In my previous blog post, I pointed out how the Mosaic Covenant confirms the concept of popular sovereignty. In this post, I’d like to draw your attention to a fact in Scripture that absolutely blew my mind when I first came across it. Did you know that the concept of popular sovereignty was so ingrained in ancient Israel that their leaders were almost always chosen through public elections? Let me show you how I discovered this amazing fact.
1. The Israelites voted on whether to accept the Mosaic Covenant.
Yes, you read that correctly. The Israelites voted on whether or not to be under the Mosaic Covenant. In fact, they voted twice just to make sure that there wasn’t any sort of miscount or other error in the vote. The account of this vote is found in Exodus 24:3-7.
In that passage, we see that after God delivered all of the terms of the covenant to Moses, Moses came and told the people what the Lord had said, and all the people gave unanimous assent to the terms. Moses then committed the entire covenant to writing and read what he had written before all the people. Then the people voiced unanimous consent a second time to confirm that they were agreeing to the covenant exactly as it had been written. The Mosaic Covenant did not go into effect until after the people of Israel publicly voted to accept it.
2. The Israelites voted to have Moses as their leader.
No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. The Bible actually records that the Children of Israel chose to have Moses lead them and represent them before the face of God. In Deuteronomy 5, we find that God originally wanted to give His Law directly to the whole congregation of the people. The Bible tells us that God began speaking to the people “face to face,” not just to Moses.
According to this passage, God descended upon the mountain in the sight of all the people, and began presenting the terms of the covenant directly to the body of the people. The people heard the ten commandments that formed the foundation of the covenant, and then they became afraid. When God stopped speaking in order to record the Ten Commandments in writing, the people took advantage of the pause to approach Moses and ask him to be their representative before the Lord. According to the parallel passage in Exodus, Moses actually pleaded with the people that they not succumb to their fears, but they refused his pleas. Then, the Bible records for us that God heard the decision of the people to elect Moses to be their representative and that He not only approved of their decision but also that He wished for them to always display such wisdom.
Here we have a record of the God of the universe rejoicing because the nation of Israel decided on their own to elect a representative to stand before Him in their place.
3. The Israelites voted to have Saul as their king.
When the nation of Israel convinced Samuel to give them a second king (yes, Saul was the second king, not the first), Samuel eventually consented to their request. However, the ensuing coronation of King Saul was far from the simple, straightforward process that most people think that it was. The first part of the biblical record corresponds well with the standard “Sunday school” account. The people asked for a king. God told Samuel to anoint Saul. Samuel showed the people that God had chosen Saul. The people rejoiced and shouted, “God save the king.”
At this point, however, the Biblical account differs greatly from the conception that the average Christian has of this event. Immediately after the people shouted “God save the king,” the Bible tells us in 1 Samuel 10 that Samuel sent all the people away and Saul returned to his home in Gibeah. There is no mention of any coronation. Samuel sent the people home without crowning Saul as the king, and chapter 10 ends with people doubting whether Saul was fit to lead.
We don’t read of Saul being crowned king until verse 15 of the next chapter. In the first 14 verses of chapter 11, we find Saul forcing the people to follow him in a victorious battle against the Ammonites. After Saul had proven his military expertise to the people, they came to Samuel with the charge that anyone who doubted Saul’s ability to lead should be put to death. It was only at this point, when the people were firmly and perhaps even unanimously in favor of Saul, that Samuel gathered them together at Gilgal and crowned Saul king of Israel.
(See my new book “Unsung Heroes and Obscure Villains of the Bible” to find out which man was the first king of Israel.)
4. Israel voted to make David their king.
The coronation account of King David also gives testimony to the prevalence of popular sovereignty in the political ideology of ancient Israel. The transition from Saul to David was not an easy transition. Saul was killed in battle while David was in exile, and the Biblical account tells us that when David learned of the death of Saul, he returned to Hebron where he was met by the men of the tribe of Judah. The men of Judah decided to crown David as king, not over all of Israel but rather over just the tribe of Judah. The rest of the nation chose to crown Saul’s son Ishbosheth as their king (2 Samuel 2). It is only after the account of the death of Ishbosheth that we read:
“So all the elders of Israel came to the king to Hebron; and king David made a league with them in Hebron before the LORD: and they anointed David king over Israel.” (2 Samuel 5:3)
Thus we see that David’s coronation was just as much an act of popular sovereignty as that of Saul. He was not crowned king over all Israel until all the elders of the nation had agreed to be under his rule.
The idea that the people should be free to elect their own rulers is an integral component of the government established by God in the Old Testament, and it was such a natural part of Israel’s political ideology that it was adopted by the leaders of the early church as the proper way to fill positions in that body as well (Acts 6:2-6). The early church had the same casual familiarity with popular elections as is found among the various societies, businesses, and other organizations of America, and such a familiarity only makes sense in a culture with a long history of freely choosing their own leaders.
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