Israel as Theocracy: Models of Renewal

A. Introduction

Our journey must begin in the earliest days of Israel's existence as a political entity when Israel developed various modes of political organization as the people of God in the world. They changed with the times, adjusting as external circumstances required. Ultimately these "modes" became "models" and even exclusive, normative forms, by which she alone could conceive her national existence.

There were three basic models of how Jewish society was to be ordered: (1). a charismatic order based on "judges", who were raised up as needed to direct Israel in any crisis they faced; (2). the royal messianic—prophetic order based on the Davidic covenant which asserted that Israel's God had chosen David and his sons to bear royal office and rule his people in his stead. The royal office was coordinated with the charismatic office of prophet who was to ensure the maintenance of fidelity to and reliance on God in all things political, economic and religious; (3). the dependent hieratic state which accepted and could tolerate the rule of a foreign power and where the dependent state of Israel was guided by the priesthood in all things spiritual and secular. In the first century only this latter model could avoid clashing with the actual conditions and circumstances under which Israel lived while the others drove the crisis of first century Judaism in the Holy Land.

Ultimately, it was, a conflict of mutually exclusive ideals which led to the confrontation of the Jews with the Graeco—Roman world. Jewish society was conceived as a theocracy, that is, it was constituted, maintained and accountable to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who had led them from Egyptian slavery, settled them in the land chosen by God and given a Torah by which they were to regulate their individual and corporate life.

Overlaying these models were three views of the world by which the individual perceived reality and its relationship to God and his or her place within it. 1. the way of Torah by which the individual sought to structure personal existence in terms of the proscriptions of law in the Pentateuch; 2. there was the way of apocalyptic which helped the individual to cope with the powers that seemed arrayed against God and his way for Israel bringing about suffering and persecution; 3. there was the way of wisdom by which a person employed Israel's tradition of the sagacious life of how to get along in the world with its many paradoxes, complexities and confusions. Wisdom also embraced an understanding of the created order which revealed God as surely as God's special revelation in the law and the prophets. In this respect the primal history in Genesis played a special role.

These three "universes" of meaning were by no means exclusive of one another but, as we shall see, overlapped and inter-penetrated one another.

Whatever the leadership, be it judges, king or priest, it had to defend the nation and preserve its fidelity to God to insure its future survival. It was especially during the period of the judges and the monarchy that war was prosecuted against the peoples of the land:

"'When my angel goes before you, and brings you in to the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I blot them out, you shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their works, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces. You shall serve the LORD your God, and I will bless your bread and your water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of you. None shall cast her young or be barren in your land; I will fulfil the number of your days. I will send my terror before you, and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out Hivite, Canaanite, and Hittite from before you. I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you are increased and possess the land'" (Exod 23:23-30).

As this passage makes clear, it is Yhwh who authorizes and prosecutes the war. It is not a matter of vindictiveness, either corporate or personal. Rather it was the integrity and preservation of his people whose physical survival and faithfulness to their God had to be preserved. So I close this chapter with an exposition of the idea of "holy war" which provides a context for how the war with the Romans was conceived and why it could be prosecuted with such vigor, valor, and passion.

The following is a reminder for you of where our journey will take us in this chapter:

B. Three Constitutive Models of Israelite–Jewish Society

1. Leadership of Judges

2. Prophets and Kings

a. Royal Messianism

b. Prophetism

3. The Dependent Hieratic State

C. Holy War

B. Three Constitutive Models of Israelite–Jewish Society

To appreciate the experience of political developments by the Jews in the Holy Land of these centuries under investigation, it is necessary to be aware of three traditions which constituted the political models and ideals of Judaism and which would have been perceived as more or less constitutive of a truly Jewish society.

These three models can be subsumed under the overarching concept of Israel as a "theocracy," i.e., their society was considered to be constituted by God with whom they lived in a covenantal relationship mediated by leaders who were designated and validated by God. God was understood as the ultimate ruler and king beside whom there was no other. Thus, Jews understood themselves as having been elected by God as the people of his special choosing. God was also understood as having given them the land of Israel, which land was ultimately God's and given to the people only "in fief," i.e., the land was held by the people as tenants who must render service to God, the true owner, for use of the land. The stipulations of this service God had mediated through Moses by giving them the Torah. They then, in joyful response were obliged to live and fashion their corporate and individual lives according to the standard of the Torah. So God, people, and the land formed a solidarity.

1. Leadership of Judges

One model emphasized the egalitarianism of the theocratic and tribal confederation tradition which developed during the period of the settlement (1200–1020 BC). In this model, God ruled as king, lawgiver and judge and the people constituted a society of equals where each person could assume priestly functions. Each tribe was given its allotment of land, except for the priestly tribe of Levi, which was to receive its livelihood from the people by means of their sacrificial offerings. The tribes then constituted a confederation, which assembled annually and formed the means by which both individual and tribe confirmed loyalty to God. This annual assembly also assumed a quasi-governmental function which regulated inter-tribal concerns. Afterwards, each tribe returned to its territorial heritage to conduct its own affairs. Although this system could not survive the external threat of Philistine expansionism, it did provide a lasting egalitarian ideal with God as king, the people as his choice nation, and the land as divine gift. This conception excluded any claim by a foreign power to rule it or impound it as its own.

In this tradition God was conceived as exercising his royal prerogatives through mediators called "judges." The judge (Hebrew, "shophet") was a charismatic leader who emerged from among the people who, in turn, recognized him or her as having being raised up by God to accomplish his will among the people, to warn and save them from threatening circumstances and re-establish peace (Hebrew, "shalom"). The judge, therefore, functioned in the place of God, the "Judge of all the earth" (Gen 18:25).

The judge was both a judge in the ordinary sense but also functioned as a leader who defended the people. As judge, he or she would settle legal disputes but especially defend the right of the poor, the orphan, the widow and the stranger (Deut 1:16–17). The judge was thus a type of military leader. In the Ancient Near East the judge commanded armies to defend his king. So, the Israelite judge, in defending the people, was also defending Yhwh the king of Israel. He or she was Yhwh's representative and stood in his stead as judge in Israel.

The judge exercised his or her office only until the presenting threat had passed. In that sense it was a charismatic, temporary leadership, an occasional office, arising in time of national crisis, elected by the Lord through the people upon whom the spirit of the Lord was considered to have fallen. Consequently, it was by a divine gift, that the judge became a leader and delivered the people by military means from the impending crisis. Since there was as yet no centralized government the nation acted as one only during the crisis (Judg 4–5). Nor was there a centralized military organization. The "judge" provided, along with the ark, a "centralized" expression of God's kingship and leadership in times of crisis. The ark was conceived as the place over which God was enthroned. Often the "judge" functioned only locally in regional wars against external threats. The more massive the Philistine threat became, however, the less effective were these local judges and the tribal confederacy in meeting this threat.

2. Prophet and King

a. Royal Messianism

Secondly, there was the royal, Messianic tradition which was intimately related to the development of the Davidic kingship.

In this dynamic, another covenant surfaces which declares an eternal covenant between God and the house of David. David was essentially the first king to rule over the united twelve tribes of Israel.

The monarchy arose in part as a response to the Philistine threat to the nation. The older form of tribal confederacy was not adequate to the task. A new way was required: a greater solidarity of the people acting in unison and presenting a united front toward the external threat to the nation's continued existence as the people of Yhwh. This covenant was perceived as "perpetual," i.e., it was a covenant made with all the future descendants of David and contained the assurance that the dynasty would never end (2 Sam 7:1–17). The Davidic covenant functioned religiously as a divine affirmation for the emergence of the kingship in the face of criticism on the part of the representatives of the old theocratic ideal. The king was understood as being anointed (the word in Hebrew for an anointed one is "messiah") by God to serve in his stead. Thus, his rule was to be characterized by justice, righteousness, and equity. In Israel, however, the king did not have an independent status and rule above law, but the monarchy was conceived in something like constitutional terms. The king was also subject to Torah, as any other member of the people.

So close was the relationship between God and the king conceived that the Davidic monarch could be called a "son of God." Consequently, the messianic ideal lived in expectation of a monarch, who was chosen of God and ruled in his stead, who would remove a foreign occupation or threat, establish a government that would promote social justice and allow the people to live according to Torah in peace, prosperity and freedom. During the time of the restoration in the sixth century Second Isaiah reasserts the basic tenet of Israel's faith that the Lord is the true king of Israel (Isa 41:21, 43:15, 44:6).

The material devoted to the story of David in the Bible is by far the most extensive than that devoted to any other king in Israel or Judah. Implied is that David is the model for every messianic king who would sit on the throne of Israel ruling God's people. The biblical material depicts David as a loyal friend (1Sam 18:1), as one who constantly shows deference to God especially by respecting the office of God's messiah (the anointed King Saul, 1 Sam 24:6–7, 26:9–11), as one who is humble (1 Sam 24:11), faces difficulties with alacrity (1 Sam 27,30), is modest as he patiently waits on the Lord's will (2 Sam 4:9–10, 1 Sam 18:23), a man of wisdom, piety (2 Sam 6:12–19), and justice (2 Sam 4:11–12).

Although David does not arise quite like Saul or one of the judges he fits the charismatic type: he comes from among the people and possessed inspired leadership abilities which were evidence that Yhwh had designated him to be king of Israel. He is constantly portrayed as being in intimate communion with Yhwh as he repeatedly consults the deity. That constant seeking of God's will also illustrates his willingness to follow not just his own whims or wisdom. He is subject to God and his will. Psalm 2, in which Israel's king announces his divine adoption, though it may derive from a time of one of David's scions, would seem to apply to him quintessentially.

David conducts his military operation as prosecuting "holy war." His forces keep themselves in a state of ritual purity. David united the northern ten tribes of Israel with the tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the south and made every effort to bring about peace between these two factions. He makes the more or less "neutral" city of Jerusalem his capital which becomes both the political and religious center of the united nation. As king, he is victorious over Israel's enemies, the Philistines, the Arameans, and the Edomites. David also assumed priestly prerogatives and offered sacrifice at the time when he transferred the Ark to Jerusalem (2 Sam 6:13).

The author of the Chronicles heightens David's role and stature. In II Sam 7 David proposes to build the temple but is restrained by the prophet Nathan. In I Chronicles 22–26, though David is not involved in the construction, he lays all the plans for the temple and transmits them to his son Solomon, gathers the workers, organizes the temple personnel, including the Levites, priests, musicians, gatekeepers, treasurers and other functionaries. He also finally organizes the whole government and military apparatus.

Though David, through the prophet Nathan, is rebuffed by God in his proposal to construct the temple he is told that instead God will build him a "house." This "house" is the Davidic covenant. The covenant decreed by Yhwh is the promise that David's line would rule forever as God's son, his first born and anointed one, and that no foe would triumph over him but would ultimately be subject to his dominion. The covenant also includes the divine choice of Jerusalem as the locus of the divine presence.

David is also a suffering messiah. His son Absalom conspires against him and, backed by discontented elements of the populace, revolts and forces David's retreat from Jerusalem. David has been betrayed from within the bosom of his family, by one "who ate of his bread." He leaves the city to save it from the ravages of war that would surely come upon it if he were to have remained there and taken a head on stand against Absalom and his forces. In this retreat David's distress is emphasized (2 Sam 15:30). But David subjects himself to the will of God and willingly submits to it. Speaking to Zadok the priest he urges that the Ark be taken back to Jerusalem. "If I find favor in the eyes of Yhwh, he will bring me back ... but if he says, 'I have no pleasure in you,' behold, here I am, let him to do me what seems good to him" (2 Sam 15:25–26).

David thus does not retaliate for the taunt of Shimei of Saul's family that David is finally suffering for the "blood of the house of Saul." In reality David had wreaked no vengeance on Saul or his family. He refuses to allow one of his officers to kill the man and is ready to accept the curse for it might come from God. Here David is acknowledging the blood on his own hands in the internecine war (II Sam 2–4), the wars to secure the borders which took thousands of lives, and not least of all Uriah's death, which David had orchestrated.