Deuteronomy 17:14 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Deuteronomy 17:14
When thou art come unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me;
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
land
הָאָ֗רֶץha.'A.retz
H776
the earth (at large · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
LORD
יְהוָ֤הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
God
אֱלֹהֶ֙יךָ֙'e.lo.Hei.kha
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
giveth
נֹתֵ֣ןno.Ten
H5414
to give · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
possess
וִֽירִשְׁתָּ֖הּvi.rish.Tah
H3423
to occupy (by driving out previous tenants · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
dwell
וְיָשַׁ֣בְתָּהve.ya.Shav.tah
H3427
properly · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine singular
say
וְאָמַרְתָּ֗ve.'a.mar.Ta
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine singular
set
אָשִׂ֤ימָה'a.Si.mah
H7760
to put (used in a great variety of applications · verb, qal infinitive construct, 1st person common singular
king
מֶ֔לֶךְMe.lekh
H4428
a king · noun, common masculine singular absolute
nations
הַגּוֹיִ֖םha.go.Yim
H1471
a foreign nation · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
about
סְבִיבֹתָֽיse.vi.vo.Tai
H5439
(as noun) a circle · noun, common both genders plural construct + pronominal suffix
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
1 Samuel 8:19-20 Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us;
Joshua 1:13 Remember the word which Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, saying, The LORD your God hath given you rest, and hath given you this…
1 Samuel 8:5-7 And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.
1 Samuel 12:19 And all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the LORD thy God, that we die not: for we have added unto all our sins this…
Deuteronomy 7:1 When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hitti…
Deuteronomy 11:31 For ye shall pass over Jordan to go in to possess the land which the LORD your God giveth you, and ye shall possess it, and dwell therein.
Deuteronomy 12:9-10 For ye are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance, which the LORD your God giveth you.
Deuteronomy 18:9 When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Deuteronomy 17:14–end
After the laws which concerned subjects fitly followed the laws which concern kings; for those that rule others must themselves remember that they are under command. Here are laws given,
I. To the electors of the empire, what rules they must go by in making their choice, Deu 17:14, Deu 17:15. 1. It is here supposed that the people would, in process of time, be desirous of a king, whose royal pomp and power would be thought to make their nation look great among their neighbours. Their having a king is neither promised as a mercy nor commanded as a duty (nothing could be better for them than the divine regimen they were under), but it is permitted them if they desired it. If they would but tak…
THE ELECTION AND DUTY OF A KING. (Deu 17:14-20)
When thou . . . shalt say, I will set a king over me--In the following passage Moses prophetically announces a revolution which should occur at a later period in the national history of Israel. No sanction or recommendation was indicated; on the contrary, when the popular clamor had effected that constitutional change on the theocracy by the appointment of a king, the divine disapproval was expressed in the most unequivocal terms (Sa1 8:7). Permission at length was granted, God reserving to Himself the nomination of the family and the person who should be elevated to the regal dignity (Sa1 9:15; Sa1 10:24; Sa1 16:12; Ch1 28:4). In short, Moses…
When thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee,.... The land of Canaan:
and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein; be entirely in the possession of it, and settled in it; it seems to denote some time of continuance in it, as it was, before they thought of setting a king over them, about which are the following instructions:
and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are round about me; which was what would and did lead them to such a thought and resolution; observing that the neighbouring nations had kings over them, they were desirous of being like them as to the form of their civil government, and have a king as they had.
The Church Fathers
If you get to enter the land that the Lord your God gives you in luck and you inherit it and live in it, you will say: "I will set princes on me as the other nations that are around me." You must put a prince over you who has chosen the Lord your God, from among your brothers you will put a prince on you; You can not put a foreign man on you, because he is not your brother. We can ask ourselves why the people disliked the Lord, wishing to have a king, (Cf 1R 8,7) when here it appears as a permitted thing. From this passage it is necessary to understand rather that they did not do it reasonably according to the will of God, since God did not command them to do it, but only allowed it to those who wanted it. What he did command was that they did not make a foreigner king, but a brother, that is, a person from the same town, not a foreigner. The words: You can not mean: "you should not". 27 (Dt 17.17). When speaking of the king, the text says: And he will not have many women, so that his heart will not go astray. Neither will much silver or gold be sought. Based on this text, we can ask if David did not act against this precept, since he did not have a single woman (Cf 2R 5,13). Solomon clearly transgressed this precept, not only as regards women, but as regards silver and gold. But from here it follows rather that the kings were allowed to have more than one woman. They were forbidden to have many. This prohibition was not transgressed if a king had few women, as was the case of David. But you should not have many, like Solomon. When the text adds: so that his heart does not go astray, it seems rather to mean that he should not have a large number, so that he does not have foreign women, which, in the case of Solomon, made his heart turn away of God (Cf 1R 11,1-6). But a large number of women were forbidden in a general way, so that, even if it were a large number of Hebrew women, it could reasonably be said that the king in this case would have acted contrary to this precept.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
King · Precepts concerning — Precepts concerning
Kings · God reserved to himself the choice of — God reserved to himself the choice of
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
John Calvin on Deuteronomy 17:14–end
Deuteronomy 17:14-20
14. When thou art come unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me;
14. Quum ingressus fueris terrain quam Jehova Deus tuus dat tibi, et possederis eam, et habitaveris in ea, ac dixeris, Constituam super me regem sicut omnes gentes quae sunt per circuitus meos.
15. Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the LORD thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother.
15. Constituendo constitues super te regem quem elegerit Jeho…
Choice and Right of the King. - Deu 17:14, Deu 17:15. If Israel, when dwelling in the land which was given it by the Lord for a possession, should wish to appoint a king, like all the nations round about, it was to appoint the man whom Jehovah its God should choose, and that from among its brethren, i.e., from its own people, not a foreigner or non-Israelite. The earthly kingdom in Israel was not opposed to the theocracy, i.e., to the rule of Jehovah as king over the people of His possession, provided no one was made king but the person whom Jehovah should choose. The appointment of a king is not commanded, like the institution of judges (Deu 16:18), because Israel could exist under the gove…
purge the evil: The effects of evil should not be allowed to fester in the community. Like a cancer, they must be completely eradicated.
Rashi on Deuteronomy 17:13
וכל העם ישמעו AND ALL THE PEOPLE SHALL HEAR [AND FEAR] — From here we derive the law that they wait for him (i.e. defer the execution of a זקן ממרא, an elder who disregards the decision of the Supreme Court, to whom Scripture refers in v. 12 by the words והאיש אשר יעשה בזדון) until the next festival (when all Israel is assembled in Jerusalem) and they put him to death at the season of the festival (Sanhedrin 89a).
