Davidic dynasty

“ The God who works in unbroken time cycles, though men remit their tasks at the beck of sleep or death, pushes forth His forceful, faultless projects with a tireless consistency that knows no cross purposes. A real and present kingdom is that with which this Pentecost we have to do. We are not, at that time when they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah and spread them before the sun. David’s throne is a verity, though long incrusted with neglects; it is a symbol of power in a dynasty that is ordained to overspread the earth. ”

“ King Dagobert, weak, swayed by whatever influence was nearest, and voluptuous rather than cruel, died in 638, before he had time to do much evil. He was the last of the Merovingian line who exercised any actual power. The dynasty existed for a century longer, but its monarchs were merely puppets in the hands of stronger men. Its history, from the beginning, is well illustrated by a tradition current among the people, concerning the mother of Chlodwig. ”

“ Thus was accomplished the downfall of the House of David, and with it the Hebrew kingdom which it had been at such pains to build up. When we consider the character of the two kings who formed its sole dynasty, we cannot refrain from thinking that it deserved a better fate. David and Solomon exhibited that curious mixture of virtues and vices which distinguished most of the great Semite princes. The former, a soldier of fortune and an adventurous hero, represents the regular type of the founder of a dynasty ”

“ Thank God that the right of the British Sovereign to his illustrious throne rests on a firmer basis than the fictitious genealogies made out by Anglo-Israelites.
IV. The same Scriptures, which speak of the perpetuity of the Davidic seed and throne, speak also of the unceasing continuance of the priesthood. "Thus saith Jehovah, David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the House of Israel; neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before Me to offer burnt-offerings and to burn oblations, and to do sacrifice continually.... ”

“ So long as the wars of independence occupied the Palestinian Jews, and the Hasmonaean sovereignty promised a measure of independence and felicity under the law, the hope that connected itself with the House of David was not likely to rise to fresh life, especially as a considerable proportion of the not very numerous passages of Scripture which speak of the ideal king might with a little straining be applied to the rising star of the new dynasty (cf. 1 Macc. xiv. 4–15) . ”

“ But though he retained the right of deciding in the last instance, David seems to have appointed the princes and judges of the tribes; he charged certain of his adherents with the duty of giving justice to the tribes and communities, although, of course, every man had the right of appeal from his decision to the decision of the king. Jurisdiction and administration not yet being separated, we may suppose that a regular government, which secured to the throne the execution of its will and of the orders given, was established by this means already in David's reign. ”

“ King and kingdom were so bound up in ancient life that an ideal for the one implied an ideal for the other; all distinction and glory possessed by either was shared by both. The tribe and kingdom of Judah were exalted by the fame of David and Solomon; but, on the other hand, a specially exalted position is accorded to David in the Old Testament because he is the representative of the people of Jehovah. David himself had been anointed by Divine command to be king of Israel, and he thus became the founder of the only legitimate dynasty of Hebrew kings. ”

“ Diocletian appreciated this disadvantage himself, and remarked that the sovereign, shut up in his palace, cannot know the truth, but must rely on what his attendants and officers tell him. We may also remark that absolute monarchy, by its very nature, tends in this direction; for absolute monarchy naturally tends to a dynasty, and a dynasty implies that there must sooner or later come to the throne weak men, inexperienced in public affairs, reared up in an atmosphere of flattery and illusion, easily guided by intriguing chamberlains and eunuchs. ”

“ The assemblies met and proclaimed as imperatively necessary to the future welfare of the provinces, their union, ‘for no frontier divides us, and everything tends to bring us closer, and nothing to separate us, save the ill-will of those who desire to see us disunited and weak’; further, a foreign hereditary dynasty, because ‘the accession to the throne of princes chosen from amongst us has been a constant pretext for foreign interference, and the throne has been the cause of unending feud among the great families of this country’. ”

“ When an oriental crown passes from one dynasty to another, however foreign and unconnected, the natives are wont to invent a relationship between the two houses, which both parties are commonly quite ready to accept; as it suits the rising house to be provided with a royal ancestry, and it pleases the fallen one and its partisans to see in the occupants of the throne a branch of the ancient stock—a continuation of the legitimate family. ”

“ Hence, when Brian fell, and his heir with him, and his heir's heir, the projected Dalgais dynasty, like the Royal Oak at Adair, was cut down and its very roots destroyed. For a new dynasty to be left suddenly without indisputable heirs is ruinous to its pretensions and partizans. And in this the event of the battle proved destructive to the Celtic Constitution. Not from the Anglo-Norman invasion, but from the day of Clontarf we may date the ruin of the old electoral monarchy. The spell of ancient authority was effectually broken and a new one was to be established. ”

“ Preparations for so momentous a stroke should be made long beforehand, and men's minds must be made up and ready to second them. Now, do you believe that the people have accustomed themselves in advance, so to speak, to the idea of a change of dynasty?"
"They are accustomed to it," said Gabriel.
"I doubt it," returned the duke. "I have commanded armies, have defended Metz and taken Calais, and have twice been lieutenant-general of the kingdom; but all that is not sufficient. I have not yet come near enough to royal power. ”

“ But when thou comest to thy crown and throne thou needest not got forth alone upon thy birth-night, but send out thy gifts with love and plenty."
"I know not, my mother."
"But all will be thine? What said the angel: 'The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David; and of his kingdom there shall be no end!' It may be soon, we know not, for lo! King David was but a boy, and at his daily toil, when he was called to reign over the house of Jacob. Forget not, thou art born the King." ”

“ Hajjaj choked the young life in its own blood, and the Abbaside dynasty, with kingly patriotism, sold the dearly-bought conquests of the nation, first to the Persians, and then to Turkish slaves, with the view of procuring an imaginary security for their throne. ”

“ Such was the political education of this queen, who saw in the cabinet of the king of France the same errors committed as in the house of the Medici. The dauphin opposed his father in everything; he was a bad son. He forgot the cruel but most vital maxim of royalty, namely, that thrones need solidarity; and that a son who creates opposition during the lifetime of his father must follow that father’s policy when he mounts the throne. ”

“ Here we have on the one hand the imperial succession described as an element [Pg 213] of the political life of the Osmanlis—on the other as an appointment over which they have no power; and obviously it is from its very nature independent of them. It is a form of life external to the community it vivifies.
Probably it was the wonderful continuity of so many great Sultans in their early ages, which wrought in their minds the idea of a divine mission as the attribute of the dynasty ”

“ But it was not towards Poland, his ally, that it was directed, nor towards France, where he would be still received as the head of a rising dynasty, and the Emperor of the West. His words on taking up his sword on this occasion, were "I have sufficiently acted the emperor; it is time that I should become the general." He turned back into the midst of eighty thousand enemies, plunged into the thickest of them, in order to draw all their efforts against himself, to make a diversion in favour of Davoust and Ney, and to tear them from a country, the gates of which had been closed upon them. ”

“ The king was proud of his son, the heir to his throne. But, alas! it seemed that it was not enough, even for a negro prince, to know how to shoot an elephant through the eye; he must also learn to read books and writing, for, said the wise king to his son, “White man always has paper in his pocket to cheat black man with.” Of course some European might have been found in Dahomey who could instruct the prince,—for French and English flags floated over the ships in the harbors. But the king had himself been sent by his father to a town called Marseilles, very far at the end of the world ”

“ If they keep the Sabbath holy, the glory of the dynasty of David and the prosperity of the people will acquire permanence, and Jerusalem remain continually inhabited, and the people at large will bring thank-offerings to the Lord in His temple. Hitz., Graf, and Näg. take objection to the collocation: kings and princes (Jer 2:25) , because princes do not sit on the throne of David, nor can they have other "princes" dependent on them, as we must assume from the "they and their princes." ”

“ David obtained the allegiance of the Israelites in favour of his dynasty, and his son Solomon ratified it in favour of his posterity; but at the death of this king, who had oppressed his subjects by exactions and contributions to support the splendour of his court and the luxury and sumptuousness of his pleasures, then the tribes of Judah and Benjamin alone acknowledged his son, and the other ten, availing themselves of their rights, recovered their political independence, and in excuse thereof deposited their sovereignty in Jereboam, the son of Nabath. ”

“ So it seems that the dynasty, which more than half a century later succeeded in throwing off the Assyrian yoke and founded the Median empire, was derived from this Dāyukku, and that his name was thus introduced into the Median traditions, which contrary to history considered him as founder of the kingdom. ”

“ Is not the mere fact of the overthrow of one dynasty and the setting up of a new at the will of the citizens, an immense step forward? The divine prestige of the royalty will have received a death-blow. The power of choosing a sovereign implies the right to depose him. And, finally, let us not lose sight of this, always supposing that Charles the Wicked succeeds in the war: Gaul will be delivered of the English; after that, whatever may happen, the nobility will preserve the memory of the formidable insurrection of the Jacques ”

“ He had given them a consciousness of power yet undeveloped; a sense of the unity of their national life perpetuated by the possession of a capital which has been famous to all succeeding ages. To David the nation owed the conquest of the stronghold of Jebus, and they would feel that "as the hills stand about Jerusalem so standeth the Lord round about them that fear Him." [61] The king who associates his name with a national capital—as Nebuchadnezzar built great Babylon, or Constantine chose Byzantium—secures the strongest claim to immortality. ”

“ It seemed intolerable to this prince in the zenith of glorious life that he should be kept out of his royal inheritance by one whom he described as a useless [Pg 79] dotard. By his personal fascination, and by base intrigues against David, founded on the king's imperfect fulfilment of his duties as judge, "he stole the hearts of the children of Israel." After four years [71] everything was ripe for revolt. He found that for some unexplained reason the tribe of Judah and the old capital of Hebron were disaffected to David's rule. ”

“ Similarly, every person has two inclinations, for everything descends from the power of the Davidic monarchy. Yet, there are those who are entirely good, but there is some power of the kelipah (husk) in them, as the body is built with it, as we explained above. ”

“ But it is uniformly insisted by the statesmen—potentates, notables, kings and mandarins—that this aegis of the national prowess in their hands covers also many interests of a more substantial and more tangible kind. These other, more tangible interests of the community have also a value of a direct and personal sort to the dynasty and its hierarchy of privileged subalterns, in that it is only by use of the material forces of the nation that the dynastic prestige can be advanced and maintained. ”

“ On David’s death he returned and ruled over Edom, thus not merely controlling the port of Elath and the trade-routes, but even (according to the Septuagint) oppressing Israel (xi. 14-22, 25, see Septuagint on v. 22) . [5] Moreover, an Aramaean dependant of Hadadezer, king of Zobah, to the north of Palestine (see David's war, 2 Sam. viii. 3 sqq., x. 6 sqq.) , deserted his lord, raised a band of followers and eventually captured Damascus, where he established a new dynasty. Like Hadad, " he was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon " (xi. 23–25) . ”

“ The Imperial dynasty has no other ground to stand on, and can not give up the enterprise so long as it can muster force for any formidable diversion, to get anything in the way of dominion by seizure, threat or chicane. ”