THEOCRACY thē ŏk’ rə sĭ (θεοκρατία, from θεός, G2536, God, and κρατέω, G3195, to rule, rule of God.

The term is distinguished from democracy, which places the ultimate power of the government in the hands of all the people; from hierocracy, the rule of the priests which relegates to a religious class unique insight into the will of God; and from monarchy, which has a human king to rule over a nation. The word does not appear in the Bible and seems to have been invented by Josephus. He uses the word to describe the unique character of the Heb. government as revealed to Moses, and as compared to other forms of government. He says, “Our legislator...ordained to be what, by a strained expression, may be termed a theocracy, by ascribing the authority and the power to God” (Against Apion, II, 165).

However, the idea is much older than the origin of the word as Josephus suggests in his statement. It goes back to the OT and to the time of Moses (Exod 19:4-9; Deut 33:4, 5). At the heart of the idea is Israel’s unique relation to God as His peculiar people. It is the Covenant which binds Israel to God in this relationship (Exod 19 and 20), and constitutes Israel “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod 19:6). God claimed Israel for Himself by redeeming this people from Egyp. bondage. The great redemptive acts at the time of the Exodus and in the course of the wilderness wanderings declare God as the eternal Ruler (Exod 15:18). Moses was merely the man of God communicating God’s will to the people.

Gideon refused to accept the crown because he believed that God alone should rule over Israel (Judg 8:22, 23). In the period preceding the coming of the monarchy prophets, priests, and judges were the means of expressing the theocracy. In Israel’s war against Sisera, the prophetess Deborah and the judge Barak are said to be the agents of God’s deliverance (4:4-7). The priests frequently appear as the messengers of God’s will (20:28; 1 Sam 14:41). An institutionalized theocracy appears with the coming of the kingship in Israel.

When the children of Israel demanded a king like the other nations, it was regarded as tantamount to the rejection of God (1 Sam 8:7). But after the kingship was established through Samuel the king was the symbol of God’s theocratic reign. He was not a king in the usual sense of the term, but in the proper theological context he was the Lord’s anointed (Ps 2:2; 20:6). and the prince of the Lord (1 Sam 10:1; 2 Sam 5:2). During the period of the monarchy God is conceived as going before the king (2 Sam 5:24). The king is seated on God’s throne (1 Chron 29:23; cf. 28:5). The real Ruler is God and the authority of the Throne of David is derived from Him. The theocratic nature of the kingship in Israel is indicated sometimes by the prerogative of the prophet to dethrone the king; e.g., the importance of Samuel in the establishment of the kingship (1 Sam 15:26; 16:1, 2; cf. 1 Kings 11:29-31; 14:10; 16:1, 2; 21:21). It is significant that there are no stereotyped criteria by which a prophet may be usually recognized or confirmed. Only the presence of the indefinable Spirit of God reveals the difference between a true or false prophet.

The coming of the kingship in Israel is the organization of the theocratic kingdom under a human ruler. In prophetism theocracy finds perhaps its clearest expression (Jer 1:1, 2; cf. Isa 7:7). The Messianic visions of the prophets are organically interwoven into the course of the history of the kings of Judah and the ultimate restoration of the kingdom in the dynasty of David. The kingdom is in its essence and intent an instrument of redemption to which Israel’s Messianic expectations are inseparably related. In its Messianic significance the throne of David stands at the center of Biblical theology with its acknowledgment of God as the eventual Ruler over the whole earth. In the progressive revelation of Biblical eschatology the theocratic conception of the Davidic kingdom supplied the pattern of the ideas concerning the coming of the kingdom of God. Through the restoration of the throne of David God was to accomplish Israel’s final redemption. But this event in history was to introduce the age of eternal peace and righteousness under the universal reign of the Son of David.

In the theocracy of Israel there is no room for secularism. Down to their minutest details all political, legal, and social regulations are essentially theological. They were the direct and supreme expression of the will of God. Even the detection of criminals and their punishment are the immediate concern of God (Lev 20:3, 5, 6, 20; 24:12; Num 5:12, 13; Josh 6:16).