Being king is not the thing

 Condition, circumstance is not the thing;

Bliss is the same in subject or in king. 

 

-- Alexander Pope 

Behold your king, pompous, and acting like an ass

 

Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?

 

 

 

 

 

 

This king.

Two kings in man as well as herbs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,
  And vice sometime by action dignified.

Within the infant rind of this weak flower
  Poison hath residence and medicine power: 

For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each
  part; Being tasted, stays all senses with the heart.

 
Two such opposèd kings encamp them still
  In man as well as herbs—grace and rude will; 

And where the worser is predominant,
  Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.

-- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 3

The true king does much with little

 This small inheritance 

Contenteth me, and's worth a monarchy.

Sufficeth that I have maintains my state
And sends the poor well pleased from my gate.

-- William Shakespeare, Henry VI, part 2, Act 4, Scene 10

. . . and the two fishes divided he among them all. 

 

-- Mark 6:41

One of Nature's little kings

"Man"

  I know my soul hath power to know all things,  
Yet she is blind and ignorant in all:  
I know I'm one of Nature's little kings,  
Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall.  

I know my life's a pain and but a span;
I know my sense is mock'd in everything;  
And, to conclude, I know myself a Man—  
Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.  

-- Sir John Davies (1569–1626)

There is little honesty in the world, but especially little in the courts of a king

A friend in need (1903) by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge

 

 

 Tygers and wolves shall in the ocean breed,

The whale and dolphin fatten on the mead,

And every element exchange its kind,

When thriving honesty in courts we find.

-- George Granville

Racism angers Jesus Racist, Ethnic Nationalist God-King of the Jews?

Ideologue Russell Moore thinks so, puttin' on his blinders, in WaPo predictably:

"[T]he picture we get of Jesus in the Gospels is how relatively calm he is. ... Jesus spoke gently with those on the outside of the people of God. ... The religious leaders and those keeping the worship of God from the nations had something in common: Both were seeking to keep people away from the kingdom of God, people they didn’t feel were worthy of it. ... [E]thnic nationalism is not just a deviant social movement. It is the same old idolatry of the flesh, the human being seeking to deify his own flesh and blood as God." 

If only it were that simple.

These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And proclaim as you go, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

-- Matthew 10:5ff.

But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

-- Matthew 15:24

Don't give what is sacred to dogs. Don't throw your pearls to pigs! They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you.

-- Matthew 7:6

But he answered and said [to the woman of Canaan], It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.

-- Matthew 15:26

And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them . . ..

-- Matthew 6:7f.

The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.

-- John 10:33

The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them . . . but I am among you as he that serveth

And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest. And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth.

-- Luke 22:24ff.

To Jesus the prophet, God is the Great King and Jerusalem is his city

But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.

-- Matthew 5:34f.

Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King. God is known in her palaces for a refuge.

-- Psalm 48:2f.

Kingship in Israel represented the decay of the post-Mosaic order

Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, 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. But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD. And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.

-- 1 Samuel 8:4ff.

The Good King, Asa of Judah

And in the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel reigned Asa over Judah. And forty and one years reigned he in Jerusalem. And his mother's name [was] Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom. And Asa did [that which was] right in the eyes of the LORD, as [did] David his father. And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. And also Maachah his mother, even her he removed from [being] queen, because she had made an idol in a grove; and Asa destroyed her idol, and burnt [it] by the brook Kidron. But the high places were not removed: nevertheless Asa's heart was perfect with the LORD all his days.

-- 1 Kings 15

The apocalyptic Son Of Man and the King Of Israel are one and the same

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand . . .. 

 

 -- Matthew 25:31ff.

Ehud's Pointed Message From G-d Makes King Eglon Of Moab Shit His Pants And Die

Ehud walked over to Eglon, who was sitting alone in a cool upstairs room. And Ehud said, "I have a message from God for you!" As King Eglon rose from his seat, Ehud reached with his left hand, pulled out the dagger strapped to his right thigh, and plunged it into the king's belly. The dagger went so deep that the handle disappeared beneath the king's fat. So Ehud did not pull out the dagger, and the king's bowels emptied. Then Ehud closed and locked the doors of the room and escaped down the latrine. After Ehud was gone, the king's servants returned and found the doors to the upstairs room locked. They thought he might be using the latrine in the room, so they waited. But when the king didn't come out after a long delay, they became concerned and got a key. And when they opened the doors, they found their master dead on the floor. While the servants were waiting, Ehud escaped, passing the stone idols on his way to Seirah.

-- Judges 3:20ff.