King, Kingship

In general, the words melek [J,l,m] (Heb. king) and basileus [basileuv"](Gk. king) designate the person who holds supreme authority over a nation or city. In theOld Testament the most numerous references to "king" and "kingship"occur in the narratives dealing with the periods of the united and divided kingdoms ofancient Israel. Saul, David, and Solomon were kings who ruled over a united Israelitekingdom. After Solomon's death the kingdom divided into northern (Israel) and southern(Judah) segments. Then a long succession of kings in both Israel (nineteen kings) andJudah (nineteen kings, one queen) ran from 931 b.c. until 721 b.c. in the north and 586b.c. in the south.

Much of 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, and 1-2 Chronicles describes matters pertaining to thelives and reigns of these kings. This, however, does not mean that reference to kingshipis limited to narrative sections of the Old Testament. In fact, significant sections ofthe writings of the prophets and poets also involve the actions of the various kings ofIsrael and Judah.

The use of "king" and "kingship" however, is not limited to theoccupants of the thrones in Samaria and Jerusalem. Reference is also found to numerousforeign kings whose activities affected Israel in some way. But more important, there is astrong and conspicuous emphasis on the kingship of God, the "Great King" whorules over his people ( Exod 15:18 ; Deut 33:5 ; 1 Sam 8:7 ; 12:12 ; 1 Chron 17:14 ; 28:5 ; Psalm 114:2 ). God'skingship, however, contrasts with that of Israel's rulers in that God's rule is notlimited to the nation of Israel. While he is king over his people in a specialsense, by virtue of his covenantal relationship to them, his kingship is at the same timeuniversal, extending to all nations and peoples and even the natural environment.

This juxtaposition of divine and human kingship in the Old Testament period presentedancient Israel with a duality of sovereigns. God was the great King who ruled the universeas well as his people, Israel. He had not only delivered Israel from bondage in Egypt andtaken them to himself to be a "kingdom of priests" ( Exod 19:6 ), but hewas sovereign beyond Israel's borders as the ruler over all of nature and history. Yet inthe course of time Israel also had her own human kings, the rulers in Jerusalem or Samariawho exercised their royal power to govern the nation. This duality of sovereigns was thesource of one of the major theological problems in the Old Testament period. How wasIsrael to understand the relationship between their obligation to Yahweh, the divine King,on the one hand, and their obligation to the human king on the other? What was the role ofthe human king in ancient Israel, and to what extent was this role realized? Whatconditions gave rise to the idea of the coming of a future messianic king who wouldsomeday establish peace and justice in all the earth?

It is important to understand the way in which the Old Testament presents therelationship between divine and human kingship. Contrary to the idea of certain scholars(e.g., Vatke, Gressmann, von Rad), the Old Testament does not suggest that the idea of thekingship of Yahweh was a projection derived from the human institution. It is notwarranted to assert, as some have, that the title of king was not ascribed to Yahweh priorto the time of the Israelite monarchy. To do this requires the late dating of explicitstatements of Yahweh's kingship in texts such as Exodus 15:18; Numbers 23:21; Deuteronomy33:5; Judges 8:23; and 1 Samuel 8:7; 10:19; 12:12. To do this also denies the closerelationship that exists between the establishment of the Sinai covenant and theacknowledgment of Yahweh's kingship over Israel. Parallels in literary structure betweenthe Sinai covenant and certain international treaties drawn up by the kings of the HittiteEmpire in the fourteenth century b.c. show that in the Sinai covenant Yahweh assumes therole of the Great King, and Israel, that of his vassal. All of this suggests, veryclearly, that Israel recognized Yahweh as her Great King long before kingship wasestablished in Jerusalem.

This recognition has caused other contemporary scholars (Mendenhall, McKenzie) tosuggest that the establishment of human kingship in Israel was a rebellion against divinerule and represented an alien paganizing development in the social structure of ancientIsrael. For these scholars the establishment of the monarchy represented a return to thesocial model of the old Bronze Age paganism of the Canaanites, and a rejection ofreligious foundations derived from the Mosaic formulations of the Sinai covenant.