Verse 14
THE CHOICE OF A KING, AND RULES FOR HIS CONDUCT, Deuteronomy 17:14-20.
14. I will set a king over me Moses does not direct nor advise the people to have a king for their ruler. He foresees that they will act as the nations around them, and will decide to set a king over them. Some directions, then, both as to the choice of a supreme ruler and as to his conduct, would seem most appropriate in these last words of the great leader and lawgiver. It is not improbable that at times during the forty years’ wandering the people longed for a king to lead their armies, and to be the head of the nation. Moses sees that in the future that desire will become still more imperious. He seeks to control it to keep it within proper bounds. That Moses “should have anticipated the rise of the kingdom, and spoken accordingly that he should speak of these things with prophetic certainty can only be a stumbling-block to those who deny the possibility of a divine revelation of the future.” CURTISS’S Levitical Priests, p. 152.
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