Parashat Shoftim: The King-maker

This week’s parashah includes, among a number of laws regarding the institutions of statehood, the Law of the King (Dvarim 17: 14-20).  It is set out in the pattern of casuistic laws, with the circumstances listed first, then the prohibitions and prescriptions:

The Circumstances

Instructions for the people

Instructions for the king

The Rationale

The Result

A Constitutional Monarchy

Significantly, this law begins with instructions to the people: “If you so desire, you may set a king over you, however he must be of your own people.” Only then does the law turn to the king and what he may and may not do. However, there seems to be a sense in which the people are also held responsible for insuring that the king follows the instructions.

The ambiguous formulation of the Law of Kings leaves open the matter of whether the people of Israel should form a state or not. Different commentators have weighed in on whether appointing a King is a positive commandment or simply a conditional commandment—if you decide you want a king, then he may not become a law unto himself; he is to be constantly aware that he is only a regent for Israel’s true King.

Without getting into this debate, it’s clear that the Law of the King is meant to curb the king’s powers. In fact, if taken to its logical conclusion, it lays out a pattern for the type of state that Israel is allowed to form. Essentially, the Law of the King can be seen as an injunction against building a huge “military-industrial complex” aimed at conquest, which would then need to be financed by taxes (silver & gold), and would inexorably lead to foreign entanglements (many wives).[1]

Further, Israel must not seek to build an empire. The government of Israel must not set itself up for conquest, but should keep only as much armed might as is necessary for defense. It should refrain from mixing in the affairs of other nations, and from making international commitments that would compromise its own national life. And lastly, the government should not enrich itself by taxing its people, but should be modest in its acquisitions.

When a King is Not a King

However, the Law of the King was not applied only to actual kings. While Yehoshua was not a king per se, the Law of Kings echoes in the background of God’s first words to him:

From a halakhic point of view, this application of the Law of the King to Yehoshua is significant: the Law of Kings applies to any leader of Israel, and not just to kings. Rav Kook (and others) used this application to stipulate that any legitimate government of Israel is equivalent to a king.

The Revolution in Public Opinion

In the time of the later prophets, a revolutionary shift occurred in the way the Law of the King was applied, and to whom.  While, the early prophets spoke truth to power and served as a political check on the powers of the king, the later prophets spoke to the people as a whole. Hoshea called on the entire people to return to Hashem, an act of national Teshuva. Isaiah addressed his words to the general public, and not just to the king:

Here, it isn’t only the national leadership that is taken to task for trusting in chariots and relying on horses; the prophet is speaking to the general public. The Law of the King is now no longer in the domain of kings, or even of rulers; it applies to everyone!

What brought about this shift? What had changed?

The period from King David to the time of Isaiah was a time of tremendous change in lifestyle in the kingdoms of Judea and Israel. In David’s time, the economy was agrarian, and the population small and widely dispersed. Trade with other nations was carried out via family or individual connections. But with the formation of the nation-state, all this began to change: the economy was increasingly mercantile: goods were produced and traded with the surrounding regions, producing a burgeoning of personal and national wealth. Israelite culture was exported to the surrounding nations. But of course, the cultures of surrounding nations influenced Israel as well.

Amid all these changes, the power of public opinion grew. The voice of the people became a force to be reckoned with. And so the prophets continued to speak truth to power, only the locus of power had shifted.

Here it isn’t only the king who is judged for hoarding silver and gold, and for amassing horses and chariots. The nation as a whole is judged for taking on the practices of the surrounding nations. The consequence in the shift from an agricultural nation to a wealthy nation-state is that the responsibility of the individual is commensurately increased. The entire people can be castigated for the sins that kings are apt to fall prey to. Their wealth has gone to their heads, and the pleasures of the marketplace have made them forget that they are all responsible. They have failed to become a nation of priests and have instead become a nations of kings gone wrong.

The Image of the King

This prophetic projection of the Law of Kings onto individuals has even deeper roots. The very first narrative in the Torah celebrates the creation of humans as “in the image of God.” While commentators have debated the exact meaning of this term for two millennia, one thing we know from modern scholarship: the use which the Torah made of this concept was a radical departure from its use by the surrounding nations! In the mythologies of the ancient near east, only kings were said to be made in the image of gods:

… biblical scholars have especially focused on the divine image as a royal title or description. Evidence of this royal status finds expression as early as the Middle-Asyyrian Tukulti-Ninurta epic, This text describes the king (ca. 1244-1208 B.C.E.) as the embodiment of the god Enlil.
(John F. Kutsko, Between Heaven and Earth: Divine Presence and Absence in the Book of Ezekiel.)

The Torah, in contrast, raises mankind as a whole as “kings”. [2]  All human beings are, in their own spheres of influence, royalty. Significantly, this means taking up the cause of the weak and downtrodden, who have no recourse to justice in the natural course of things:

What are the desirable attributes and characteristics of royalty? The king should be blessed with “justice” and “righteousness”; “Let him,” prays the psalmist, “champion the lowly among the people, deliver the needy folk, and crush those who wrong them.” Let him behave in such a way that “the righteous may flourish in his time, and wellbeing abound.” The king, we learn, “saves the needy who cry out, the lowly who have no helper. He cares about the poor and the needy; he brings the needy deliverance” (Psalm 72:2, 4, 7, 12-13). (Rabbi Shai Held)

Being created “in the image of God” means that we are all kings and queens—people with free will and responsibility for what happens within our sphere of influence.  Each of us is enjoined to take to heart the commandment not to trust outside powers, not to hoard wealth, nor get overly involved in the affairs of others for the wrong reasons. Rather, we are enjoined to become just and righteous rulers over our own affairs, with the result that we bequeath what we’ve learned and acquired to our children after us. God’s justice runs through human rulers, and that means all of us!

Notes:

[1] Covenants between nations were often sealed by marriage.

[2] It’s worth noting that Tselem Elohim, in so far as it applies to all human beings, is a statement of radical equality. Not only does it mean that all human beings are qualified to be kings, but it also means that kings are no better than anyone else.