Deuteronomy 17:15-17
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
15 you may indeed set over you a king whom the Lord, your God, will choose.(A) Someone from among your own kindred you may set over you as king; you may not set over you a foreigner, who is no kin of yours. 16 [a]But he shall not have a great number of horses; nor shall he make his people go back again to Egypt to acquire many horses, for the Lord said to you, Do not go back that way again.(B) 17 Neither shall he have a great number of wives, lest his heart turn away,(C) nor shall he accumulate a vast amount of silver and gold.
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- 17:16–17 This restriction on royal acquisitions may have in mind the excesses of Solomon’s reign mentioned in 1 Kgs 10:1–11:6. Horses: chariotry for war. Egypt engaged in horse trading, and the danger envisioned here is that some king might make Israel a vassal of Egypt for military aid.
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