Deuteronomy 17:14

When thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee,.... The land of Canaan: and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein; be entirely in the possession of it, and settled in it; it

When thou art come unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about

He only foresees and foretells what they would do, but doth not seem to approve of it, because when they did this thing for this very reason here alleged, he declares his utter dislike of it, .

Deuteronomy 17:14 When thou art come unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that [are] about me;Ver. 14. And shalt say, I will set a king.] A king then they might choose, so they did it orderly. Zuinglius in ea fuit sententia, regna omnia esse electiva, nulla propre successiva et haereditaria. In quo non negamus eum errasse in facto, ut loquuntur. Rivet. Jesuita Vap.

Deuteronomy 17:14-20. THE LAW OF THE KINGDOM.(14) When thou art come unto the land.—These are not the words of a legislator who is already in the land. Those who say that this law dates from later times must be prepared to assert that this clause is expressly framed to suit the lips of Moses, and is thus far a deliberate forgery. And shalt possess it, and dwell therein—i.e., shalt complete the conquest and settle. It is not contemplated that the king would be desired immediately after the conquest. I will set a king over me, like as all the nations.—There is an evident allusion to this phrase in 1 Samuel 8:20, “That we also may be like all the nations.” It is noticeable that Moses in this place says nothing in disapproval of the design. In fact his words might easily have been cited by the people in support of their proposal. Moses said we should need a king; why should we not ask for on? Looked at this way, the citation of the words of Deuteronomy in Samuel is perfectly natural. The people confirm their request by presenting it in the very words of Moses. But if we suppose (with some modern writers) that the passage in Deuteronomy was constructed from that in Samuel, there are several difficulties—(1) Why is there no disapproval here of the plan, which Samuel so strongly disapproved? (2) How does the writer in Deuteronomy contrive to be so wholly unconscious either of the royal tribe, or of the royal family? Precisely the same unconsciousness of the locality of the place which Jehovah should choose in Palestine appears in every reference to it in this book. In Moses this is perfectly natural. But that any later writer should be so totally regardless of the claims of Judah, David, and Jerusalem, and say nothing either for or against them, is inconceivable. Samuel could hardly have written about the king without betraying disapproval of Israel’s desire for him. No later writer could have avoided some allusion to the choice of David’s family, and the promises to David’s son. (15) Whom the Lord thy God shall choose . . . from among thy brethren.—This precept seems almost needless from the standpoint of later history. As years passed by, the Israelites were less and less tempted to accept the supremacy of foreign princes.[4] But Moses can never have forgotten that for two-thirds of his own lifetime the Israelites had been subject to the kings of Egypt; and that even since the exodus they had proposed to make a captain to return thither; whom we know not, but very possibly an Egyptian. The chief thing dreaded by Moses was a return to Egypt, as appears by the next verse. [4] But see note on Deuteronomy 31:11 for an incident that illustrates the feeling. (16,17) He shall not multiply horses . . . wives . . . neither shall he greatly multiply . . .

14–20. Of the King When Israel elect to have a King like other nations, he must be chosen of God, an Israelite and no foreigner (Deuteronomy 17:14 f.). He must not multiply horses, wives nor silver and gold (Deuteronomy 17:16 f.). He shall write a copy of the Law and always study it, that he may fear God, with a heart not uplifted above his brethren, to the prolonging of his own and his children’s days (Deuteronomy 17:18-20). Peculiar to D, and in the Sg address, except in Deuteronomy 17:16 b where unto you is due to the attraction of the Pl. in the quotation. The obvious references to Solomon and the echo of the prophet’s protests against Egyptian alliances confirm the other evidence which D furnishes for a date under the later monarchy. Some take the law as even later than the body of the Code, because, like Deuteronomy 31:9, it represents the whole Law as written and canonical. So e.g. Cornill Einl.3 25 f. and Berth, who compares Deuteronomy 17:16 with Ezekiel 17:15 and considers Zedekiah’s reign as probable a date therefore as the Exile. But it is difficult to conceive the original Code with no law of the King; and Deuteronomy 17:16 may well have been contained in the Law-Book discovered under Josiah. For the relation of this law to the two accounts of the institution of the Kingdom in 1 Sam.—the older sympathetic (1 Samuel 9:1 to 1 Samuel 10:16, 1 Samuel 10:27 b, 1 Samuel 11:1-11; 1 Samuel 11:15; 1 Samuel 11:13-14), and the younger hostile (1 Samuel 7:2-17; 1 Samuel 7:8, 1 Samuel 10:17-22 a, 1 Samuel 10:12) to the monarchy—see Driver’s Deut. 212 f. For the Babylonian ideals of a King see Prologue to the Code of Ḫ ?ammurabi and further Johns Bab. & Ass. Laws, etc., 192 f.

No encouragement is given to the desire, natural in an Oriental people, for monarchical government; but neither is such desire blamed, as appears from the fact that conditions are immediately laid

THE CHOICE OF A KING, AND RULES FOR HIS CONDUCT, Deuteronomy 17:14-20. 14. I will set a king over me — Moses does not direct nor advise the people to have a king for their ruler.