Verse 4

VER. 4.

They have set up Kings, but not by me: they have made Princes, and I knew it not.

HERE we have their civil apostasy, the other was a moral apostasy; they have set up their Kings, but not by me. Though all government is to hold on God, yet we are to know that God had an especial hand in the government of the people of the Jews. It was as Lapide upon the place calls it, a spiritual, and a kind of divine Kingdom; it was not merely civil, the government that God set over them was typical, it was to typify the government of Christ. And hence we are to take this caution, we may easily be led aside into many mistakes and errors if we argue thus, that because the Kings of Israel and Judah did thus and thus, therefore it is in the power of any King at these times to do so; for certainly there was a mighty deal of difference between the government then, even the government in that State, and the government now: for State and Church was mixed together, and the government then it was typical, it was to typify the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, therefore though God leaves people, leaves States now to their liberty to set up what government may be best for them, yet it was not permitted to the Jews, they were to have only that government that God should reveal from Heaven, for their civil State: therefore when they would change the form of their government first from Judges to Kings, God said, they had rejected him in casting off that.