3rd June 2022

What thoughts can I share on a royal Platinum Jubilee? I should be on safe ground quoting some words of scripture.

Moses had something to say about the king (or queen or prime minister or president, perhaps):

“When you come to the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ you may indeed set a king over you whom the LORD your God will choose…. [He] must not acquire many horses… [or] many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold… [He] shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law… and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law.” (Deuteronomy 17:14-20, ESV)

Samuel had something to say about kings, too:

“These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his [army] … some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war… He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and… give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take… the best of your young men… and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves.” (1 Samuel 8:11-18, ESV)

Ian Waddington