Samuel 8 Israel

Biblical texts take a very critical view of the kings of Israel, who represent national power. This is seen clearly in the story of the people of Israel’s wish to have a king ruling over them as well as in the narrative of the fall of the kingdom (2 Kings 24-25). The true king of Israel and of the whole world is God himself (cf. Ps

     According to Jacques-Benigne Bousset, a preacher and tutor to Louis the fourteenth’s son, there were four characteristics to royal authority. The first of being, royal authority is sacred. Second, royal authority is paternal. Third, it is absolute. Fourth, All power comes from God. (Text 596) To summarize Bousset he believes that, like God, a king is a father figure. To be idolized, respected and loved. So if God is the father of earth then his sons are the fathers of people, or kings. This makes a king both divine and undisputable, as a descendant of God. “Royal authority is absolute…The prince need account to no one for what he ordains…without this absolute authority, he can do no good nor suppress evil…” (Text 596).

Imagine a world were only one person had the sovereignty of a nation through his bloodline and was not chosen by the people of the nation. This form of government is known as absolute monarchism which was practiced since the beginning of the middle ages till this day (Pope Francis, Vatican City). When it comes to a monarchy, it is composed of an individual(s) (king or queen) who reigns till his death and has a divine right appointed by God to be the ruler. The divine right was a doctrine that plead in favor of absolute monarchism, which means that the power of the rulers came by God’s authority and could not be downsized by any earthly organization such as the government or even the parliament. The Queen Elizabeth I, ‘The Virgin Queen’, also

Therefore, the king/queen only had to answer to God, not the people. Since the ruler was chosen by God it was considered axiomatic that the monarch has absolute power, after all God has great power so His earthly representative does as well (Document 7, James I of England 1609). Furthermore, because God chose the sovereign, disobeying the king was considered the same as disobeying God (Document 4, The Ideal State 1697 by Jean Domat). Of course, because the monarchs had such great power and were God’s chosen people they had to govern per God’s will, which was absolute justice. (Document 5, On Social Order and Absolute Monarchy by Jean Domat). As important this concept was in maintaining absolute monarchs, the reason that the Divine Right to Rule was so effective is because absolute monarchies primarily occurred in Catholic countries, where the monarch could gain the partnership of the Roman Catholic Church and thus win power over the

Even as Samuel wrestled with God, God told him & the nation what a king would demand, and take from them. However, they shouted out they still wanted a king and to be like other nations. They didn’t care they would accept and deal with the cost associated with their request. They wanted what they wanted and it didn’t matter. We are the same today we want what we want it and don’t consider the cost, but as is often said, the devil is in the details or the cost as we see here.

From a biblical perspective we see in 1 Samuel 12:1-4 Israel’s high regard for Samuel. He was a man who exuded integrity. Samuel said to all of Israel, “I have listened to everything you said to me and have set a king over you. Now you have a king as your leader. As for me, I am old and gray, and my sons are here with you. I have been your leader from my youth until this day. Here I stand. Testify against me in the presence of the Lord and his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Whose donkey have I taken? Whom have I cheated? Whom have I oppressed? From whose hand have I accepted a bribe to make me shut my eyes? If I have done any of these, I will make it right.” “You have not cheated or oppressed us,” they replied. “You have not taken anything from anyone’s hand.”

At the start of the second paragraph, the authors explain the the King's violations of God-given human rights in his quest to rule the

The monarchs only listen to god not their own subjects.Divine right was the idea that God made the monarchs.During the the war between the church and the protestants,leaders tried to get a grip on the church,and war and death broke lose from this

Is Absolutism a better form of government than a Representative Democracy? It most definitely is! Absolutism has existed for hundreds of thousands of years for a reason; This is because Absolutism runs more fluidly, Most absolute rulers are good leaders and can help make a society thrive, and votes of a representative democracy can be tampered with give unjust rulers. Many people believe that absolutism helps a political system run more efficiently, this meaning with one ruler things will get done because there is no one arguing with that ruler's power.

In the time of the Age of Absolute Monarchs, kings brought different government and came from all different countries such as England, France and this one isn’t exactly a king but a great elector coming from Holland, and lastly there is Peter the Great of Russia. From England there was the chain of divine right seekers like Charles the first and James the first, than they became more into capitalism with Mary of England/Holland and William of Orange who abided by the Bill of Rights and ruled with the Parliament. Then in France there was Louis the fourteenth who only believed in divine rights and saw to it that religion and government go hand and hand almost as if inseparable, which later forces go to Holland under the rule of the Great Elector

I. “Monarchy is ranked in scripture as one of the sins of the Jews, for which a curse in reserve is denounced against them” (Paine, 6).

Many answers are proposed, but what is readily apparent from the text is that its use of Christianity as a justification for rejecting the monarchy as a legitimate authority was a salient feature of the text. Religion is central to the establishment of America as a nation, having been built by communities that rejected the Catholicism imposed in England. Religion had more influence then, so that nearly every aspect of life, including public policy, was centered on Christian principles. Bonomi notes that during “eighteenth century America—in city, village, and countryside—the idiom of religion penetrated all discourse, underlay all thought, marked all observances, gave meaning to every public and private crisis” (3). Christianity was the normative basis by which people structured their society and morality, which, of course, was the basis of law and order and social organization. Having established the monarchy as the villain of his social diorama, he proceeds to contrast it against his interpretation of the Scriptures. First, he proposed that God had created mankind to be originally equal, and that there was no religious justification for distinctions of king and subject. He noted that “exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the equal rights of nature, so neither can it be defended on the authority of scripture” (Paine). He proceeds to tell that God personally disapproved of kings, recounting the biblical account of Samuel as a justification. He portrayed monarchy as an evil curse, which was allowed by God as punishment for Israel’s stubbornness. Building upon this thesis, he pursues the concept while relating it to the history of the English monarchy, which was built upon violence, facilitated for by undue succession. He concluded: “In England a king hath little more to do than to make war and give away places; which in plain terms,

The very idea of a monarchy is riddled with flaws. A monarchy passes the power and responsibility of running a kingdom down by blood relatives without second thought, which gives power to those who are hated, unfit for rule, or plain incompetent for such a rule. The tradition dates back to centuries where they thought their monarchs were god-like. Some even believed their kings were gods. However, the current king seems like less than a divine god and more like a putrid demon that crawled from the very depths of the underworld. He has abused his power as king and refused to listen to our various complaints and requests. He has become a tyrant, meaning he has used his sovereign rule oppressively, smothering our wants and needs in favour of his

Because the judges were corrupt, and because everyone else had a king, Israel asked for one too. They were rushing God’s timing, by asking for a king “like all the other nations have” (1 Samuel 8:5 NLT). They wanted someone they could see to fight their battles for them. They, in a sense, rejected God as their king. This attitude indicates that the people were looking at the other nations and at those rulers’ outward characteristics. So, when the people demanded a king for the second time, God gave them what they demanded.

Samuel asked that Saul to wait for seven days for him to come, but instead Saul did not wait which caused him to sin. Which ultimately lead to the fall of his reign because he sinned and did not follow the word of God that Samuel told him. When Samuel did come back he asked Saul what he had done, “‘You have done foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which he commanded you. The Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever…” (1 Samuel 13:13) Saul ultimately disobeyed the wishes of God and Samuel, 1 Samuel 13:13-14. Saul thought that since he was losing the faith of the soldiers he had to do something so that they would still follow him and not lose faith. That was his reasoning but I don’t understand