation from the evil one and he chose to put it all in the hands of his Father.  It wasn’t up to him to determine what level of acclaim he received.

It was time to sleep and he did so with a settled shalom in the center of his heart.