Orthodox Reflections

OR Note: Thomas Paine’s 47-page pamphlet Common Sense, published on 10 January 1776, is widely credited for turning a limited colonial tax protest into a war for total independence. As part of his reasoning, Paine relied on 1 Samuel 8 to argue that God strongly opposes monarchy and hereditary rule. His pamphlet sold over 500,000 copies in a small colonial population of only 2.56 million (including slaves). The impact of Paine’s Biblical arguments on a very Christian population cannot be overstated. However, the pamphlet was, from Pain’s point of view, pure propaganda. Paine was an outspoken Deist. In his later life and writings, Paine aggressively attacked traditional Christianity, organized churches, and the concept of divine revelation in scripture. He sold the American Revolution to a Christian population by arguing from a book he didn’t believe in about a God he also didn’t believe in.

Christian Ministers of multiple denominations played a vital role in endorsing Common Sense from their pulpits. Had those pastors known Paine was a non-Christian, they would have been inclined to warn their congregations that a revolution led by such ideas risked inviting divine wrath. The Loyalists would have used Paine’s anti-Christian religious beliefs to discredit the entire movement for independence. Our American forefathers fell for Paine’s arguments because they accepted them in good faith, not realizing they were being duped by a propagandist with a much more radical hidden agenda than they would have ever endorsed. Modern Americans continue to parrot many of Paine’s Biblical arguments. Our American ancestors could plead ignorance. In the Year of Grace 2026, we cannot. The Christian Faith is the self-revelation of the One, True, Triune God – not a political tool.

By Walt Garlington, an Orthodox Christian living in Dixieland.  His writings have appeared on several web sites, and he maintains a site of his own, Confiteri: A Southern Perspective.

Both the Left and the Right in the United States are part of the subversive Revolution inspired by Satan that has swept the world over the last couple of centuries. Both reject a hierarchy that proceeds from God downward, and replace it with an autonomous People whose authority originates below with them and flows out from them.

The attitudes of Left and Right to kingship are illustrative of this truth. The Left, of course, has gained notoriety lately for the ‘No Kings’ protests. But the so-called conservatives aren’t much better. William Federer, one of the archpriests of the religion of Americanism, made this quite obvious for everyone to see in a recent video for PragerU (the same organization run by a former Israeli intelligence agent). In the video, Federer argues that kingship is an illegitimate form of government. His argument rests on a faulty interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, specifically I Samuel chapter 8, that kingship was not the will of God for the ancient Israelites. For Mr. Federer, and for other believers in Americanism, the flawless and pristine form of political government is what he sees as the republican form of government of the tribes of Israel prior to King Saul.

But as we said, this is based on a flawed interpretation of I Samuel 8, which itself is based only on a single strand of rabbinic Jewish exegesis. In a review of Eric Nelson’s The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought, we find this reference:

‘According to the author, monarchy had been uniformly considered as at least one of the legitimate forms of government until the beginning of the seventeenth century. Yet by the end of the same century there appears a clear voice that rejects monarchism as strictly illegitimate. In the first chapter of the book, Nelson argues that the best explanation for the emergence of republican exclusivism lies in the contemporary discovery of the Hebrew Bible and Rabbinic sources which disqualify monarchy as a form of idolatry. Indeed, the passage in I Sam. 8:4-9 describing the circumstances of the divine election of Saul, the first Hebrew king, makes clear that the Israelites’ pledge to the prophet Samuel (“make us a king to judge us like all the nations” [8:5]) was conceived by God and Samuel as a betrayal in the kingdom of God, who consoles Samuel: “they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them” (8:7). Indeed, in many classical Jewish sources, dominion by God and dominion by man are taken as mutually exclusive. (This is, for example, the Bible’s main objection to the enslavement of Hebrews. See Leviticus 25:55.) Nelson points out a few Talmudic and Midrashic debates about the legitimacy of monarchy, and he nicely documents the use of these newly available sources by seventeenth-century proponents and critics of monarchy in both England and the Continent.’

The problem is that this is not the only strand of interpretation in the rabbinic Jewish tradition. There are others that are in favor of monarchy. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks writes:

‘Our parsha talks about monarchy: “When you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “I will set a king over me, like all the surrounding nations,” set over you a king whom the Lord your God chooses” (Deut. 17: 14-15). So it should be relatively easy to answer the question: From a Jewish perspective, is having a king a good thing or a bad thing? It turns out, however, to be almost unanswerable.

‘On the one hand, the parsha does say, “set over you a king.” This is a positive command. Maimonides counts it among the 613. On the other hand, of no other command anywhere does it say that it is to be acted on when the people say that they want to be “like all the surrounding nations.” The Torah doesn’t tell us to be like everyone else. The word kadosh, “holy,” means, roughly, to be set apart, singular, distinctive, unique. Jews are supposed to have the courage to be different, to be in but not entirely of the surrounding world.

‘Matters are made no clearer when we turn to the famous episode in which the Israelites did actually ask for a king, in the days of Samuel (1 Samuel 8). Samuel is upset. He thinks the people are rejecting him. Not so, says God, the people are rejecting Me (1 Sam. 8:7). Yet God does not command Samuel to resist the request. To the contrary, He says, in effect, tell them what monarchy will cost, what the people stand to lose. Then, if they still want a king, give them a king.

‘ . . . Even stepping back and seeing matters on the basis of abstract principle, we have as close as Judaism comes to a contradiction. On the one hand, “We have no king but You,” as we say in Avinu Malkeinu.2 On the other hand, the closing sentence of the book of Judges (21: 25) reads: “In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” In short: without monarchy, anarchy.

‘So, in answer to the question: Is having a king a good thing or a bad one, the answer is an unequivocal yes-and-no. And as we would expect, the great commentators run the entire spectrum of interpretation.’

Another Eric Nelson book, The Royalist Revolution, goes into more detail on the arguments in Europe and the United States over how to properly understand I Samuel 8 in the 17th and 18th centuries, which are much more nuanced than what Mr. Federer has put forward in his video.

Mr. Federer is therefore not being completely open with people with his interpretation. He is portraying one line of Jewish exegesis as the only line of exegesis vis-à-vis monarchy. Whether purposefully or not, we do not know. But whatever the case, it is not helpful for those who are seeking to know the truth about monarchy from a Biblical perspective.

But what we have written so far itself raises a question: Why is a union of States often portrayed by America worshippers like Mr. Federer as ‘the greatest Christian country’ in world history turning to rabbinic Jewish (i.e., anti-Christian) interpreters for a proper understanding of monarchy rather than Christian sources?

The answer lies in the strange view of these people (starting with the weirdos who settled New England) that America is in a real sense a continuation of old Israel – a people who fled into the wilderness of North America and formed a covenant with God to be his ‘peculiar people’. The Orthodox Church, with her bishops and kings and saints and miracles and relics and all the rest, is corrupt and must swept away and replaced by the New Israel of America, whose only trustworthy model is the ‘Hebrew republic’ of the Old Testament.

Such delusions aside, there is a Christian view of monarchy, and it is opposed to what Mr. Federer and his allies present. Dean Arnold put together a solid article at The Soul of the East some years ago on this subject that is worth revisiting. Gleason provides a nice list (very minimal) of Old Testament endorsements of monarchism:

• • • • • In Genesis 14, King Melchizedek prophetically acts out the first proto-Eucharist in Scripture, blessing Abraham with bread and wine.
        • In Genesis 17, God promises to bless Abraham with kings for descendants.
        • In Genesis 35, God promises to bless Jacob with kings for descendants.
        • In Genesis 49, God promises that Israel’s kings will come from the tribe of Judah.
        • In Deuteronomy 17, Moses lays out the blueprint for Israel to have godly kings.
        • In 1 Samuel 2, Hannah prophesies about the coming monarchy (verse 10) in a very positive context, focusing on the Lord’s anointed monarch.
        • When Israel’s kings are very good, Scripture never suggests that they should have been “good enough to abolish monarchy, and establish some better form of government”.
        • Similarly, when Israel’s kings are very wicked, Scripture never suggests that “being a king” was part of their sin.

Proverbs 24:21 best sums up the biblical argument against the overthrow of monarchism: “Fear the LORD and the king, my son, and do not join with rebellious officials.”

. . .

Biblicists who oppose monarchy are quick to turn to I Samuel 8, as it is the best passage, if not the only passage, that provides some kind of rationale for something other than a monarchical government.

In the story, Samuel has led Israel well for decades as a “judge,” not a king, but his sons are corrupt, and the elders insist that Samuel install “a king to judge us like all the nations.” Samuel is displeased, prays about it, and God tells him to do what they asked. “They have not rejected you, but rejected me,” God says, “that I should not reign over them.” (I Sam. 8:7)

On it’s face, this passage seems to provide nice ammo for refuting monarchism, but it has a number of serious weaknesses.

♦ Firstly, it is strange for Israel to get rebuked for wanting a king when a few hundred years before Moses laid out some rules for kings in Israel: “When you come to the land … and say, ‘I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me,’ you shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses.” (Deut. 17:14-15)

♦ Secondly, Israel wasn’t rebuked for wanting a king. They were rebuked for wanting a king “like all the nations.” (This seems to fit with the previous point that God had already made prescriptions for a king.) Biblical scholar James Jordan points out that this phrase “like all the nations” can mean, in the original language, two possible things.

1: A king, as other nations have kings.

2: A king that acts like other nations’ kings, not one tied to Moses’s code of laws.

Jordan believes, because of the context of the passage, and Deut. 17, that the elders of Israel were asking for the second option. And this explains the verses surrounding both Deut. 17 and I Sam. 8, warning against kings multiplying horses, gold, and wives. Other nations’ kings built military machines (horses), heavily taxed their subjects (gold), and sported large harems. Moses and Samuel both warn Israel’s king not to go in that direction.

♦ Thirdly, the days of Israel’s judges was no panacea for godly society. The book ends with a woman being raped in front of her passive husband, who then chops her up and sends the pieces to the twelve tribes to point out how corrupt things had gotten. The book is filled with similar atrocities. Judges ends by saying, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” (21:25). According to Gleason, “the lack of monarchy implies anarchy.  The consciences of the populous were insufficient for bringing righteousness to the nation. A godly king was needed.”

♦ Fourthly, one of the reasons the Israelites were rejecting God by asking for a king was because to do so, at that time, would be violating the Mosaic Law. Jacob declared at the end of his life, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah.” (Gen. 49:10). The Israelites knew their king was to come from Judah, but that tribe was temporarily disqualified due to sexual immorality: “One of illegitimate birth shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation.” (Deut. 23:2)

Judah had slept with his daughter-in-law Tamar (unwittingly—she posed as a prostitute), and she gave birth to Perez (see Gen. 38, a rather bizarre interruption to an otherwise thrilling drama about Joseph). The tribe of Judah was in it’s ninth generation when the elders of Israel demanded a king. Saul had to be taken from another tribe, Benjamin. But he was replaced a generation later by David, from the tribe of Judah, who was now qualified to be king.

The writer of Ruth makes this crystal clear at the very end of the book, naming ten generations from Perez to David: “Now this is the genealogy of Perez: Perez begot Hezron; Hezron begot Ram, and Ram begot Amminadab; Amminadab begot Nahshon, and Nahshon begot Salmon; Salmon begot Boaz, and Boaz begot Obed; Obed begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David. (Ruth 4:13-22)

Pretty cool, huh? (Jordan explains this point well in the podcast link already provided, and Gleason writes about it here.)

♦ Lastly, those who use I Samuel 8 to argue against monarchy certainly cannot use it to argue for democratic republics as we know them today. The system under Samuel was a theocracy, a nation under specific laws from God. Whatever is argued for today (democracies, republics, loose confederations, or pseudo-anarchism), to argue that Israel before its monarchy modeled the ideal government is to argue for something even more radical for today’s sensibilities than monarchy. A few actually do this, but everyone else needs to chill a little bit.

The United States are in the middle of a spiritual war.  The false creed of Americanism is losing and dying, but its lifelong supporters are fighting fiercely to keep that rattling, decrepit belief system alive.  Mr. Federer’s video attacking monarchy is simply one battle in that war.  With God’s help, however, the many new recruits into the Orthodox Church in the 50 States will turn the tide of that war and ease into the grave a false religion that has deceived and harmed hosts of people.