Our Horse for a King

I am reading several Psalms in my devotions that are heavily themed with God's majesty and royalty. It made me think of a statement I read recently that among King James' motivations for providing a new translation of the scriptures 400 years ago was the intention to reinforce the authority of the monarchy. I don't know what word choices or interpretations reflect that, but it caused me to consider the disconnect between how some passages are understood differently read in a democratic society, as opposed to under monarchical or dictatorial rule. What do we miss and misunderstand by not living under the same kind of government the KJV was specifically meant to shore up?

My readings this morning also reminded me of God's reluctance to let Israel have a king in the first place. They pleaded like a six-year-old child: "but everyone else has one!!". God warned them that a king would draft their young men into armies and appropriate their property in taxes, which results the scriptures dutifully record. But other than the bureaucratic, militaristic and economic burdens in His warnings, God did not warn them of one consequence. They would no longer view Him as they did before. Having a king would diminish their relationship with Him.

Stories in the Old Testament, before the time of the kings, concentrate on patriarchs and prophets. But in those stories, God also came to the people in personal visitations and close encounters (Immanuel - God with us). Even in the exodus from Egypt, God made Himself known in a pillar of fire or leading cloud that all the people could see. For all the thundering and roar of Sinai, people witnessed God's presence directly. Not that it always made that much of a difference to them.

In God's plea with His people to forgo a king, might there have been a grieving plea not to interpose a figurehead between Himself and them? Like a wise father who sees his child run off to join the me-too of his generation, did God not restrain Himself from lamenting the mutual loss that would come from inserting a government between Himself and Israel? When a king became the only leader Israel would follow, did then the Messiah not have to be prophesied to be a king among his other identities? And did not the anticipation of a kingly messiah not obscure the arrival of an unlikely messiah in the actual incarnation.

Immanuel did come near again, disguised, but Himself nonetheless. But what did we miss in the distraction of demanding a king?