Deuteronomy 17:20

Moses gives these words on the plains of Moab, before Israel crosses into the land, as part of the long body of laws in Deuteronomy 12–26. Just before this he has given the laws for judges (Deuteronomy 16:18–22) and for justice in Israel’s courts, ending with the hard cases brought to the priests and the judge (Deuteronomy 17:1–13). Now he turns from the courts to the throne. At this point Israel is a people of tribes whose King is the LORD himself, leading them through Moses and later through judges. Isaiah gives the LORD’s own words: “I am the LORD, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King” (Isaiah 43:15).

The request belongs to a time of rest. “When thou art come unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein” describes a people who have entered, taken and settled the land God gave them, with the first struggles of conquest behind them. The wish for a king grows out of a settled and perhaps prosperous life.

Then come the people’s own words: “I will set a king over me.” The verb sûwm means to put, place or set, and here it describes installing a ruler. The word for king, melek, is the usual word for a sovereign ruler. God speaks these words for Israel long before Israel says them. He knows his people’s hearts and their future, and he gives the law for kings while there is still no king to keep it. The request came centuries later, in Samuel’s day, and the story is told in 1 Samuel 8.

The reason they give is the heart of the matter: “like as all the nations that are about me.” The word gôwy means a nation or people, and it is often used of the foreign peoples around Israel, set over against God’s people. Kings among those nations often held absolute power, claimed to come from the gods and led their armies, and their people looked to them for safety and prosperity. Israel had been called to be different. At Sinai God told them that if they kept his covenant they would be “a peculiar treasure unto me above all people” and “a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation” (Exodus 19:5–6), and he set them apart from other peoples to be holy as he is holy (Leviticus 20:26). To want a king like everyone else’s was to look for security and standing in a ruler they could see, when the LORD himself was their King.

When the day came, the elders said to Samuel, “now make us a king to judge us like all the nations,” and the LORD told Samuel, “they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them” (1 Samuel 8:4–7). The same pull to be like the world is still felt by God’s people. Paul writes, “be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2), and Peter calls believers “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people” (1 Peter 2:9).

“Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee” gives Israel leave to have a king, and the next words put the choice of the man in God’s hands: “whom the LORD thy God shall choose.” The verb bâchar means to choose or select, a deliberate choice made with a purpose. A king of Israel would hold his throne by God’s choice, whatever part the people’s acclaim or his family line might also play. So the people speak of setting a king over themselves, and God keeps for himself the right to say who he will be. Saul was anointed at God’s word (1 Samuel 9:16), and when Samuel presented him to the people he said, “See ye him whom the LORD hath chosen, that there is none like him among all the people?” (1 Samuel 10:24). David was God’s choice in the same way (1 Samuel 16:12).

The king must also be “from among thy brethren.” The word ʼâch means brother. He must be a fellow Israelite, a member of the covenant people, who shares their history and stands under the same law as they do. That bond ties ruler and ruled together and keeps the king answerable to the people he leads, and verse 20 comes back to the same word when it warns him against lifting his heart above his brethren. The king of Israel is a brother first.

So Israel “mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother.” The word nokrîy means a foreigner, someone from outside Israel. A foreign ruler would stand outside Israel’s covenant, and he could bring his own gods with him, bind the nation to other powers, or bring in laws against the law of Moses. This guard kept Israel’s faith and its life as God’s people safe at the very top. Foreign influence still reached the throne by another road, when Solomon married many foreign wives and they led him into idolatry (1 Kings 11:1–8).

The first limit on the king himself is “he shall not multiply horses to himself.” The verb râbâh means to increase, and in the form that causes something to happen it means to make many. The word for horse, çûwç, is explained in the lexicons as the leaping animal. In those days horses, above all horses yoked to chariots, were the height of military power and a mark of a nation’s prestige. A king who built up great numbers of them “to himself” would be gathering power and security for his own sake, and his trust would come to rest on his army. A psalm says it plainly: “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God” (Psalm 20:7).

The verse goes on, “nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses.” Egypt was famous for its horses and chariots and was the chief place to get them, so building up a great force of horses meant going back to Egypt to trade or to make an alliance. The verb shûwb means to turn back or return. For a nation God had brought out of slavery in Egypt, going back there for anything carried a heavy meaning. It would undo the Exodus in practice, tie Israel again to the land of its bondage and its many gods, and risk a new kind of servitude. Isaiah later cried, “Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many” (Isaiah 31:1), and the words of repentance Hosea gives Israel to pray include “we will not ride upon horses” (Hosea 14:3).

The reason given is the LORD’s own word: “forasmuch as the LORD hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way.” The name here is Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name of Israel’s God. When he brought Israel out of Egypt he separated them from it for good, and his word closed the road back. The king’s plans for his army have to answer to what the LORD has already said.

“Neither shall he multiply wives to himself” speaks to a practice of kings in that day, who sealed alliances by marrying the daughters of other kings. Those foreign princesses brought their own gods and worship into the royal court, and every new marriage of that kind added to the pull away from the LORD. Men in Israel sometimes had more than one wife, and this law speaks to the king in particular, because his marriages were bound up with alliances and his worship shaped the nation’s.

The verse gives its own reason: “that his heart turn not away.” The heart, lêbâb, is the inner person, the seat of thought, will, feeling and moral character. The verb çûwr means to turn aside, depart or go off course, and here it describes falling away from the covenant. God cares about the king’s heart because faithfulness begins there, and because a king whose heart turned from the LORD would draw his whole nation after him. This is exactly what happened to Solomon, when “his wives turned away his heart after other gods” in his old age.

The second limit is “neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold,” with the same verb, râbâh. A king needs money to govern, and the word “greatly” aims at riches heaped up. Great wealth breeds pride, tempts a ruler to tax his people hard, and gives him a false security in his treasury in the place of the LORD. When Israel asked for a king, Samuel warned them of a ruler who would take from his people again and again (1 Samuel 8:10–18). Agur prayed for the middle way: “give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me” (Proverbs 30:8–9).

Horses, wives, and silver and gold are the three things these two verses forbid the king to multiply, and together they cover what kings of the nations leaned on most: armies, alliances and wealth.

The positive duty begins “when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom.” This is a task for the man who actually reigns, and it binds his royal authority to God’s word from the day that authority begins.

“He shall write him a copy of this law in a book.” The verb kâthab has the root sense of engraving and means to write. The word mishneh means a double, a second, or a copy, and here it is a copy of a document. The king makes a faithful copy of the authoritative text, so he receives God’s law exactly as it stands and governs by it. “In a book” means a lasting document, kept close as his guide and reminder.

His copy is made “out of that which is before the priests the Levites.” The priests keep the authoritative text of the law, and the king’s copy comes from it, which makes his copy accurate and guards it from change or tampering. The order matters too. Israel’s king receives the law from the keeping of God’s appointed ministers, and his throne answers to it.

“And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life.” The book stays at the king’s side, and he reads it throughout his reign, from the first day to the last. God gave Joshua the same charge: “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night” (Joshua 1:8). The blessed man of the first psalm finds “his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night” (Psalm 1:2), and the young man keeps his way pure by God’s word: “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee” (Psalm 119:9–11).

Every Israelite was to have God’s words in his heart and teach them diligently to his children (Deuteronomy 6:6–9). The king is held to the same law as its most diligent student, because as the highest authority in Israel his example, good or bad, would set the tone for the whole nation and keep him answerable to the LORD.

“That he may learn to fear the LORD his God.” The words “that he may” render the Hebrew lema’an, which marks a purpose, and the purpose of all this reading is reverence. The verb lamad, to learn, describes truth taken in until it shapes character and conduct. The verb yârêʼ means to fear, and in a setting like this one to revere and stand in awe. The fear of the LORD runs all through Deuteronomy: “what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God” (Deuteronomy 10:12).

“That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren.” The verb rûwm means to be high, to rise or to raise. It can speak of God’s majesty, and with the heart, as here, it describes pride. The heart is lêbâb again, and the brethren are ʼâch again, so the king is reminded that he is one of the people he rules, under the same God and the same law. Pride makes a ruler forget his dependence on God and his kinship with his people, and it leads him to oppress them. “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). A humble king serves his people and remembers that he rules as God’s steward.

“And that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left.” The verb is çûyr, the same verb rendered “turn away” in verse 17, and the commandment is mitsvâh. The right hand, yâmîyn, and the left, sᵉmôʼwl, picture a straight road, where a step to either side leaves it. The king is to hold to the whole of God’s word, with no room for picking and choosing. God said the same to Joshua: “turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest” (Joshua 1:7), and Samuel told Saul, “to obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Samuel 15:22).

“To the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel.” The verb ʼârak means to be long, and in its causative form to prolong or to stay long. The promise is a long and stable reign and a line of sons after him on the throne. It follows the pattern of the whole book, where blessing follows faithfulness to the covenant and curse follows its breaking (Deuteronomy 28). God shows himself faithful to the king who walks in his ways, and the good of the whole nation is bound up with the integrity of the one who leads it.

Every king of Israel fell short of these verses in some way, and the law of the king looks past them to the one King who keeps it perfectly. Jesus is the Son of David, heir to God’s promise that David’s throne would be established for ever (2 Samuel 7:12–16), and Matthew opens his Gospel by calling him “the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1). He is the one whom the LORD has chosen, the beloved Son the Father owned at his baptism and transfiguration. Isaiah foretold the child who would sit on David’s throne, whose government and peace would have no end (Isaiah 9:6–7).

He is also “from among thy brethren.” Hebrews says, “in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest” (Hebrews 2:17), and that he “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). The eternal Son comes to us as Emmanuel, “God with us” (Matthew 1:23), and rules as one who knows our weakness from the inside.

He kept every limit of this law. Where kings gathered horses, he came to Jerusalem “lowly, and riding upon an ass” (Zechariah 9:9), and he told Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). Where kings heaped up silver and gold, “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). His heart stayed low among his brethren, for he “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men,” and was obedient to death on the cross (Philippians 2:5–8). He taught that the greatest must serve, because “the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:25–28). And where a king might lead his people back toward Egypt, Jesus leads his people out of a deeper bondage, slavery to sin and death. Our old man is crucified with him (Romans 6:6), and God has delivered us from the power of darkness into the kingdom of his dear Son (Colossians 1:13–14), through “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

Israel’s king copied the law, and Jesus is the Word himself. “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1), and “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). He came to fulfil the law and the prophets (Matthew 5:17), and he could say of his Father, “I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29). In his human nature he too learned: “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered” (Hebrews 5:7–9). Christ is “the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth” (Romans 10:4), and God works in his people “both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13), so that they too learn to fear the LORD and do his word.

His reign has the long days and the children this law promises, in their fullest form. He preached the kingdom of God (Luke 4:43), and at the last the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, who reigns for ever and ever (Revelation 11:15). Those who receive him are given power to become the sons of God (John 1:12) and share his everlasting kingdom. He comes again as the rider called Faithful and True, with the name “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” (Revelation 19:11–16), and every knee shall bow to him (Philippians 2:10–11). The nations that once tempted Israel to be like them will bow before Israel’s King.

These verses show a God who knows his people’s hearts before they speak, who meets even a flawed request with care, and who sets every ruler among his people under his word. In his eyes the highest office in the land is a trust held by a brother, and its safeguard against pride, greed and drift is the daily reading of what God has said. The king’s book was to stay with him all the days of his life, and the same word of God is in the hands of all his people today. Above all, these verses point to the King who kept them perfectly, whose humble and obedient reign is the security that Israel looked for in horses, alliances and gold.