This Isn’t About Biblical Kings (1 Samuel 8:4-11, 16-20)

Prospectors don’t get rich in gold rushes. The wealth goes to the middlemen. The California Gold Rush of the mid-1800s certainly played out that way. In the early days of the bonanza, a few small time gold panners made it big, but most of the gold made its way into the hands of shovel dealers, taverns owners, dungaree purveyors, and comfort related suppliers. After all of that, especially later on, when the big mining operations got going, a small time 49er would have made money staying home. Levi Strauss and Wells Fargo did far better than the vast majority of people upending their lives to pan for specks in an unforgiving terrain.

God, via Samuel, makes a similar argument against kings in 1 Samuel 8. The whole of the chapter centers on a conflict between God and the people. They want a king. God knows that no king will truly do right by the people. By their nature, even good kings require things from the people that they rule. They need soldiers, resources for a royal household, and material with which to wage war. Kings also have the legal and military power to take their cut off the top. The people may prosper under a good king and suffer more under a bad one, but a king will always get theirs.

He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle and donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day.’ (1 Samuel 8:16-18 NRSV)

God paints a bleak but inevitability accurate picture. Even if we merely consider Saul, David, and Solomon, they did all those things and then some. Saul sacrificed the lives of many good soldiers in his revenge quest against David. David deliberately mismanaged his own army in order to enter into a sexual relationship with one of his general’s wives. Solomon’s harem and various building projects hoovered up a tremendous amount of the nation’s resources. And, both David and Solomon rank on the “good” column of Biblical kings.

God’s argument here proves in more prophetic has the generations marched onward. 1 Samuel forms part of the Deuteronomistic History, which begins with the story of the death of Moses and continues through Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. The Deuteronomistic Historians carry the story of God’s people from entering the Promised Land to the exile. Biblical scholars posit that this group started writing in the reigns of Josiah and Hezekiah but don’t complete their work until the exile.

So, as 1 Samuel gets a final editorial pass by a Deuteronomistic Historian sitting in Babylon, they would immediately call to mind the litany of truly terrible rulers that ran the lives of God’s people. In fact, optimistically, the score stands at around 8 good kings and 30 bad ones, split across the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. On the good, we have: Asa, Jehoshaphat, Josah, Amaziah, Azariah, Jotham, Hezekiah, Josiah. On bad, we have: Rehoboam, Abijam, Jehoram, Ahaziah, Athaliah, Ahaziah, Manasseh, Amon, Johoahaz, Jehoiakim, Johoiachin, Zedekiah, Jeroboam I, Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri, Omri, Ahab, Ahaziah, Jehoram, Jehu, Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam II, Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, Pekahiah, and Hoshea. By 722 BC, the Assyrians take out Israel, and by 586 BC, Babylon carries the majority of Judah into exile, knocking over the Temple in the process. The Deuteronomistic Historians lay a lot of the blame for these two tragedies at the feet of awful and selfish leadership, who could not rule in a godly way.

I suspect that we all, now, feel the urge to pat ourselves on the back and celebrate that this whole way of existence passed away millennia ago. That’s not actually true. Maybe, the Biblical kings possessed particularly poor character, but even the good kings did a lot of what God warned about. Humans, even ones with excellent character, struggle to entirely eliminate their own self-interest. To introduce a human into the pathway between God’s will and your life opens up the possibility for human selfishness to creep into what should be a perfect system. Churches, like ancient nations, need leaders, and the nature of that leadership means that they take on the role of communicating God’s will to God’s people. Pastors, Priest, Bishops, District Superintendents, Popes, etc., each count as a fallible person inserted into your relationship with God’s will for you and the people around you. I suspect that we have a better hit rate than descendants of David, but the history of Christianity, even modern Christianity, serves as stark reminder of the ways that our own self-interest shows up.

“It’s God’s will that I become the earthly ruler of the world!”
“It’s God’s will that we conquer that country, drive out its inhabitants, and steal all their treasurers!”
“It’s God’s will that the church buy me an absurd amount of designer clothes!”
“It’s God’s will that I have the fanciest private jet imaginable!”
“It’s God’s will that you and enter into a more personal relationship with me.”
“It’s God’s will that we all work to cover up my crimes against church members because if it came out, it would hurt the church!”

Pastors speak those lines, or some version of them, all the time. We can bear witness to the wreckage. People damaged. Churches destroyed. Our reputation as a faith put through the paper shredder. The major streaming services created a whole industry around church gone wrong tell all documentaries that often boil down to a pastor declaring their wrongdoing the will of the divine and getting away with it for an illogical amount of time.

I do belief that we’ve got Biblical kings beat, but pastors don’t always live up to the trust placed in their hands, either. We get ours and leave congregations high and dry. Clergy need to do their own spiritual work to perpetually seek God and push away our own selfishness. However, congregations have a role here as well. Pay attention. Do your own discerning. Ask questions. Show up. Recognize your role in holding clergy accountable and maintaining the health of the church. This isn’t an argument against leaders, but when leadership interacts with communicating God’s will, everyone needs to work together, so we don’t end up like Ahab, Jeroboam I, Jeroboam II, or any number of people named Ahaziah.