This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day."Why should we expect that the King Moshiach will be any different from his Davidic ancestors? With the exception of Josiah and Hezekiah, and maybe one or two others, all of the Jewish kings after Shlomo "did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord." All of them abused their power, and mistreated their subjects. Not one of them brought us any closer to God or any kind of fulfilment. They were weak. Unstable. Corrupt.
The solution, I think, is not a King Moshiach, but a president Moshiach, someone who, like the Rambam said, will be an ordinary human, but one without unchecked power. Unchecked power, see, always leads to ruin, and it's a poor student of history, indeed, who'd ever wish to bestow it again on a human being.
Crossposted at DovBear
Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael
The Rambam never sais that Moshiach will not have unchecked power - that's a definition of a king!
ReplyDeleteOr to put it better - yes, mashiach will have "checked" power - checked by the holy Torah. No, he can't just do whatever he feels like if it goes against the Torah, but yes, he CAN do things like judge without witnesses, kill without a trial, etc., things that a president cannot do but a king can!
The difference between machiach and the corrupt kings is that mashiach will be righteous like David Hamelech.
It even sais about mashiach that he "morach v'dain" - he will judge people using his sence of smell!!! And you want to limit him to a president!?
What you wrote reflects utter disbelief and lack of desire for true mashiach.
With the exception of Josiah and Hezekiah, and maybe one or two others, all of the Jewish kings after Shlomo "did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord."
ReplyDeleteNot only the ones after Shlomo. Shlomo himself also "did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord". See I Melakhim 11:6.
There will be no more corruption because there will be no more evil in the world. And so we don't have to worry about him being corrupt. Plus he will follow the torah which tells how to properly be a leader
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