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  • From: Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] The 'need' for a king?
  • Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 08:47:53 +0300

Dear Shoshanna and all,

As I'm sure that you know, not all authorities consider the law of the king in Deut. 17 to be a positive commandment. While Mimonides (Rambam) does consider it obligitory to annoint a king, Nahmanidies (Ramban) disagrees, and understands it as meaning that IF Israel were to want a king, then these are the terms that they must follow.


I do agree, that the Deuteronomist considers the Davidic kingship to be representitive of God's will. One of the major themes of Judges is that the prior, pre-monarchic, system did not work. "In those days there was no king in Israel, every man did what was right in his own eyes" (which, despite appearences, occurs only three times!), is a NEGATIVE comment: there was anarchy, and the part of that anarchy that the author was conserned about was in worship of God (remember, the Bible is a religious text, not a book on political science!) - cf. Deut. 12:8. The king is responsible for keeping the people faithful to God's laws, and with no king, there was nobody who could do this.

The whole book of Judges is composed around two conflicting themes: on one hand, the tribes, which start off in chapter 1 as completely disunited, form ever-growing ad-hoc groupings, culminating in 11 tribes being united it the final episode. On the other hand, inter-tribal conflicts also grow more intense, from Deborah's cursing some tribes, through Gideon and Abimelech and finally, again, the 12th tribe being almost wiped out by the united 11. These conflicting themes come to a crisis, which MUST lead to a change!

1 Sam. 8, in which Samuel argues against a king but God commands him to annoint one anyway, must be read as a "warning" by the Deuteronomistic author - yes, the monarchy is divinely commanded, but in reality most kings were far from perfect. In fact, one can compare Samuel's "speach" to the law in Deut. 17 and see the literary relationship between the two texts. In other words, the (exilic) writer is trying to explain why, if God wanted there to be a king and God chose the Davidic line, the same God allowed those kings to lead the people to destruction and exile.

Yigal Levin


----- Original Message ----- From: "Shoshanna Walker" <rosewalk AT concentric.net>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Cc: <JCR128 AT student.anglia.ac.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 7:02 AM
Subject: [b-hebrew] The 'need' for a king?


Then think a little harder, because the "need" for a king was because
G-d (and not any human representatives/ 'authors' of the Torah)
COMMANDED - once we possessed and settled our Land - that we appoint
a G-d chosen (ie; with the concurrence of both a prophet and the
Sanhedrin) king with certain qualifications, which are described.

Ie; it was not only permitted, but it was COMMANDED that at some
future point, when we were established in our land that we request a
king.

Devarim 17: 14, 15

Shoshanna







In fact, now I think of it, there is absolutely nothing
I can think of in the hebrew canon that would ever
lead anyone to believe that the conversion to regal
system was considered an improvement by Yhwh and his
representatives, the authors of the canon.

James Christian Read
BSc Computer Science (thesis: concept driven machine translation
using the Aleppo codex)
http://www.lamie.org/hebrew





















































Furthermore, the
regal system proved to be no less flawed and perhaps
even more so than the period of the Judges. They then
also had to start paying tax as a result of their
faithless request for a king.

In fact, now I think of it, there is absolutely nothing
I can think of in the hebrew canon that would ever
lead anyone to believe that the convers

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