A History of Religious Ideas, Volume 1: From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries

by Mircea Eliade

“When Samuel grew old, he appointed his two sons as judges over Israel.” But his sons did not follow his example, and then the leaders came to him and said: “Give us a king to rule over us, like the other nations” (1 Sam. 8:1–5). Kingship, then, was a foreign institution. Some opponents of the idea did not spare their criticism, for in their eyes Yahweh was sole king of Israel. However, from the beginning the monarchy was regarded as pleasing to Yahweh. After being anointed by Samuel, Saul received the “spirit of Yahweh” (1 Sam. 10:6). For the king was the “anointed” (mâśiaḥ) of God (1 Sam. 24:7, 11; 26:9, 11, 16, 23, etc.); he was adopted by Yahweh, became in a sense his son: “I will be a father to him and he a son to me” (2 Sam. 7:14). But the king is not engendered by Yahweh; he is only recognized, “legitimated,” by a special declaration.1 Yahweh grants him universal domination (Psalm 72:8), and the king sits on his throne beside God (Ps. 110:1 and 5; 1 Chron. 28:5; 29:23; etc.). The king is Yahweh’s representative; hence he belongs to the divine sphere. But the unique position of Yahweh makes the “divinization” of the king impossible;2 the latter is preeminently the “servant” of Yahweh (the word is applied to David sixty times).