Why we make kings

As the new King's coronation approaches, Ian Bradley explores the deep roots of kingship as an answer to anarchy and disorder.

Ian Bradley

Ian Bradley is Emeritus Professor of Cultural and Spiritual History at the University of St Andrews.

A medieval illustration of King David being anointed by Samuel

Samuel anoints David king. An early 14th century illumination from the Vaux Psalter.

Lambeth Palace Library.

At the most solemn moment of King Charles III’s coronation on 6 May, the Westminster Abbey choir will sing Handel’s thrilling setting of words from the first chapter of the first Book of Kings:

Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon king.

It provides a reminder that the anointing of the monarch with holy oil is carried out in direct imitation of a practice described in the Bible in connection with the inauguration of the kings of ancient Israel.

This is not the only link which the coronation will make with stories found in the Bible. Legend has it that the Stone of Destiny, on which Charles will be seated when he is crowned, started life as the pillow on which Jacob slept when he had a dream of the ladder leading up to heaven as described in Genesis. Jacob set the stone up as a pillar to commemorate the place where God had talked to him. Later stories identify it as the pillar beside which Abimelech was crowned king of Israel and King Josiah made his covenant with the Lord to keep his commandments and statutes.

The theme of monarchy looms large in the collection of books making up the Hebrew Bible which tells of God’s dealing with the chosen people of Israel and forms the Christian Old Testament. The word ‘king’ occurs 565 times and ‘kingdom’ 163 times. Six of the so-called historical books have the monarchy as their main subject matter, including the aptly named first and second books of Kings. The life of one particular king, David, occupies more space than that of any other figure, including the great patriarchs, Abraham and Moses.

By popular request

Kingship is presented in the early books of the Old Testament as both the popularly requested and the divinely appointed answer to the anarchy and disorder prevailing under the judges who ruled the people of Israel for the first two hundred and fifty years or so after their arrival in the promised land of Canaan around 1250 BCE. The Book of Judges emphasizes the corruption and lawlessness under this form of government, noting: ‘In those days there was no king in Israel: everyone did what was right in his eyes.’

The inauguration of the Israelite monarchy, which took place around 1020 BCE, is described in the Book of Samuel. A crucial role is played by Samuel, the last of the great judges who becomes the first king-maker and presides over the coronations of both Saul and David, the first two Israelite kings. Samuel is portrayed as prophet, seer and intermediary between Yahweh/God and the people, to whom the elders of Israel come asking for ‘a king to govern us like all the nations’. Samuel puts this request to Yahweh who is initially reluctant to accede to it and tells him to spell out to the people the dangers of kingship in terms of the accretion of private wealth and military might. These warnings are ignored, however, and the people continue to insist that they must have a king ‘to govern us and go out before us and fight our battles’. When Samuel reports this to God, he is told, ‘Hearken to their voice and make them a king’.

On king making

If there is a certain initial unease in God’s mind about the desirability of kingship, the institution is subsequently given divine blessing, with the king been seen as God’s chosen one – Messiah in Hebrew, or Christos in Greek. There is a sense of partnership between Yahweh and the chosen people of Israel in the making of kings. The emphasis is on a three way covenant between God, king and people. This concept of covenant is one of the most distinctive and central features of Israelite kingship, as is the idea that the monarch mediates and represents divine rule and stands for justice, fairness and truth.

During and after the long period of exile that followed the ‘Babylonian captivity’ of Israel in 597 BCE, Jews increasingly pinned their hopes on the future coming of a new Messiah, a king from the house of David, raised up by God to deliver Jerusalem from where he would reign, restoring and re-uniting Israel and bringing about a new world order of justice and righteousness, as looked forward to and promised in the Psalms and the writings of the prophets.

The theme of kingship, so fully explored in the Old Testament, continues to figure prominently in the New Testament, although its central focus is on the kingdom of God, inaugurated and proclaimed by Jesus, with its dethroning of the rich and powerful and exaltation of the humble and meek. All four of the Gospel writers use royal titles and monarchical allusions in their descriptions of Jesus. He is identified as the anointed king, the Messiah or Christos, leading his followers to be known as Christians. From his birth in Bethlehem in the house and family of King David, and his baptism where he is identified by God as his beloved Son, to his trial and crucifixion for being ‘King of the Jews’, the royal theme runs as a clear thread through his life and death.

Jesus himself redefines the concept of kingship. This is signalled most dramatically by his choice of a donkey on which to make his entry into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. He deliberately opts for an animal associated with humility, humiliation even, rather than a proud charger or stallion more fitting for a king on a triumphal progress. In washing his disciples’ feet on the first Maundy Thursday, he further shows that he is, in Graham Kendrick’s memorable words The Servant King displaying meekness as well as majesty. When Pontius Pilate repeatedly asks him whether he is indeed the King of the Jews, he gives the cryptic answer 'You have said so'. Jesus never repudiates the idea of kingship but gives it a wholly new meaning of humble servanthood which has been the inspiration for Christian monarchy ever since.

Article

Care

Culture

Mental Health

12 May 2025

3 min read

Separating mind and body still stigmatises mental health

Our minds and bodies are meant to be inseparable.

Rachael Newham

Rachael is an author and theology of mental health specialist.

Two bird sit on wires facing in opposite directions.

Eduardo Soares on Unsplash.

I recently had a somewhat surreal experience whilst trying to get two consultants to agree to some treatment I needed to have.

One was a cardiologist, the other a psychiatrist - both consultants, working in the same geographical area - and I found, to my surprise, that there was no recourse for my physical health records to be viewed by the psychiatrist and vice versa.

And as I went through the process of trying to mediate between these two professionals, it made me reflect that whilst in theory there is agreement that our minds and our bodies are one and that they cannot be treated wholly separately, the reality is something rather different.

Mental and physical health problems are, in fact, treated as entirely separate entities, with different trusts and funding models in place to deliver care and treatment for mental illness and physical illness.

Now, there is probably a bureaucratic reason for this, but I believe it uncovers a perhaps unconscious belief that our minds and bodies are distant relatives at best, and not only that, but our mental health is still the poorer relation - best ignored unless it’s particularly bothersome.

I think this separation sits at the heart of the stigma that mental health problems still face - a stigma that persists even in the mental health system. It has ancient roots. Go back to ancient Greece and its philosophers. They held to a doctrine where the body and soul were completely separate - our bodies are simply houses for our souls. In a way, the stigma that exists about mental health is the inverse of this- that our minds are less important than our physical bodies and that caring for mental health always comes second to caring for physical health.

Yet, also in those ancient times, the Bible's treatment of humanity shows that we are creations of mind, body, and soul—all equal, beloved, and cared for by God. In Mark’s gospel, we read that the command to love God and one another is multi-faceted: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” To love one another, then, means we need to care for one another’s mental health as well as physical health and strength, as we love with our minds and bodies.

In truth, we cannot care well for ourselves or one another without considering both our mental and physical health. To ignore the mental strain of physical illnesses like cancer, and ignore the physical pains that mental illnesses cause, such as their effects on digestion and blood pressure, is to ignore significant parts of people's suffering.

In the Old Testament of the Bible there is the story of Elijah, one of the great prophets who flees from a murderous ruler and, whilst spiritually and physically exhausted, begs God for death. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.”

These are words of desperation that echo those who struggle with their mental health, and God’s reply to Elijah’s pain is to meet him with an encounter with an angel who urges him to sleep and eat, comforting him with the words “the journey is too much for you”. There is no reprimand for Elijah’s suffering, simply comfort for a tortured mind and provision for an exhausted body.

The answer, then, is to treat ourselves and others as the embodied creations we are, with mind and body inseparable and interconnected in ways that even science cannot quite explain or articulate.

The answer is to trust in the embodied hope of Christ, who chose to save us through not only his bodily crucifixion and resurrection, but through experiencing the breadth and depth of human emotions so that we may never again feel alone in them.

Both our bodies and our minds matter to God, and we need to see that reflected in society, where we care not just for single ailments, but the whole person. We need not just an awareness of our minds, but an understanding of what it means to be mentally healthy, as well as a recognition of the horrors of mental illness. Only then, I believe, can we see a society which cares and serves those most in need not simply as isolated symptoms, but as valuable creations.