What the Davidic Kings Reveal About Mary

And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father. David, this is also why scripture is insistent in both Matthew and Luke’s gospel that Joseph also is of the line of David. This matters for the kingship of Christ. So what does this mean about the Deborah? Here’s what you should know. Number one, as we’ve already seen Jesus is a Davidic King. Number two is we’re going to see the mothers of Davidic Kings had this important role to play in their son’s royal authority. And number three, this therefore helps us to better understand both Jesus’s kingship and the role of King Jesus’s mother Mary. So let’s start with why the Deborah, the Queen mother, had a special role and I’m going to turn here to Ted Sri. He has an important kind of explanation for this, although I do think, and you’ll see why I’m going to say this, I actually think he doesn’t go quite far enough.

So one of the explanations he gives is that the importance of the monarch’s mother may seem strange to some modern readers, but you’ve got to recall that most ancient near Eastern, sometimes people call Middle Eastern. Ancient near Eastern kings practiced polygamy and had large harems. Although the king may have had many wives, he had only one mother and the queen ship was given to her. Now, I think that’s a good explanation, but I think as I say, it doesn’t go quite far enough. And the reason I say that is because of the work of Gary a Rensburg. He’s a professor of biblical studies, Hebrew language and ancient Judaism at Rutgers University. So one of the things he points out is that other cultures, the surrounding neighbors, the other near Eastern cultures that Ted Shree is talking about actually did have an important role to play by the Queen that was more important than the Grah.

And then Israel is actually really weird in this regard. So he points out that in places like Egypt, Hattie and Mari, and he gives particular examples of this, the queen, the king’s consort served as the chief royal female in the court. So you’ve got the male embodiment of royal authority is very clearly the king, the female embodiment of the royal court or the expression of royalty is his wife the queen. Now to be sure the Deborah in those cultures, the mother of the king also played an important role. So for instance, in Assyria, she’s in charge of the king’s harem of wives. She’s got to keep all the wives straight and sort out all of that. But we don’t find that situation when we look at Israel. Before I get there, remember, so the queen mother, although she’s important, is still not the chief royal woman in the court. That’s the way he puts it. I think that’s a helpful way of you put it in. Who’s the chief royal woman in the court?

In those other cultures, it’s the king’s wife in Judah. It’s very clearly the Grah, which he says is best translated is royal lady. The queen mother is the best functional equivalent. So if you want to know what it literally means, it means something like royal lady. If you want to know what it’s referring to, it’s referring to the mother of the king. So the title of this article, which I purposely didn’t mention until just now, is no Stella, no Queens. Two issues concerning the Kings of Israel and Judah. So he’s looking at both the period of Saul and David and Solomon, but then he’s also looking at the divided kingdom after that when the kingdom split between the 10 northern tribes and the two southern tribes. And one of the weird things that he finds is that the word queen is never applied to a royal woman in the court of either Israel or Judah.

I want to stress that there’s a Hebrew word for queen and it is used to describe for instance, the Queen of Sheba or Queen Esther when she’s married to the King of Persia. It is not used to describe any of the wives of the kings of Israel or of the Northern kingdom or of the Southern kingdom. That is really bizarre. He says, as is well known, I did not know that, and I find that really fascinating, he says is even true when you look at people like Jezebel and Atalaya, who are these really important women? They’re still not described as queen. So think about Ahab and Jezebel, Jezebel’s calling the shots and is still not described as the queen. So what is going on? He stresses that this isn’t just true of one or two things. You could imagine, oh, this guy, his wife’s never mentioned as the queen, but we still know she’s the queen.

But no, it’s not like that. He says never in any of the very detailed material we have concerning Saul, David, Solomon, and the dozens of kings of Israel, that’s the northern what later becomes called Samaria and Judah, that’s the two southern tribes. We never find any of those wives of the kings described as queen. He describes this as a significant difference between Israel and her neighbors. That Israel is not just following ancient near eastern practice in Israel. The position of queen does not exist and the wife of the reigning king plays no public role in the realm. Another way of saying that would be queenship in the context of Israel. And Judah isn’t the king’s wife, it’s the mother, but it’s not queenship as we would understand it. And so the word queen is not used to describe the king’s wives.

In contrast then who is the dominant royal woman for the entire history of the kingdom of Judah, it’s consistently the Gura, the king’s mom. And we see this very clearly beginning with Bathsheba who we’re going to get into in a little bit, but we also find this in dozens of other places and the numerous succession notices of the Judy Kings, we find the name of the mother of the king with no reference to the wife of the king. So you have all these times where it’ll say, so-and-so was king, and so-and-so was his mother, not so-and-so was king. And so-and-so was queen like you might imagine. So you can find this in plenty of other places as well. I want to give you just a couple examples. One that points to this as pretty important for understanding royal authority is the prophecy in Jeremiah 13 where God says to the king and the queen mother say to the king and the gre, take a lowly seat for your beautiful crown has come down from your head.

So the expression of the crown applies to the king and his mother. Remember that that important detail is going to matter later for how we interpret something in the New Testament, but just bear that point in mind. But second, to get a better sense of what this word Gabriel or G means, even what refers to this kind of office of the Queen mother, it means as you’ve heard, royal lady or great lady. And so in Isaiah 47 we see it used in that context kind of metaphorically. The Chaldeans thought they would just perpetually rule. And the way God describes that is he says, sit in silence and go into the darkness. So daughter of the Chaldeans for you shall no more be called the mistress gah of kingdoms. So mistress there doesn’t mean like the king’s concubine mistress. There is the female form of master and then later on about their pretenses of perpetual royal authority, he says, you said, I shall be gah forever.

So Deborah is clearly this loaded term filled with royal importance and authority. So why does that matter? Well, for one, it’s just better for understanding the Old Testament, but I would suggest and when it comes to Jesus and Mary, it tells us three important things. Number one, it tells us something of course about Mary’s because again, if your understanding is that in the Bible you have the king and queen, it’s the king and his wife the queen. Well that’s mistaken that the king and queen is the king and the Gabriel, the mother of the king. It’s not a marital relationship, it’s something frankly far stranger. So when you’re looking at places like Revelation 12 where you see a woman clothed with the sun, this is a vision John is having and she’s got the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of 12 stars.

So it’s a woman with a crown just like we saw in Jeremiah 13 with this crown representing royal authority. And this woman gives birth to a king, a male child, one who’s to rule all the nations with the rod of iron. Well, that looks very much like Solomon and Bathsheba and that looks very much like Jesus and Mary. It’s depicting a king one who was to rule the nations with the rod of iron, which by the way is a messianic psalm about Jesus and then is describing this queen who isn’t his wife, but is his mother. Now because this is an image, I don’t think you need to discount or not consider the fact it could also mean Israel, it could also mean the church, but it would be a startling kind of oversight to not realize that this is about the literal king Jesus and his literal mother Mary.

So that’s the first thing I think it helps us to understand when you read Revelation 12 through a Jewish lens where the grah is really important, then it’s like, oh yeah, of course this is about Mary. Second, I think it reveals something about the way Mary’s intercession works. And here I want to go back to Bathsheba. I said we were going to get back to her. I also want to get back to Ted Sri because he points out that this is one of the clearest ways we see the queen mother’s royal authority being exercised. One kings one to one kings chapter two and one kings chapter one, Bathsheba is just one of the many wives of King David who is now aged in First Kings chapter two. She is the one and only mother of King Solomon. So we’re going to see how she approaches in both cases dealing with the same problem child first to her husband and then to her son.

So the problem child by the way, is this is not Bathsheba’s son, this is her stepson. This is King David’s son with one of the other women. And because Aja is actually older than Solomon, he tries to present himself as king when it becomes clear that David is dying. Bathsheba Interceed. Now Bathsheba, just so you know this because people often present her just as a victim of circumstance, Bathsheba is incredibly shrewd. She knows what she’s doing in all of the places that we see her, and she always seems to come out on top. And so you actually see in one Kings one she plots with Nathan the prophet about how they’re going to just kind of bump into King David at the same time without making it clear that they both are conspiring together. Fascinating royal politics. I’m going to leave all that aside except to say that if you’re just imagining Bathsheba as a victim of circumstance, you’re not understanding her role in any of this.

So in one Kings one, she goes to present herself to King David, and when she does, she bows and does obedience to the king, which makes sense. This is the king. This is kind of what you expect even from his wife. And remember, she doesn’t have the role of Queen that you’re going to find in the surrounding nation. So she’s not just ruling with him, she’s not sitting up there in her throne next to him. There’s nothing like that. And so she goes and she makes her ENT treaty and she helps to make sure that he makes it very clear that Solomon and not ad nija is the true king to follow him. So flash forward, she’s successful, Solomon becomes king, and now it’s one Kings chapter two. And Aade NIH is still trying to present himself in a pretty kingly way and is still trying to accrue power.

And she intercedes again ostensibly on his behalf, although what she actually does is rats him out in a way that gets him killed again. She knows what she’s doing. But in First Kings two, now David has died and Solomon Bathsheba’s son is now on the throne. And so she is the Deborah, she’s the queen mother, and now she’s going to go in again ostensibly on Aden’s behalf and we’re going to see something really weird. As Ted Shree explains, the narrative tells not a Bathsheba bowing before the king, but of King Solomon rising and bowing down before her. Then Solomon has a throne brought in for her symbolizing her royal status. Even more striking is a place where Solomon places bathsheba’s royal seat at his right hand. Biblically, of course this is of great significance because the right is a position of authority and honor, and he quotes Tim Gray who says nowhere else in the Bible does the king honor someone as Solomon does the G.

So that’s kind of the background you need to know, and you’re going to find that directly in one Kings chapter two in verse 20. We see Bathsheba goes into King Solomon to speak to him on behalf of that Anh. Again, I think she’s not just speaking on his behalf, she’s actually announcing to Solomon that ADH is plotting against him, but in this very Bathsheba kind of way, but we’re going to leave that aside. That’s not the important part. The important part is this, when she comes in, king Solomon rose to meet her and bowed down to her. Then he sat on his throne and had a seat brought for the king’s mother and she sat on his right. There is not a queen who is presented in this way. We don’t find any of the kings of Israel bowing down to their wives, the Queen.

We don’t even find them sitting at the right to coru or anything like that. There’s nothing like that, nothing that would give that impression at all. Rather, the one Solomon bows down to is his mother and the one he creates a throne for and puts it his right hand is his mother. And then here’s where the intercession part becomes very important. She uses this sherry and royal authority, which remember, look, she doesn’t possess royal authority by her own right? She is not a Davidic queen. There’s nothing like that. She’s not davidic by birth, Davidic by marriage and by motherhood and by motherhood. Here she’s connected to the truly Davidic king, but his kingship comes from his father’s side. Does this sound like Jesus? It should sound like Jesus and her relationship now is a maternal one, not one of a royal nature. Like Christ has royal nature.

Solomon has a royal nature. He is davidic by blood and by birth. Bathsheba does not, but she still has a throne because of her maternal relationship to the king. And she uses this role for intercession one Kings two 20. She says, I have one small request to make of you. Do not refuse me. And what does the king say to her? Solomon says, make your request my mother for I will not refuse you. No one sees that and says, well, I guess Solomon was a weak and pathetic king. No, if you think that you don’t understand the way Davidic kingship works, likewise, if Jesus says this to Mary and you say, well, I guess that means he’s not sovereign. You don’t understand how his kingship works. The role of intercession here is really important because the king has the power to call all of the shots.

The queen is not usurping that the queen is relying upon that. The queen mother, I should say, is relying upon that. That’s what’s happening here. She is not queen by nature. She’s queen mother by maternity. And that queen mother by maternity gives her this unique role in an intercessory sort of way. Does that tell us something about Jesus and marrying their relationship? I think it does. Does this explain why Catholics love praying and asking Mary to pray for us? I think it does, and it’s deeply Jewish. It’s deeply, and therefore it’s deeply Christian. Third point, I think this reveals something special about Mary’s relationship to Christ because I’m sensitive here to the fact I know there are people who think one of two things. Number one, oh, this looks too much like goddess worship. And number two related to that, this looks like she’s usurping the royal authority of Christ.

I think I answered the usurping, the royal authority. That’s not usurping, that’s relying upon the royal authority that Sheba is not undermining Solomon. She’s relying on his kingship, likewise with Mary’s intercession. But I want to focus on the idea that this looks too much like goddess worship or something like this. Because here, remember what I said, I think Ted Tree doesn’t go quite far enough. Gary Rittenberg, who I don’t even believe is Christian, I may be mistaken about this, but I believe he’s Jewish. He does go further. He recognizes Israel is weird compared to its neighbors, the other neighbors, they have an important role of the G, but also for the Queen. Israel doesn’t have a queen, just a queen. Mother Queenship is only the mom, not the wife of the king. He wants to know why. And he says, I don’t see a lot of stuff explaining why.

And he suggests what I think is a pretty convincing, thoughtful kind of answer. That in those neighbors of Israel, they believe in a bunch of different gods and there’s a chief God and that chief God typically has what’s called the consort wife. It’s a goddess who’s like the number one wife. He may have a number of wives. And so the king and queen in these cultures typically had important religious responsibilities. Most importantly, they served as earthly representatives of the chief God and the chief goddess. And so the king and queen would remind people of these pagan gods and goddesses they were intended to in Israel. By contrast, the whole system is set up seemingly to make sure that doesn’t happen. One of the ways it’s set up that way is that the priestly line and the kingly line are very clearly different lines. This isn’t separation of church and state, but it is something very different from having just a God king.

So the priestly line is the tribe of Levi. The kingly line is the tribe of Judah, and never the twain shall meet. So the kings are not priests, and the priests are not kings. Now, ultimately Jesus will come along and he will be both priest, prophet and king. But before we get to Jesus, the line is set up in such a way that you’re not going to be inclined to worship the king as God, but more than that, you’re still likely to see him in some way as God’s representative or agent on earth. And there’s a healthy and an unhealthy way of viewing that, right? You can imagine that going too far into something like idolatry. There’s also a role in which the king really is serving with divine authority. So Berg says there’s an inherent danger in elevating the wife of the king to the level of official consort.

If you have King Solomon, and let’s imagine he just had one wife instead of a bunch, if you just imagine Solomon and his one wife that would suggest to people aha, the high God and his consort wife. So the danger there isn’t just that you start ascribing divinity to the king, but also that you start imagining that God is like a king with a consort wife. In other words, the problem is not just idolatry. The problem also becomes polytheism. That one of the things that’s happening throughout all of the Old Testament is making sure that you don’t think that there are a bunch of different gods, that there’s just the one God. And so Rensburg says, the official religion of ancient Israel viewed Yahweh alone as the ruler of the universe with no attendant deities, and most importantly no consort. So where am I going with that?

If the queen of heaven was Jesus’s wife, if Jesus had gotten married, a lot of us don’t even think about why did Jesus never get married? One reason is because it would threaten the idea of monotheism. Christ has a bride, but it’s the church, and the church is the fullness of him who fills everything in. This is Ephesians one. So we talk about the church as the body and bride of Christ is a continuation of Christ in some important respect. If it had been a human woman who was just named like This is Jesus’s bride, we would be tempted to view her as divine as he is the two become one, et cetera. But instead, the fact that the queen of heaven by birth, by nature, by blood, but is instead sharing in royal authority by maternity because it’s his mother and not his wife, this not only isn’t idolatry, this is one of the ways that God is preventing us from falling into idolatry.

So there’s much more that could be said on that. I just want to kind of tee that topic up. That third point is obviously a little more speculative than the first two, but I think there’s something important here. When you look at this weird role Israel has, where it’s the king and his mother and you say, that looks really strange even compared to Israel’s neighbors. I think the clearest answer to that is that God is revealing something, number one about monotheism. And number two, by extinction is preparing us for Jesus Christ and his mother, the Virgin Mary that this mother son pairing you see throughout the Old Testament is doing something to prepare us for someone. Final thing, over on Patreon, shameless joe.com, I actually was prompted to do this topic. I had a new patron ask me for resources on the Deborah as Queen mother, and specifically asked if I would get them from non-Catholic sources.

And this is one of the things I most love about Patreon. I get to do weekly q and a with everyone who contributes. And a lot of times those interesting topics become episodes and one of the many ways that I try to make sure that I’m making things you care about and want to learn more about. So is that a subtle encouragement for you to go over to shameless joe.com and join Patreon? No, I don’t think that was subtle at all. Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful day. I look forward to being back here in two days time on a totally different topic for Shameless Popery; I’m Joe Heschmeyer. God bless you.