Kings - Deuteronomy 17

It has been a very interesting week. I’m obviously going through a very spiritually intense time right now and I have a lot of thoughts and I considered just doing a post on my spiritual thoughts of the week and maybe I will do one later, but I think the only one that I will put out right now is something that I heard that said, “everyone wants an angel to appear to them, but usually when angels show up they just recite the scriptures. So if you want angelic visitations, read the scriptures.” I thought that was pretty interesting. I’ve had some significant scriptural insights this week, among other methods but they’ve been things I’ve never heard before even though I’ve read the Book of Mormon like a hundred times. Little nuggets that I’m hearing for the first time, but I’m sure have been there the whole time.

I really like chapter 17 for several reasons that we will get into. In the beginning of the chapter Moses talks about worshipping false gods. The IM comments, “Moses set the penalty for worshipping false gods: death. The worship of false gods was so destructive to the spiritual life of man and the order of Israel as a nation that those who sought to entice Israel to abandon Jehovah were to forfeit their lives.” This goes back to what we discussed a few chapters ago about how Israel was commanded to cut off relationships with anyone who was trying to lead them to worship false gods. Now in our society today, we don’t kill people who try to teach us different religious beliefs, but we can create boundaries, even if they are close friends or family so that we can maintain our allegiance to God.

What does worshipping false gods look like in our day? I just saw an IG video of an interview with a woman who was talking about her own personal revelation when God accused her of idolatry because she was so focused on her narcissistic husband that she gave up all her time and attention from God to focus on him. I wish I could find the video but I thought he insight was very interesting because she felt like the Spirit asked her, “did you turn to God when you were distressed or upset? No, you tried to get your husband to do it. Did you pray to know God’s will? No. Did you try to act according to God’s will? No. Did you seek God’s approval or your husbands? Did you seek God’s guidance or your husbands?” I was watching this and felt so convicted because I’ve been doing the same thing, not with a husband because I’m divorced but with other people and other relationships. Like with this event in my family, did I pray to know God’s will? No, I begged him to do what I wanted. Did I pray to learn what He wanted to teach me? Only after like 8 months of crying and begging for my thing. Did God have to make his intervention in this event SO obvious that I would see overwhelming evidence that this was His plan so that I would shut up and listen? Yes. I’m sure He would have preferred for me to just understand and trust him, but it took FOREVER for me to get there, and even today I woke up asking “why?”

So take her insight for what you will, but I thought that it was an interesting definition of modern day idolatry, looking to other people for love, approval, guidance, etc instead of God. Spending our time, energy, and attention on trying to get connection to others instead of trying o connect to God. And this is hard because we as people are not meant to be alone, it is not good for us to be alone and I’m not saying that that’s God’s will for us, I don’t’ think he wants us to be alone. I think He wants us to surround ourselves with people who we can work with to all become closer to Him. It’s a tough concept, we are encouraged to marry and be a community but that doesn’t mean that we climb into marriage with the first person who asks us. We don’t become best friends with every single person. It’s a balance between loving our neighbor and building a community and building a family but with those who will help build us up toward God as well.

There is a section about establishing a judicial system for disputes and decision making on the local and national level. The IM mentions that bishops are part of that system now, as common judges of Israel. Verses 14-20 are what’s really interesting though, and that is Moses’ instruction for how to establish a king over the people. In the Book of Mormon, there are many instances where the people want a king and the righteous leaders really don’t want them to have a king because a wicked king leads his people to wickedness and that there is no way to over thrown an iniquitous king except through much blood shed. But Moses knew that the people would have a king so he established rules so that they would have the best chance at success in remaining righteous under a king’s reign. First is that the king has to be an Israelite, no “stranger” can be the king of Israel.

The second requirement is the most interesting to me and that is verse 16 which says “But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to the end to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way.” Why is this verse the most interesting one? Why were horses so specified here? I initially thought that it was just a wealth thing, like the king shouldn’t amass horses for himself in the same way that he shouldn’t have a lot of jewelry or fancy clothes. The insight came when TB noted that during this time, horses only served one purpose: to pull chariots, either the king’s or for the military as “key armaments for ancient warfare. The more chariots a king had in his arsenal the more formidable he was in battle.” Israel was constantly taking census of military age males and was going to maintain that military to not only take over Canaan initially but also to defend it constantly once they were settled there.

If Israel needed to maintain a capable army, why wouldn’t God want Israel’s kings to have a lot of horses so that Israel could have a stock pile of the most effective military resource at the time: chariots? Why doesn’t God want Israel to have a lot of chariots, if they were so crucial to effective battle strategy? TB said it best and this is the whole basis for the book that I want to write on Book or Mormon battle strategy. TB says, “The kings of Israel were instructed to place their trust in Yehoveh, not in military armaments. Their power was to be their faith in the God of Israel, not in advanced weaponry. Even so God does NOT speak against Israel being well armed and having a substantial military. Rather it is that their hopes of victory are the Lord and thus obedience to Him is the key to their survival.” This is the key statement that sums up a significant lesson that I’ve learned while studying the scriptures over the last 14 years. Military victory doesn’t come through being the best trained or having the best weapons or equipment. Military victory comes through personal righteousness and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I really want to write a book about this and maybe I will, maybe I’ll start drawing up the outline for it because it’s such an interesting concept to me, especially when it’s contrasted to our current modern day military strategy. This is why this one verse about horses is so interesting to me.

The future kings of Israel were also not to have multiple wives. There was a lot about this in the Book of Mormon, in Jacob specifically, but this verse also had a surprising connotation for me. I just thought it was the generic “I’m a big important man, therefore I will take any woman that I want to have sex with her at my will and pleasure.” TB and the IM both indicate that this isn’t necessarily the case, even though it’s not entirely excluded. Both say that these multiple wives discussed here were mostly wives taken as part of peace deals. There were multiple problems with the having a bunch of wives thing. First was the obvious disrespect to women in general, which God does not like. Second was by making these treaties among the local populations, outsiders were brought into Israelite society with all their pagan beliefs and traditions, which was prohibited. Third, it took God out of the spotlight as the source of peace in Israel and instead highlighted politics and foreigners. TB notes, “for a king to disgrace or show disrespect to one of the wives among his harem was tantamount to an international incident and could even bring about war with the family that wife represented. So the warning that comes that a King’s ‘heart might go astray’ should he have a large harem means that his king would be tempted to be more focused on keeping his wives, and the alliances they represent, satisfied than paying attention to God’s people and God’s commands.”

Along that same line, the king is also not to “greatly multiply himself silver and gold.” TB points out that the only way a king could enrich himself with silver and gold was to heavily tax his people, which God did not want. Or he could get it through military victory, which God also didn’t want. God only wanted Israel to engage in the military activity that HE commanded, and nothing else. He didn’t want some king to go one a quest to conquer lands and peoples just for the sake of expanding his own wealth, power, and influence. Nor did he want the kings to place taxes which were grievous to be bourn, onto his people. We saw that play out in the Book of Mormon many times, poorly.

The last piece was also very interesting and that was that the king, “when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write a copy of his law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites: And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them: that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandments, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and hid children, in the midst of Israel.” The king is to personally transcribe the scriptures, study them daily, and be dedicated to the commandments of God. Writing something out helps retain in memory what’s being written. It is presumed that a king who is obeying this commandment, desires to do God’s will which could lead to this writing being accompanied by the Spirit and that the king can be taught spiritual principles at the same time.

I’m just going to finish this with TB’s conclusion that I thought was perfect, even if it was long. TB says, “The Biblical reality is that the story of David’s son, King Solomon, is told in a fashion meant to highlight that he violated all of these provisions of the law: to abstain from an overly large military, to avoid having many wives and the alliances they represented, and to not store up for himself wealth. Even with Israel having a king, the law we are reading in Deuteronomy was designed to retain God as the ultimate king of Israel, and the human king simply God’s representative on earth accomplishing the Father’s will (even though much more imperfectly that I Israel had not insisted on having a human king). It is difficult in a short period of time to explain why God’s definition of an earthly king as ordained in Deuteronomy is so opposite of mankind’s definition of a king. But suffice it to say that earthly kings typically created the laws for their people and just as typically exempted themselves from their own laws. Since Israel’s Laws came from God Almighty, then Israel’s kings were to be as much under Yehoveh’s laws as was any other Hebrew citizen.”

Such an interesting chapter, so many important, deep, and interesting concepts covered in these few verses and are only understood in the proper context of the time and culture. TB’s lecture on this chapter is also very worth a listen. Very profitable chapter, I thoroughly enjoyed it.