Deuteronomy 17:14-20

Of the King

When Israel elect to have a King like other nations, he must be chosen of God, an Israelite and no foreigner (Deuteronomy 17:14 f.). He must not multiply horses, wives nor silver and gold (Deuteronomy 17:16 f.). He shall write a copy of the Law and always study it, that he may fear God, with a heart not uplifted above his brethren, to the prolonging of his own and his children's days (Deuteronomy 17:18-20). Peculiar to D, and in the Sg address, except in Deuteronomy 17:16 bwhere unto youis due to the attraction of the Pl. in the quotation. The obvious references to Solomon and the echo of the prophet's protests against Egyptian alliances confirm the other evidence which D furnishes for a date under the later monarchy.

Some take the law as even later than the body of the Code, because, like Deuteronomy 31:9, it represents the whole Law as written and canonical. So e.g. Cornill Einl. 3 25 f. and Berth, who compares Deuteronomy 17:16 with Ezekiel 17:15 and considers Zedekiah's reign as probable a date therefore as the Exile. But it is difficult to conceive the original Code with no law of the King; and Deuteronomy 17:16 may well have been contained in the Law-Book discovered under Josiah. For the relation of this law to the two accounts of the institution of the Kingdom in 1 Sam. the older sympathetic (1 Samuel 9:1 to 1Sa 10:16, 1 Samuel 10:27 b, 1 Samuel 11:1-11; 1 Samuel 11:15; 1 Samuel 11:13-14), and the younger hostile (1 Samuel 7:2-17; 1 Samuel 7:8; 1 Samuel 10:17-22 a, 1 Samuel 10:12) to the monarchy see Driver's Deut.212 f. For the Babylonian ideals of a King see Prologue to the Code of Ḫammurabi and further Johns Bab. & Ass. Laws, etc., 192 f.