Chapter 4

Freedom and Responsibility

What was it like to live under a government where there were no taxes, no army, and no bureaucrats?

What was it like to live under a government that you couldn’t see?

What was it like to live under a government where you had to answer directly to God for everything you did — even though you couldn’t see Him?

When God was the government, you couldn’t hide behind a good lawyer. At Ai, no one saw Achan commit a crime.

Well, almost no one.

When Israel tried to take over the town of Ai, they got beat up, Joshua fell on his face and asked God why they were defeated.

God told him to get up! He had seen what Joshua hadn’t.

(Joshua 7:10-13)
Yahweh said to Joshua, “Get up! Why have you fallen on your face like that? Israel has sinned.

Yes, they have even transgressed my covenant which I commanded them. Yes, they have even taken some of the devoted things, and have also stolen, and also deceived. They have even put it among their own stuff.

Therefore the children of Israel can’t stand before their enemies. They turn their backs before their enemies, because they have become devoted for destruction. I will not be with you any more, unless you destroy the devoted things from among you.

“Get up! Sanctify the people, and say, ‘Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow, for Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, “There is a devoted thing among you, Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the devoted thing from among you.”

Then God showed them who was guilty.

(Joshua 7:16-21)
So Joshua rose up early in the morning and brought Israel near by their tribes. The tribe of Judah was selected. He brought near the family of Judah; and he selected the family of the Zerahites. He brought near the family of the Zerahites man by man, and Zabdi was selected.

He brought near his household man by man, and Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was selected.

Joshua said to Achan, “My son, please give glory to Yahweh, the God of Israel, and make confession to him. Tell me now what you have done! Don’t hide it from me!”

Achan answered Joshua, and said, “I have truly sinned against Yahweh, the God of Israel, and this is what I have done. When I saw among the plunder a beautiful Babylonian robe, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, then I coveted them and took them. Behold, they are hidden in the ground in the middle of my tent, with the silver under it.”

Since Achan couldn’t see God, he thought that God couldn’t see him. And since God didn’t jump in right when Achan took the silver idol, he thought that he was getting away with breaking the law.

No one ever gets away with sin. Achan didn’t.

That’s the way it is when God is the government. You are personally responsible before him for everything you do.

Just as Paul wrote.

(2 Cor 10:5)
[T]hrowing down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ;

When Israel entered the Holy Land, God gave each family their allotment of land. If a family obeyed God’s commandments, they would have such large crops they could hardly harvest them all before planting time again. Each year a tithe of that increase, but only the increase, was paid to support the priesthood; a tithe was used by each family for festival worship; and periodically a tithe was paid to support the poor. The priesthood was there to help the people, the festival tithe was consumed by each family itself, and if you needed help, the poor tithe was for you.

There was no IRS, no standing army and no government bureaucracy to support. Those Israelites had the greatest individual freedom of any people in history. The government did not try to run their lives for them.

Ultimately all human governments try to control their people — for their own good, of course. Israelites, though, under Yahweh their king, all had individual choice as to what they would do with their lives.

At the same time, those Israelites also had maximum individual responsibility. Each family and ultimately each person answered directly to God.

(Jer 16:17)
For my eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from my face, neither is their iniquity concealed from my eyes.

(Jer 32:19)
… great in counsel, and mighty in work; whose eyes are open to all the ways of the sons of men, to give everyone according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings:

Individual freedom and individual responsibility always go together. Without individual responsibility, there can be no individual freedom. If people cannot control themselves, then some type of government will step in to control them.

And —

If the people can’t individually control themselves, then they will seek some type of government to control them.

Israel’s people had the freedom to run their families and enterprises as they saw fit. If a family did well, they were blessed. Because they were blessed, they did not have to spend every waking moment striving for the Almighty Dollar, or, as it were, the Shaddai Shekel. If you have enough, why do you need more? So the people could spend more time serving God, loving family, helping others and creating beauty, to reflect the perfection of beauty working with them.

(Psalm 50:1-2)
The Mighty One, God, Yahweh, speaks, and calls the earth from sunrise to sunset. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines out.

Under that system of maximum liberty, maximum responsibility, people could focus on letting the perfection of beauty shine through them.

As David did.

(2Sa 23:1-2)
Now these are the last words of David. David the son of Jesse says, the man who was raised on high says, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel: “Yahweh’s Spirit spoke by me. His word was on my tongue.

David’s Psalms were just him reflecting the perfection of beauty.

If a family did not do well, though, things could get ugly. They might lose their property and even become indebted servants of someone who was more diligent. Then in the Jubilee year that property was returned to the original family, to give another generation the chance to do well or poorly, whichever they chose.

Whether or not a family or individual did well ultimately depended on how close they were to God. Human nature without God is destructive because it opposes God, and God destroys all who oppose him.

(Gen 6:5-7)
Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was continually only evil. Yahweh was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart. Yahweh said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the surface of the ground—man, along with animals, creeping things, and birds of the sky—for I am sorry that I have made them.”

Human nature can only be turned upward by turning to God. Each and every individual in Israel had the personal responsibility of seeking God with his whole heart. If he did that, he was blessed. If he turned away from God, he was cursed.

This is the law of life.

(Mat 22:37-38)
Yeshua said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment.

There was no national police force to coerce everyone in Israel into obedience. Obedience was an individual choice, not a government enforced duty. Each individual then received the fruit of his actions, either a blessing or a curse.

Human governments think they help people by controlling them, by not allowing individual freedom and choice. They protect the flock by doing their thinking for them.

Napoleon, the egocentric emperor who ended the French Republic almost as soon as it began, wanted to make sure that French women did not get cheated when they bought thread.

How noble of Napoleon!

Understand the thinking of that megalomaniac. He was such a micro-manager of people’s lives that he personally wanted to insure that French women did not get cheated when they bought thread. When they did their sewing, he didn’t want them to get stuck.

Rose Wilder Lane, who helped her mother Laura Ingalls Wilder write the Little House books, was in France shortly after World War I ended, more than a century after Napoleon met his Waterloo in 1815. When Rose went to buy a spool of thread, Napoleon’s rules were still in effect and this was Rose’s experience with that socialism.

Suppose that during the Armistice you bought a spool of thread in a French department store. Not that it is a spool; the thread is wound on a scrap of paper, for the thrifty French do not waste wood. It takes a few seconds to say, “A reel of cotton thread, please; white, size sixty.” With leisurely grace, the clerk takes the thread in her hand, comes from behind the counter, and courteously asks you to accompany her.

She escorts you across the store, perhaps half a block, and indicates your place at the end of a waiting line. In twenty minutes or so, you reach the cashier’s grating. He sits behind the bars on a high stool, a wide ledger open before him, ink bottle uncorked, and pen in hand.

He asks you, and he writes in the ledger, your name, your address, and—to your dictation—one reel of thread, cotton, white, size sixty. Will you take it, madame, or have it delivered? You will take it. He writes that. And the price? Forty centimes. You offer in payment, madame? One franc. He writes these amounts, and the date, hour, and minute.

You give the franc to the clerk, who gives it to the cashier, who gives you the change, looks at the thread, and asks if you are satisfied. You are. A stroke of his pen checks that fact.

The clerk then wraps the thread, beautifully, at a near-by wrapping counter, and gives you the package. You have spent thirty minutes; so has she; the cashier has spent perhaps five. An hour and five minutes, to buy a reel of thread.

French department stores were as good as the best in the world. The French are expert merchandisers. They knew pneumatic-tube systems; the Paris government owned one that carried special-delivery notes more quickly than anyone could get a telephone number. Department store owners admired the cash-systems in American stores. But if they had installed them, they would still have been obliged to keep the cashier, his ledger, and his pen and ink.

Why? Because in the markets of Napoleon’s time, sellers cheated buyers. Napoleon protected the buyers. He decreed that the details of every sale must be written in a book, with pen and ink, in the presence of both seller and buyer, by a third person who must see the article and the transfer of money; the buyer must declare himself satisfied, and the record must be kept, permanently, to verify the facts if there were any future complaint.

During this past century, French merchandising had grown enormously. It had completely changed; but not this method of protecting buyers.

I asked an owner of the largest French department store why Napoleon’s decree was not repealed. He said, But, madame, it has been in operation for more than a hundred years! It cannot be repealed; think of the sales girls, the cashiers, the filing clerks, the watchmen who guard the warehouses of ledgers. They would lose their jobs. He was shocked. He saw me as the materialist American, thinking only of profit, caring nothing for all those human beings.

I thought they were unemployed. They did not appear as unemployed on any record, but the actual unemployment in France and throughout Europe, was enormous. For every purchase in a French department store, something like an hour’s time was unemployed; millions of hours a day. And the cashiers, the filing clerks, the watchers of those records, never did a stroke of productive work.

All this enforced unemployment made it impossible to do anything quickly. European life was leisurely; it had to be. This charmed the Americans gaily passing by, all the tedious waiting done for them, all the red tape untied, all the police stamps got onto their papers by Cook’s or Amexco or their bankers or hotel porters. How serene, how cultured was European life, they said. No one hurrying, everyone with time for meditation and enjoyment, walking through the parks, sitting at cafe tables under the plane trees. How harassed, how hurried and rude and crude was American life in comparison, they said.

You recognized an American as far as you could see him, by the way he walked. Chin up, head high, briskly going somewhere, with an unconscious mastery of the earth he trod. No European moved like that. Europeans walked prudently, slowly. Their every gesture consumed time in merely letting time pass. That made their lives and their countries seem so restful, to Americans. And you can see precisely that same way of walking, that same sense of useless time, in the prisoners in any American prison-yard. (1)

Napoleon the elitist, who thought he was so much smarter than all his poor subjects that he had to protect them from themselves, never thought of the possibility that women themselves could tell when they were being cheated and then they would buy their thread elsewhere. The alternative to Napoleon’s government control was for people to have free choice as to where they bought their thread. Automatically, then, the cheaters would have been threadbare!

Monopolies protect only the monopolists.

As it was, when the government tried to keep the French women from being cheated, all French women were cheated, by having to pay more for their thread and by having to wait an hour to buy it.

Human governments think they help people by controlling them. This applies to political governments and religious governments. They want to do your thinking for you —

For your good!

A political government run by elitist central planners wants to educate your children, control your finances, control your health and decide if you live or die — all for your good!  The socialists know best. A religious government wants to decide your doctrine and establish your orthodoxy — all for your good. The theologians know best. The Church even decided that people who believe in the Bible should not even be allowed to read the Bible — to protect the people against heresy — and they burned those few men who dared to translate it into the common languages!

Governments always want to protect their flock by doing their thinking for them.

But ancient Israel did not have human government, either political or theological. Instead they had great freedom! No government oppression! With liberty and justice for all! God allowed them free choice as to what they would do. They could buy thread wherever they wanted.

The Jubilee year brought liberty in several ways.

(Lev 25:9-11)
On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. You shall make the fiftieth year holy, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee to you; and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee to you.

People oppress other people, through wealth and government. At the Jubilee, wealth oppression was stopped. In Israel, some people accumulated excess wealth. But their power was limited by a natural correction. Property was regained, slaves were released, and transgressors were freed. Everybody had enough. Nobody had too much. That was liberty for all, power for none.

But that liberty always carried responsibility.

(Lev 25:17)
You shall not wrong one another; but you shall fear your God: for I am Yahweh your God.

For example, they were commanded to loan to a poor neighbor, even if they had to forgive the loan later.

(Deu 15:7-11)
If a poor man, one of your brothers, is with you within any of your gates in your land which Yahweh your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart, nor shut your hand from your poor brother; but you shall surely open your hand to him, and shall surely lend him sufficient for his need, which he lacks.

Beware that there not be a wicked thought in your heart, saying, “The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand;” and your eye be evil against your poor brother, and you give him nothing; and he cry to Yahweh against you, and it be sin to you. You shall surely give, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him; because that for this thing Yahweh your God will bless you in all your work, and in all that you put your hand to. For the poor will never cease out of the land. Therefore I command you to surely open your hand to your brother, to your needy, and to your poor, in your land.

If someone’s donkey took off or went down, the Israelite had to take care of that donkey.

(Deu 22:1-4)
You shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep go astray, and hide yourself from them. You shall surely bring them again to your brother. If your brother isn’t near to you, or if you don’t know him, then you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall be with you until your brother comes looking for it, and you shall restore it to him.

So you shall do with his donkey. So you shall do with his garment. So you shall do with every lost thing of your brother’s, which he has lost, and you have found. You may not hide yourself.

You shall not see your brother’s donkey or his ox fallen down by the way, and hide yourself from them. You shall surely help him to lift them up again.

An Israelite even had the responsibility to foresee and avoid any potential harm to his neighbor, and put a railing around his roof patio.

(Deu 22:8)
When you build a new house, then you shall make a railing around your roof, so that you don’t bring blood on your house if anyone falls from there.

Israel had enormous freedom and enormous responsibility. Serving God was more than just studying doctrine. It was about changing who you are.

When God was the government, the people had liberty and responsibility.

1. They could do anything they wanted.
2. They had to answer for everything they did.

More than any other nation ever, Israel was one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.

Human government is the great oppressor of people. Human government is the great hindrance of God for people.

Israel did not have a human government controlling them from the outside. That meant they had to control themselves from the inside.

And that meant having the individual self control to obey a God that they couldn’t see.

Endnotes
1) Rose Wilder Lane, “The Planned Economies,” Discovery of Freedom.

 

The End Time Church: from the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2016 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 3

No New Pharaoh

In 2009 Michelle Obama broke protocol when she placed her hand on Queen Elizabeth’s royal back. That was a great gaffe. One was a queen and the other a queen wannabe. You just don’t start pawing the queen, you know.

Esther of the Bible, even though she was a queen, couldn’t even speak to her husband the king. She was the beautiful wife of King Ahasuerus, yet she couldn’t even approach him without being invited. If she so much as uttered a word to him, she was subject to the royal death penalty.

Think about that. She was the wife of the king, yet even she couldn’t get close to him. How rare it is to be close to a king!

Mordecai told Esther that Haman had ordered the killing of all the Jews in the empire. Esther knew that going to the king could cost her life. Nevertheless, she did it.

(Esther 4:16, 5:1)
Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish…

Now on the third day, Esther put on her royal clothing, and stood in the inner court of the king’s house, next to the king’s house. The king sat on his royal throne in the royal house, next to the entrance of the house. When the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, she obtained favor in his sight; and the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. So Esther came near, and touched the top of the scepter.

The king graciously gave his wife permission to come near him and so Esther lived. ‘Thanks, dear!’

No ordinary peon can get close to a king. Yet, after Yahweh rescued Israel from Pharaoh and took them out into the wilderness, their king was always right there close by them.

The compound names of Yahweh show what he is, and one of those names is Yahweh Shammah — Yahweh is There.

(Ezekiel 48:35)
It shall be eighteen thousand reeds around: and the name of the city from that day shall be, Yahweh is there (Yahweh Shammah).

And Yahweh was there for Israel, whenever they looked for him.

(Exodus 13:21-22)
Yahweh went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them on their way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light, that they might go by day and by night: the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night, didn’t depart from before the people.

Each night when Israel camped, Yahweh their king was always just right over there, in the pillar of fire. Anytime they wanted, they could look up and see the presence of God.

(Psalms 68:7-13)
God, when you went forth before your people, when you marched through the wilderness… Selah. The earth trembled. The sky also poured down rain at the presence of the God of Sinai — at the presence of God, the God of Israel. You, God, sent a plentiful rain. You confirmed your inheritance, when it was weary. Your congregation lived therein. You, God, prepared your goodness for the poor. The Lord announced the word. The ones who proclaim it are a great company. “Kings of armies flee! They flee!” She who waits at home divides the spoil, while you sleep among the campfires, the wings of a dove sheathed with silver, her feathers with shining gold.

Yahweh slept among Israel’s campfires, like a dove with silver wings and golden feathers.

However, Israel was afraid of God and didn’t try to get closer to him. When He personally taught them the Ten Commandments, they asked him to be quiet!

(Exodus 20:18-21)
All the people perceived the thunderings, the lightnings, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they trembled, and stayed at a distance. They said to Moses, “Speak with us yourself, and we will listen; but don’t let God speak with us, lest we die.”

Moses said to the people, “Don’t be afraid, for God has come to test you, and that his fear may be before you, that you won’t sin.”

The people stayed at a distance, and Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.

Yahweh spoke the Ten Commandments with his own voice. Since he really is God, that was a really big noise. The big noise scared the little people away from the big God.

However, Moses heard the same big noise, saw the same fire on the mountain, and felt the same earthquake, but he was not scared away. Moses was closer to Yahweh than anyone on earth at that time, yet unlike Israel, Moses wanted to get still closer.

(Exodus 3:9-23)
When Moses entered into the Tent, the pillar of cloud descended, stood at the door of the Tent, and spoke with Moses. All the people saw the pillar of cloud stand at the door of the Tent, and all the people rose up and worshiped, everyone at their tent door.

Yahweh spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. He turned again into the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, didn’t depart from the Tent.

Moses said to Yahweh, Behold, you tell me, ‘Bring up this people:’ and you haven’t let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you, so that I may find favor in your sight: and consider that this nation is your people.

He said, My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.

He said to him, If your presence doesn’t go with me, don’t carry us up from here. For how would people know that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Isn’t it in that you go with us, so that we are separated, I and your people, from all the people who are on the surface of the earth?

Yahweh said to Moses, I will do this thing also that you have spoken; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.

He said, Please show me your glory.

He said, I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim Yahweh’s name before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. He said, You cannot see my face, for man may not see me and live.

Yahweh also said, Behold, there is a place by me, and you shall stand on the rock. It will happen, while my glory passes by, that I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you will see my back; but my face shall not be seen.

A famous hymn recalls that rock cleft.

He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock
That shadows a dry, thirsty land;
He hideth my life with the depths of His love,
And covers me there with His hand,
And covers me there with His hand.

The closer Moses got to God, the closer he wanted to get. Israel was not like Moses, though. They never wanted to get that close to their king.

And Yahweh himself was their king, the one they personally answered to.

(Psalm 29:10)
Yahweh sat enthroned at the Flood. Yes, Yahweh sits as King forever.

Yahweh was the king, and the people could get closer to him, if they wanted to.

Kicking Out the Kings of Canaan

After they escaped from Pharaoh, and after forty years of wandering in the wilderness, Israel finally made it into the Promised Land.

What did they do there?

They got rid of all the Canaanite kings.

Here is a long list of those kings.

(Joshua 12:1-24)
(1) Now these are the kings of the land, whom the children of Israel struck, and possessed their land beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise, from the valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon, and all the Arabah eastward:
(2) Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and ruled from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and the middle of the valley, and half Gilead, even to the river Jabbok, the border of the children of Ammon;
(3) and the Arabah to the sea of Chinneroth, eastward, and to the sea of the Arabah, even the Salt Sea, eastward, the way to Beth Jeshimoth; and on the south, under the slopes of Pisgah:
(4) and the border of Og king of Bashan, of the remnant of the Rephaim, who lived at Ashtaroth and at Edrei,
(5) and ruled in Mount Hermon, and in Salecah, and in all Bashan, to the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and half Gilead, the border of Sihon king of Heshbon.
(6) Moses the servant of Yahweh and the children of Israel struck them. Moses the servant of Yahweh gave it for a possession to the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.
(7) These are the kings of the land whom Joshua and the children of Israel struck beyond the Jordan westward, from Baal Gad in the valley of Lebanon even to Mount Halak, that goes up to Seir. Joshua gave it to the tribes of Israel for a possession according to their divisions;
(8) in the hill country, and in the lowland, and in the Arabah, and in the slopes, and in the wilderness, and in the South; the Hittite, the Amorite, and the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite:
(9) the king of Jericho, one; the king of Ai, which is beside Bethel, one;
(10) the king of Jerusalem, one; the king of Hebron, one;
(11) the king of Jarmuth, one; the king of Lachish, one;
(12) the king of Eglon, one; the king of Gezer, one;
(13) the king of Debir, one; the king of Geder, one;
(14) the king of Hormah, one; the king of Arad, one;
(15) the king of Libnah, one; the king of Adullam, one;
(16) the king of Makkedah, one; the king of Bethel, one;
(17) the king of Tappuah, one; the king of Hepher, one;
(18) the king of Aphek, one; the king of Lassharon, one;
(19) the king of Madon, one; the king of Hazor, one;
(20) the king of Shimron Meron, one; the king of Achshaph, one;
(21) the king of Taanach, one; the king of Megiddo, one;
(22) the king of Kedesh, one; the king of Jokneam in Carmel, one;
(23) the king of Dor in the height of Dor, one; the king of Goiim in Gilgal, one;
(24) the king of Tirzah, one: all the kings thirty-one.

That’s a long list, thirty-one kings in seven nations. You don’t have to focus on each name, though.

Why not?

Because Yahweh kicked them all out!

They’re not kings any more. King Yahweh got rid of them all, in a thirty-one king kick-out.

Once those Canaanite kings were dethroned, what did Yahweh do?

What would you expect him to do? Maybe put in an Israelite king?

Once those Canaanite kings were dethroned, what did God do in Israel?

He did not give his people a new king.

Repetition is said to be the strongest form of emphasis. Allow me.

When Yahweh brought Israel out of Pharaoh’s Egypt, and then kicked out the thirty-one kings of Canaan, HE DID NOT GIVE THEM A NEW KING. (All caps is also a form of emphasis.)

Nothing could be clearer.

Yahweh did not want his people to have a human king, between him and them.

He did not give them the same type of government they had just escaped in Egypt. He had just rescued them from one Pharaoh and he did not give them another Pharaoh. He did not redo what he had just undone. He did not give them a Cain or a Nimrod. He did not give them the same government that already existed in all the other nations, with a king, or a pharaoh, or a chief, or a sheik, or a fuehrer. God did not give Israel a bureaucratic, bungling, burdensome, imperfect, human royalty.

He just gave them him.

Almost everyone is familiar with Psalm 23, yet most don’t realize just how familiar this love song should make us with God. Bullinger’s Companion Bible shows how this Psalm parallels seven of the compound names of Yahweh, the names that define the name Yahweh and show what he is to his people.

(Psalm 23:1-6)
Yahweh is my shepherd: (Yahweh Roi, Shepherd).
I shall lack nothing. (Yahweh Yireh, Provider)
He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. (Yahweh Shalom, Peace).
He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. (Yahweh Tsidkenu, Righteousness)
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. (Yahweh Shammah, Presence). Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. (Yahweh Nissi, Banner)
You anoint my head with oil. (Yahweh Mekaddishkem, Sanctifier).
My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and loving kindness shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in Yahweh’s house forever.

People who have a king who is everything they need do not need another king. That’s why God got rid of all the kings of Canaan in the first place and that’s why he did not give Israel another king to take their place.

Or more accurately, to take his place.

This shows the mind of God about go-between kings. Yahweh did not give Israel the same type of government that Egypt had.

Why not?

Because he did not want them to have the same kind of government that Egypt had!

He wants his people to look directly to him. His flock should gather right under his wings.

(Deuteronomy 32:1-4)
Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak.
Let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
My doctrine shall drop as the rain.
My speech shall condense as the dew,
as the small rain on the tender grass,
as the showers on the herb.
For I will proclaim the name of Yahweh.
Ascribe greatness to our God!
The Rock, his work is perfect,
for all his ways are justice:
a God of faithfulness and without iniquity,
just and right is he.

(Verses 7–11)
Remember the days of old.
Consider the years of many generations.
Ask your father, and he will show you;
your elders, and they will tell you.
When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he separated the children of men,
he set the bounds of the peoples
according to the number of the children of Israel.
For Yahweh’s portion is his people.
Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
He found him in a desert land,
in the waste howling wilderness.
He surrounded him.
He cared for him.
He kept him as the apple of his eye.
As an eagle that stirs up her nest,
that flutters over her young,
he spread abroad his wings, he took them,
he bore them on his feathers.

Those wings are still there.

(Psalm 17:6-8)
I have called on you, for you will answer me, God.
Turn your ear to me.
Hear my speech.
Show your marvelous loving kindness,
you who save those who take refuge by your right hand from their enemies.
Keep me as the apple of your eye.
Hide me under the shadow of your wings, …

When the Moabite woman Ruth left her people to go with Naomi to the Holy Land, she sought refuge under the wings of the God of Israel.

(Ruth 2:11-12)
Boaz answered her, It has fully been shown me, all that you have done to your mother-in-law since the death of your husband; and how you have left your father and your mother, and the land of your birth, and have come to a people that you didn’t know before. May Yahweh repay your work, and a full reward be given you from Yahweh, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.

When David fled from Saul, he winged it.

A poem by David, when he fled from Saul, in the cave.
(Psalm 57:1 )
Be merciful to me, God, be merciful to me,
for my soul takes refuge in you.
Yes, in the shadow of your wings, I will take refuge,
until disaster has passed.

A Psalm by David, when he was in the desert of Judah.
(Psalm 63:1-7)
God, you are my God.
I will earnestly seek you.
My soul thirsts for you.
My flesh longs for you,
in a dry and weary land, where there is no water.
So I have seen you in the sanctuary,
watching your power and your glory.
Because your loving kindness is better than life,
my lips shall praise you.
So I will bless you while I live.
I will lift up my hands in your name.
My soul shall be satisfied as with the richest food.
My mouth shall praise you with joyful lips,
when I remember you on my bed,
and think about you in the night watches.
For you have been my help.
I will rejoice in the shadow of your wings.

Anyone can choose to be covered with those faithful feathers.

(Psalm 91:1-7)
He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of Yahweh, He is my refuge and my fortress;
my God, in whom I trust.
For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler,
and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with his feathers.
Under his wings you will take refuge.
His faithfulness is your shield and rampart.
You shall not be afraid of the terror by night,
nor of the arrow that flies by day;
nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness,
nor of the destruction that wastes at noonday.
A thousand may fall at your side,
and ten thousand at your right hand;
but it will not come near you.

Anyone can choose not to.

(Matt 23:37)
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!

No wonder Yahweh kicked out the 31 kings of Canaan. Those kings didn’t have wings!
This is the most important thing to understand about why God does not give his people a go-between government. You don’t need one.

Yahweh himself was Israel’s king. He was their Shepherd, Provider, Peace-giver, Righteousness, Presence, Banner, and Sanctifier. And he was always just right over there, for those who would look up and see.

When you follow another government between you and God —

You then have something between you and God.

And it’s harder to huddle under his wings when there’s something else always getting in the way.