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Kingship in The Bible
- Thread starter Eddi
- Start date
King Abimelech (of Gerar) seemed to be a principled sort of guy.
King Abimelech (of Sechem) not so much.
Go you have a real question? ... or point?
King Abimelech (of Sechem) not so much.
Go you have a real question? ... or point?
I am interested in what The Bible says about kinship
I know that there are various kings in The Bible so was wondering if it had any message/teachings about kingship, such as about how Kings should conduct themselves, what virtues they should embody, that type of thing
I am also interested about how the ancient Jewish concepts of kingship relate to those of medieval Europe and what the relationship between the two is
Out of curiosity, why the biblical blinders? (I personally find this literally thoughtless historicide a bit revolting.)
Just interested in how scripture influenced ideas of kingship in Europe
If at all
I ask as I am currently interested in kingship
They considered the books of your Tanakh to be authoritative and I thought they may have referred to them to somehow boost their legitimacy, since Kings are in theory annointed by God
That's why I asked about what it says, if anything
I think it is a legitimate line of enquiry and don't see it as revolting
Heyo
Veteran Member
YHVH doesn't approve, but he allowed Israel to have a king to teach them a lesson.
Bible Gateway passage: 1 Samuel 8 - English Standard Version
Yep, that is a chapter that isn't well known, and I think it wasn't well received during monarchies.
I assume that you're referring to Christian kings. They're a minority and a relatively recent addition. In fact, the Ancient Near East was awash in kings and the gods they claimed. (FWIW, I find mid-18th century BCE Mari king Zimri-Lim and his storm god Adad interesting.)
I was wondering how Jewish kingship influenced Christian kingship, if at all
In Handel's coronation music that is sung when an English king is crowned the lyrics are out of the Bible
I think the words are something like this:
"Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet annointed Solomon"
The claim of Jewish kingship was leveraged to legitimize Christian kingship. Beyond that, nothing.
Did Jewish kings have any type of religious role?
Who knows? You're talking about largely unreliable lore involving a fair number of different folks located in different locations dealing with different political situations. Some were deemed good, some bad.
As previously mentioned by Heyo, God wanted to be their King but the people wanted to be like all the other nations and have a physical king.
Basically, there were three groups that were anointed of God:
1) Kings
2) Priests
3) Prophets.
Prophets directed the will of God, Kings executed the will of God and Priests ministered to God. Of course, it was right when their hearts were right and when then their hearts were not right - problems happened.
I believe it did but became twisted as it did sometimes with the Jewish Kings. To err is human.
So, likewise, the Kings were anointed by priests. Obviously earthly kiingship gets twisted
Also, as an afterthought, strictly in the light of scriptures in the NT:
God has made us kings and priests individually:
Revelation 1:6
and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
And thus Jesus is:
Revelation 19:16
And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.
(Kings as in kings or queens - simply denoting authority)