The admission that the narrative of Gideon’s judgeship may not have been committed to writing till long after the events, and that the document used in 1 Samuel with which we are concerned may probably have been composed in the latter part of the 9th or even in the 8th cent. B.c. (on date of E, see Driver, LOT® p. 123), does not make it unsuit- able for us to ask whether the view respecting the institution of monarchy which is found in them may not be due to a sound tradition. That view does not seem to be out of harmony with the character of the early age to which the narratives refer, and with natural tendencies of the human mind. And its appearance merely in two isolated instances, which cannot be shown to have anything in common with the experience and feeling of better known periods of Israelite history, is sufti- cient to suggest that it is a survival. e do not indeed know of the existence outside of Israel of the same view. But it would surely be quite in accordance with the relations supposed to exist between the god and his worshippers (see W. R. Smith, AS, Lect. 2) that a tribe or group of tribes which adhered to its primitive organization, or want of organization, should insist that its god was its king, contrasting itself in this respect with neighbouring nations that had adopted monarchy ; or even that the notion of the permanent chiefship or kingship of the god should have been evolved before that of permanent human kingship. And, when a movement arose to substitute a monarchy for the older and looser constitution of society, it would be natural that in some quarters it should meet with opposition from a spirit of conservatism, which would call religious beliefs to its aid. We shall, moreover, be justified in regarding ‘the fact that we have an example of this in Israel, though not elsewhere, as due to a peculiar intensity of religious feeling and faithfulness to the God whom they acknowledged, by which not the whole people but individuals amongst them were already dis- tinguished.
(c) The Theocracy subsequent to the establishment of the Monarchy.— But while there is reason to think that belief in Jehovah’s kingship over Israel existed before the regular establishment of an earthly monarchy, and that it afforded a ground with some for objecting to this institution, the sense of the Divine sovereignty over Israel was not in the event impaired by this change of national polity. Itisa mistake to speak of the transition to this new period as ‘the close of the Theocracy’
HEBREWS, GOSPEL
(so Stanley does, Jewish Church, Lect. 18 init.). The same work in which the document that de- scribes resistance to the introduction of Teeny is embedded, has in its second book set forth Jehovah’s covenant with David and his descendants in terms which virtually make the reigning prince of this house the earthly vicegerent and representa- tive of the heavenly King, under whose control he still remains (2S 7!”). Some other passages, which show how the relation of the king to God was regarded, are 2 K 11!” 233-4, Ps 897, Neh 13°, and even as to the Northern Kingdom 1 K 14%. In Dt 17420 we have ‘the law of the kingdom’ set forth in subjection to the principle of the Theocracy (cf. Driver, LOT® p. 92). The remarkable expres- sion in 2 Ch 138 should also be particularly noticed : —‘the kingdom of Jehovah in the hand of the sons of David’; the lateness of the work in which it occurs makes it the more important. The use of the title King for God belongs especially to the Prophets and Psalms. Some instances in which God is called King of Israel, or in which His being so is most directly implied, are of the times of the Monarchy or the first part of the Exile, and_occur in writers to whom, beyond question, the Divine sanctions of the earthly kingdom were no un- familiar thought (Zeph 3%, Ps 48? 89!8 [AV and RVm], Is 332, Jer 8"). Passages of a later date are Is 4345 446, It is to be added that, where God is spoken of simply as King, or as King over all the earth, the special relation of Israel to God may be, and in some cases certainly is, present to the writer’s mind, the thought being that Jehovah, who has made Zion His favoured seat, from His capital exercises a world-wide dominion (Zec 14%. 16. 17, Jer 10! 48 5157, Ps 95° 986 1451). Where individuals with special devotion address God as their King, it is impossible to say always whether they held that the privilege and the power to do so were consequences of their membership in the chosen people; but sometimes they seem to have recognized this (Ps 5? 44* 6874 74).
In conclusion, we may say that if we are to be guided by OT thought and language, as assuredly we ought to be, in determining the meaning to be given to the term theocracy, it must be employed to designate, not any one of the forms of govern- ment under which the Israelites lived, but a great conviction. It will describe the faith that God exercised a special and effective rule over Israel by blessings, punishments, deliverances, by prophets, whom He sent to instruct them, and the visita- tions of His providence, throughout all the stages of their chequered history. And in that Kingdom of Heaven, of which our Lord spake so much, the Theocracy found its enlargement and fulfilment.