Faith Watch

Originally published March 20, 2026 for our weekly Issue of Mindful Intelligence Advisor.  Subscribe to get weekly issues.

By Paul Gordon Collier, Editor

“I gave you a king in my anger, and I took him away in my wrath.” – Hosea 13:11

INTRODUCTION

The nation of Israel began as a household of some 70 souls entering the land of Egypt. These peoples were the descendants of a Chaldean named Abram, who answered the call of God to become a sojourner in a land his descendants would one day possess.

Abram became Abraham, who begat Isaac at the age of 100. Isaac would give birth to Esau and Jacob, with Esau building his own household that later became the nation of Edom. Jacob had 12 sons from four women; The 12 tribes that make up the nation of Israel come from these children.

It should be noted that God chose to create a people by first selecting two nonagenarians to be the mother and father of those people, a sure sign God chooses the weak to give his power perfection, which testifies to his greatness to all of creation.

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” – 2 Corinthians 12:9

One of those sons, Jospeh, would be ostracized by his brothers, sold to Midianite traders, only to become the second most powerful man of Egypt. He would prepare Egypt to become the incubator for the nation of Israel, a nation that would be born under slavery.

Jospeh’s small household would enter Egypt as free men, become enslaved, and exit Egypt as free men. After establishing a nation of Judges, the people one day called for a King, and God said yes, but not out of kindness.

This report focuses on the transition from Judges to Kings, their major similarities and their major differences. We’ll start off outlining how the nation of Judges was born and end that outline with the sanctification of the first temple by Solomon. We’ll end the report with an analysis of the similarities and differences between these two nations.

A. THE SEED

1. ENTERING EGYPT AND BECOMING SLAVES – When a famine hit the land of Canaan, Jacob sent his sons to Egypt to buy provisions. The sons could not know Joseph had already prepared Egypt for the famine by interpreting the dreams of the pharaoh. This is how he became Pharaoh’s righthand lieutenant (Genesis 41).

Five chapters later, the nation of Israel began. It began when Joseph finally gave favor to his brothers, welcomed his father, and set aside land especially for them to govern over, the land of Goshen. It began when he exhorted them to take on an identity that would separate them from Egypt:

“When Pharaoh calls you and says, ‘What is your occupation?’ you shall say, ‘Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth even until now, both we and our fathers,’ in order that you may dwell in the land of Goshen, for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.”’ – Genesis 46:33-34

Joseph compelled them to identify in such a way that they would naturally be separated from the nation of Egypt, even though, by his example, they are also called to serve her.

This is the model that is also illustrated in the captivities of Daniel, Esther, and Mordeci, all of whom were good servants to their captive nation while also being faithful first and foremost to their God (though in Esther that is never explicit since it is the only book in scripture not to mention or refer directly to God).

I theorize by this time this little band would have had the oral traditions of Genesis leading up to Jacob and possibly the book of Job, in oral form, not written form. If I am right, then this little band already had a sacred script to unite them that, by its claims, goes back a few thousand years.

This is how the seed of Jacob entered Egypt, as free people willing to be good servants to their host nation. This is NOT how they would exit.

2. EXITING EGYPT – The arrangement between Egypt and the Israelites held for a couple of centuries before the Egyptians began to be threatened by Israel’s prosperity and numbers. They grew from a nation of 70 people to hundreds of thousands (or more).

The Egyptians chose to put them under bondage, and eventually sought to kill the male babies in what can only be described as an attempted genocide. One male child, Moses, was set adrift on a river, to be rescued by the Egyptians, an Egyptian princess who took Moses in for herself.

He grew up a servant of Egypt, but in the Pharaoh’s court. As he saw his people enslaved, he turned against them. His first effort at rebellion was a failure, and it would send him into the desert for 40 years before God called him to try a different way.

It is during this process that Moses began to build a unique law for the people. This law includes instructions for feast days and sacrifices, the first one being the Passover. The people learned that the source of their Law was God, the same God who delivered them from slavery using supernatural signs and wonders, as well as words directed to them (and chiseled, written down) through his servants Moses and Aaron.

The foundation of the Judges nation had already been set. It would be governed by the law of God as delivered through Moses his true prophet, and righteous judge of the people. But Moses from the start was also a General, so he fulfilled both the civic and sacred leadership role of the people, though he was no King and no royal inheritance was assumed for the role he was foreshadowing, the role of the Judge anointed by God to lead.

Their full exit from Egypt before they first came to the Promised Land took two years. At the end of those two years, the people would rebel from God and assume they knew more than him, questioning the soundness of attempting to conquer a people as powerful as what they saw.

By this time, Moses had already given them the ten commandments (twice, for good measure), the laws for sacrifice and feast days, the tent of meeting, including the inner sanctuary which included the ark of the Covenant, and even the divisions of labor and camp arrangement for the 12 tribes, especially for the Tribe of Levi, the now-priestly class.

B. BECOMING THE NATION OF JUDGES WHOSE GOD IS THE LORD

1. ENTERING THE PROMISED LAND – The first attempt to enter the promised land was felled by human fear overcoming God’s promised certainty. After 38 years in the desert, anyone who was 20 years or older was dead, outside of three men (which would be only be two before they cross over the river Jordan). Those three men were Moses, Joshua, and Caleb.

The people entering into the promised land would have been young by this fact alone. Counsel from elders would not be readily available as all of the elders were dead, save for the three mentioned. Yet this generation would conquer the Promised Land in less than 20 years and stay true to the teachings of the Law given to them by Joshua, who received it from Moses,

It was not until this generation died out that the cycle of rebellion, repentance, deliverance through a chosen Judge, followed by rebellion, etc., would begin.

“And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel.” – Judges 2:7

2. THE RIGHTOUES GENERATION – While the generation that conquered Canaan was faithful until the end, it did not act with complete faithfulness. As a result, the Promised land was not fully conquered.

The tribe of Dan is a good example of how Israel failed to conquer what they should have, and how rebellion was not completely absent from them either. Dan was intended to take a coastal land on the southwest corner of the boundaries of Israel, but ended up failing to take that land, so they set up at the northeast corner of Israel instead (Judges 17-18).

They also set up their own temple worship system and chose the line of Moses through his son Goshen to be their priestly line. Jonathon, the son of Goshen, was the first chosen in the Goshen line by Dan in Judges 18.

By this time, they had their Pentateuch and the book of Job. Through the Pentateuch, they had basic laws for governance, a complex temple system, a national identity, and a national story. They were the people God chose to demonstrate to the world his glory through. Already they understood that through them would come deliverance for the whole world.

They also had distinct tribal identities, which also included prophecies from both Jacob and Moses specific to each tribe. Judah already understood its special prophetic narrative, that Judah would hold the scepter of the nation (Genesis 49).

3. ISRAEL EMERGES – For over 300 years, the tribes were run by chiefs. The only documented case of a successful attempt at Kingship is in Judges 8, when Abimelech, the son of the judge Gideon, killed all of Gideon’s sons and proclaimed himself King of Shechem (though scripture “credits” him with ruling over all Israel).

He ruled for 5 years before he was killed by an old woman during a siege.

For the most part, this was a land which prided itself in being different than all the nations around them, a nation without a King, whose tribal allegiances through one shared father, Jacob, was enough alone to make them a nation in their hearts, without a king.

During times of rebellion, after the nations around them oppressed them for a season, they did not cry for a King, they cried for God, who delivered them over and over through numerous Judges, starting with Moses, a Judge-Priest, and ending with Samuel, a Judge-Priest, in 1^st Samuel 8.

C. THE TRANSITION

While Samuel is considered to be a righteous judge, and justly so, he was not immune to the same vulnerability the man who trained him, the penultimate judge of Israel, Eli, would fall prey to. Eli’s great sin was in not punishing his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, who were being unrighteous priests, taking parts of sacrifices they were not entitled to (1 Samuel 2).

It would be through the ongoing sins of his sons that Eli’s priestly line would be cursed, the line from Ithamar, which would come to an end a few generations later, leaving only the line of Eleazor to continue.

The ark of the covenant itself was taken from a battle led by these same unrighteous priests, both of whom would die in the battle. Yet, before this moment came, Samuel had been brought to Eli by his mother Hannah after Eli prayed for her to have a son. He recognized Samuel had the Holy Spirit in him and so he personally instructed him in his formative years (1 Samuel 3).

Eli transferred the nation of Judges to Samuel, who would prove to be the transition to the nation of Kings.

Samuel himself had two sons, Joel and Abijah, whom had been appointed judges in Beersheba and appeared to be next in line to be Judges of Israel. The people protested, considering the sons’ rule a burden on them, so they cried out for a King.

“‘… Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.’ But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, ‘Give us a king to judge us.’ And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.’” – 1 Samuel 8:5-7

Whereas previously they cried out to the Lord, this people cried out for a King. The people had spoken, and even the Lord was inclined to give them what they wanted, but they should have heeded the warning Samuel gave them through God in 1 Samuel 8: 10-18, Samuel’s warning against Kings.

But Samuel wanted to assure parts of the Judges foundation remains the foundation of the Kingdom nation.

“Then Samuel told the people the rights and duties of the kingship, and he wrote them in a book and laid it up before the Lord. Then Samuel sent all the people away, each one to his home.” – 1 Samuel 10:25

In Samuel’s farewell speech to Israel, he reiterated the Nation of Judges foundation and combined it with the new Nation of Kings.

“If you will fear the Lord and serve him and obey his voice and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, and if both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord your God, it will be well.” – 1 Samuel 12:14

He bounded Kingship under God’s law and established God as the source for the legitimacy of Kingship, and even the plumbline for it.

With a nation of Kings, the Kingdom of Israel had greater central identity as well as greater standing with the nations around them. Their adoption of divine monarchy was less of a threat to the kingdoms around them than their Judges nation had been. Now, their kingdom “justified” their neighbors kingdoms.

While Israel had a story, the story was not fully aligned with the Word, for the house of Benjamin through Saul would be picked by God, not the house of Judah. The nation of Kings that would be Israel was not fully formed. Under Saul, this was still a nation in transition, with a story not FULLY aligned with their reality.

D. THE HOUSE OF DAVID

“‘Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion’s cub; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down; he crouched as a lion and as a lioness; who dares rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he has washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes.’” – Genesis 49:8-11

All of Judah would no doubt know the prophecy of Jacob, which preceded Moses words and also suggested a much greater promise. Moses said Judah, “Hear O Lord, the voice of Judah, and bring him to his people. With your hands contend for him and be a help against his adversaries” (Deuteronomy 33:7).

Moses reserved his greatest prophetic glory for Joseph and his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim (who were destined to become the half-tribes of Joseph), in Deuteronomy 33:13-17.

He says blessed be Jospeh “with the best gifts of the earth and its fullness and the favor of him who dwells in the bush. May these rest on the head of Jospeh, on the pate of him who is prince among his brothers” (Deuteronomy 33:16).

Yet the nation of Israel just watched God select Saul as King, of the tribe of Benjamin. Saul was a good-looking man who stood head and shoulders among other men, but his tribe was considered the least of the tribes of Israel, and his father’s house, Kish, considered the weakest. God anointed Saul before the people by leading him to prophecy rightly like the prophets.

Samuel validated Saul’s anointing by acknowledging Saul was the man God chose to be the first King of Israel (if you don’t count Gideon’s rebellious son, Abimelech). Saul had an opportunity to build a lasting kingdom that his son, Jonathan, might one day take over.

In the days of Judges, Benjamin was almost destroyed. They had to be saved by allowing Benjamin to “steal” virgin girls from Manasseh and Ephraim (Judges Chapters 19-21). They were a lowly tribe, both in terms of reputation and numbers.

Yet Benjamin’s choice by God to hold the kingship was not unsimilar to Israel’s own story, for they were a small household of 70 who entered the land of Egypt as dependents and would become a nation as slaves to that same nation. God chooses the weak to confound the strong.

This notion of God working through weakness would carry through to followers of Christ, through Paul:

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” – 2 Corinthians 12:9

Still, the prophecy of Jacob must have gnawed at some of them.

As it would turn out, Saul would not be the righteous King he was set up to be. Rather, he chose human approval over God’s approval; He acted in fear of men rather than fear of God; But above all else, he refused to execute God’s command to destroy the Amalekites and not take possession of the spoils.

Whenever life got in the way of following God’s laws, Saul found ways to circumnavigate those laws. Even when it became apparent to Saul that David was God’s new anointed one set to replace him, he yet plotted to kill him.

David modeled for Christians how to both obey God’s commands and civic authority’s commands. David understood full well the unrighteousness of Saul; even Saul’s own son, Jonathan, recognized this reality. Jonathan himself serves as a shadow of John the Baptist, eschewing his own potential authority in favor of the authority he is seeking to help usher in.

For John, that authority is Christ. For Jonathan, that authority is David, a shadow of Christ, and from the same tribe, the same line as Christ.

While David would not allow Saul to hunt him down and kill him, David would also not take up arms against Saul. Twice he had opportunity to strike Saul down, and twice he delivered mercy, witnessing to Saul his own unrighteousness, which Saul also acknowledged, but in both times to no avail.

Saul would end his days on the mountain of Gilboa, felled in battle by the Philistines. Along with him would fall Jonathan, leaving the path open for David to take the throne. Yet while David was proclaimed King in Hebron, Ish-bosheth, son of Saul, was declared King in Israel.

David would have to wait seven more years before he was finally crowned the King of all Israel, all 12 tribes, having previously only ruled over Judah alone. It was shortly after David was anointed King in all of Israel, in Hebron, the resting place of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that David finally took Jerusalem from the Jebusites, a Canaanite people who founded the city.

From David to Solomon, the foundation of the Judges nation was set.

That foundation is this: God is the law giver whose authority is greater than the King’s and that he has left us a law that servants of Kings can use to hold the Kings accountable. Scripture is a plumbline of the King.

David would conquer the land that would give great treasure to Solomon, who would use it, in part, to build the first temple of Jerusalem.

The nation of Judges was nearly 400 years. The transition to the new nation, the Kingdom nation built on the bones of the past nation, took roughly 90 years. During that transition time, within our experience of creation bound by time, space, and place, the nation could have leaned more completely into the kingships of the lands around them.

These nations offered no way for the people to plumbline their Kings, other than through violent revolt.

Fortunately for them, and us, the Israelites preserved the most essential part of their nation of Judges, earthly authority bound by a law outside themselves, a law that prophets and priests can appeal to when the King oversteps his God-given authority.

Now, with the ascendance of Judah as the kingship, the nation of Israel had a story more in sync with their reality, which certainly must have fostered a great national identity.

While this national identity still exists to this day, the state unity of the nation would dissolve within a generation. This left them with two kingdoms, Samaria and Judah, and one nation, Israel. These two kingdoms would drift further apart until Samaria’s unrighteous culture absorbed Judah.

Yet the foundational principle that held Israel together during Judges would never fully disappear, an earthly authority bounded by a lawgiver who left a plumbline that his anointed, his priests and prophets, can use to check the power of the King.

This seed will one day become the “western civilization” seed that America herself would emerge from.

E. JUDGES VERSUS KINGS

1. JUDGES – The nation of judges exists roughly from the 14^th to the 11^th Centuries BC. This period of time is defined, in Mesopotamia, by the rise of global diplomacy and treaties, the birth of the world bureaucratic class.

While the nations around Israel all operated primarily on the Bronze Age governance model, the justification of authority through a local god and through the blood of the chosen family, the nation of Judges had no King but God.

Their governance was mostly adherence to and enforcement of the laws of God by non-government-acting agents. Murder, for instance, was expected to be adjudicated by the offended family, not the state.

Another major difference between the nation of Judges and the nations around them is the source for truth. For the Bronze Age Kings, truth was declared by the only truth teller in the Kingdom or the Empire, the King or Emperor himself (or herself). Truth was defined by the truth teller, not by a plumbline anyone could apply.

The nation of Judges had truth tellers, Judges, but they themselves were plumblined by the Word of God itself, and anyone could rightly challenge their truth claims using scripture as their standard. To be fair, “anyone” would be a small group of people as the printing press would not come into existence for another two millennia.

As we have no record of scripture before the 10^th century BC (and that is merely a fragment), it is difficult to know how many complete books of the Pentateuch would have existed, or how many smaller books or collections might have existed.

In material reality, most Israelites would have to rely on the testimonies of priests and rabbis to understand scripture, having little to no access to the text in and of itself. But in the spirit, the idea of a state authority being limited by a text provided by the one True God was most assuredly part of the spiritual DNA of the Israelites.

This made them radically different than the nations around them, and that’s before you consider their mostly decentralized authority being led in times of crisis by God’s anointed Judges. While scripture doesn’t show it, one cannot help but believe there were many (or at least a few) false judges, with scripture only telling us about the true ones.

Perhaps we can say Abimelech is the one example of a false judge, so false he tried to take a kingship God did not grant and only Shechem (Ephraim) cried out for).

This civilization is one based on a sacred script that gives them the means to govern and mitigate sin. Its authority comes from its adherence to the laws of God. Its governance is primarily at the familial, not state level, though state authority comes more directly into play during times of war and conquest.

The holiest of holies for this nation was the Ark of the Covenant, which contained the Book of the Law in it. The temple had not been built; Jerusalem hadn’t even been conquered. David would conquer it shortly after he was declared King of ALL of Israel in Hebron.

The tent of meeting was a mobile shadow of the temple to come, and it was not fixed to one place, though it spent most of the time during Judges in Shiloh up until the death of Eli and his sons (1 Samuel 4).

Still, there was no official centralized site for worship in the Judges nation. Jerusalem itself was still occupied by the Canaanite tribe, the Jebusites. During the time of Judges, no one even knew Jerusalem would be the final choice for God’s “earthly dwelling.”

From the Jebusites would come Araunah (2 Samuel 24), or Ornan (1 Chronicles 21), who would sell his threshing floor to David. This would be the site for the temple.

As the 12^th Century BC approached, the whole region went through what was called the Bronze Age collapse, which would lead to the emergence of a new civilization to replace the old, the Kings civilization of Israel.

This civilization was radically different than the Judges civilization, but yet was built on the foundation of that Judges civilization, a foundation that remained for the new civilization, the Kingdom civilization.

2. KINGS – The transition from Judges to Kings lasts roughly 90 years, culminating in the sanctification of the temple by Solomon, the son of David. By the time we get to Solomon, we have the new civilization of Kings fully formed.

Like the nation of Judges, the Kingdom derived its authority from the one true God, not a local god recognizing the authority of other local gods. Like the nation of Judges, the Kingdom had a sacred script that served as the ultimate plumbline for state authority. The script was assumed God-given, reflecting the wisdom and will of God.

By Solomon’s time, they would have more of a script to meditate on, mainly Judges and Ruth (in addition to the Pentateuch), if my assumptions are true.

While the nation of Judges and the Kingdom of Israel are significantly different, they had far more in common with each other than they did with their neighbors. What makes them still similar with each other and radically different from their neighbors is the foundation of a divine law in text form assumed given to them by the one true God of all creation.

Yet their differences were still profound.

First and foremost, Kings were sometimes chosen by God in a transparent way, like he did with Saul and David, but mostly Kings were chosen by blood, making them more like the nations around them (and, as I stated earlier, probably less of a threat to their neighbors because of it).

And even when God prophesies downfalls and new Kingships, these events would have been experienced at the time simply as violence overcoming authority, which they ultimately allowed, having rewarded some vanquishers, like Omri, with dynasties (which, for Omri, included Ahab).

Kings also had far more authority than Judges, both in terms of earthly realities of power and even as far as what God ordained for them. There were no Judges’ palaces, for instance.

Kings were always intended to be plumblined by scripture, and sometimes by divine Words from God through prophets. Both things happened, but more often than not they didn’t, even when they should have.

When Jeremiah confronted one of the last Kings of Judah, Jehoiakim, with God’s newly received Word, the King had God’s Word burned, which symbolizes the final break from that foundation at the end of the Kingdom.

Kings became more and more absolute and authoritarian. The ideal of earthly authority checked by divine wisdom that anyone could use to challenge authority with was still a key part of the Israel story, but in practice, it was happening less and less, and then not at all.

Under Solomon, the centralized temple system was established. Jerusalem became the fixed center of their worship. Once the House of Judah claimed the whole kingship of the 12 tribes of Israel, the Kingship was aligned with the prophecies of Jacob, making the Israel story a more complete one through the state.

SUMMARY

The most significant difference between the two civilizations is the fixed centralized authority and worship of the new civilization, the Kingdom, versus the mostly decentralized authority and worship of the old civilization, Judges.

The Kingdom still ostensibly claimed God as King, but their King would, more often than not, gain more praise from the people than God would. While God ordained it and allowed it to happen, it was not his desire. He knew the hearts of men. He knew one day his own people would call for a King even after they had one supernaturally deliver them from slavery.

“I gave you a king in my anger, and I took him away in my wrath.” – Hosea 13:11

While they held on to the foundation of the Judges nation, what they built on top of it, kingship, would ultimately undermine the foundation that gave them legitimacy, which ultimately led to the death of the Kings nation and the eventual rise of the 2^nd Temple province of many Empires (save for the era of the Maccabees).

The differences between the two are, to me, radical enough to identify them as two civilizations (but one people). The second civilization sought to compromise with the civilizations around it. The kingdom sought the approval of neighboring Kings, not that of the King of Kings they once declared their sovereign.

The Judges nation lasted nearly 400 years. It was mostly united in the broad sense of the term, with some internecine wars, but mostly it fought together against other nations and kingdoms. The 90-year transition from Samuel to Solomon’s temple sanctification led to almost 400 years of the Kingdom civilization. The two civilizations existed for almost the same number of years. The Kingdom civilization was finally felled by Babylon in 586 BC.

The Kingdom as the culmination of the promise iterated by Jacob would fall not soon after Solomon died, with his son Rehoboam losing 10 of the 12 Kingdoms to Jeroboam of Nebat. He is the one who set up golden calves in Bethel and Dan, dividing worship into three places, Jerusalem, Dan, and Bethel.

The sin was so egregious that the tribe of Jeroboam of Nebat, Ephraim, and the tribe of Dan are BOTH removed from the call to the 12 tribes in Revelation 7.

Though from a Christian perspective the Kingdom of Israel leads to the birth, execution, and resurrection of our King of Kings, Christ, the Kingdom’s replacement of God as the direct sovereign with a direct sovereign King who submitted to the true sovereign, was a failed experiment.

Ironically, at a time when superpowers like Midian, the Hittites, and Egypt roamed the deserts, the decentralized Judges nation was able to hold together and resist the onslaught for nearly 400 years. The Kingdom model IMMEDIATELY produced a schism less than 20 years after the new Kingdom civilization was fully established.

Judah became just the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, with its kings more faithfully following God than the Israelite kings would (not that Judah was without unrighteous rulers).

That schism was never restored. To this day, the nation of Israel under Solomon would never be found again after the schism between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. Even today’s Israel is not unified, for it has no possession, directly, or completely, even of Samaria and Jerusalem, let alone Gilead, the former home of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh (in present-day Jordan).

For the purpose of this series (leaving theology out of this), this is a transition that saw the new civilization build on the old in a way that eventually undermined that same foundation, leading to its ultimate collapse.

The Kingdom civilization would almost survive four centuries, but those centuries would be filled with even more turmoil than the time of Judges (not that the Judges were without turmoil).

In striving to be more like their neighbors, they lost what made them so powerful, their differences from their neighbors.

Their insertion of what was an effective mediator between the authority of God and man empowered that same man to become, more and more, a law unto himself. In the time of Judges, each man did as he pleased, meaning his unrighteous actions, when he took them, didn’t affect the whole kingdom. When kings do as they please, whole peoples become corrupted by that action.

In the Christian Kingdom, we are all Kings and Priests, which makes none of us uniquely King as you saw in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. In the prophecies, from Old to New, there is no future for a King of Israel, only a King of Kings, Christ, through which we will all rule in the new earth to come.

The Israelites asked for a King, and God gave him to them, to demonstrate to them that the path to salvation, the path to flourishing on earth, is only through God, not man. The less you trust in God, the more you trust in men. The more you trust in men, the further you are led from God, until your kingdom is consumed from within and without. Such a thing happened to Israel. Such a thing is happening to America.

FURTHER RESOURCES:

The Religion of Ancient Israel – Th. C. Vriezen

Ancient Israel (A New History) – Niels Peter Lemche

Ancient Israel: The Old Testament In Its Social Context – Edited by Philip Esler

Ancient Israel and Judah – Beth Tanner