istically “a God of Battles.” Compared with the Gods of the other nations He is a God of Peace. Yet He has been taken for a God of Battles, as well as for a God of Slavery, and His name has been invoked in unjust and fanatical wars.
To turn to politics. Monarchy of the Eastern sort is a barbarous form of government. Moses does not wish the Jews to adopt it: he wishes them to remain content with their free local government, the great men who would be raised up to them in time of need, their religious unity as a nation, and the monarchy of God. But all the nations around had kings, in whose hands the national strength was gathered for the purposes of war: and the people of Moses had known no political aspirations not to be abandoned without treason to their nobler nature; they had inherited no birthright of ordered freedom, the fruit of political effort through the past generations, not to be betrayed without treason to the future. There was nothing immoral in the institution, though it was better to remain without it. Therefore the lawgiver recognises it as one which might be, and was likely to be, adopted, and sets himself to guard against the evils which waited on monarchy in other Eastern nations. “When thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me; thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set
