There are portions of Scripture which one may read quietly in the morning with a cup of tea, underline reverently, meditate upon, close the Bible and proceed peacefully with the day. Then there is Judges 9. Judges 9 is dangerous material to read when a country is approaching an election because somewhere around verse 14 the reader may suddenly cease seeing ancient Shechem and begin seeing campaign posters, convoys, microphones, dark glasses, security details, defectors, coalition principals and vegetation behaving suspiciously like politicians. Jotham, standing upon Mount Gerizim, tells a political parable of such devastating accuracy that one almost wonders whether the trees had already invented electoral democracy. "The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them" (Judges 9:8), and immediately the imagination supplies the convention: the mighty cedars of Lebanon occupying the front row with enormous shoulders spread across several seats, looking like gentlemen whose arrival has already caused traffic diversions; palms standing elegantly behind them, tall, immaculate and faintly aloof; oaks broad-chested and solemn, carrying themselves like fellows who have chaired parliamentary committees since the invention of timber; shrubs everywhere because shrubs, like political activists, somehow acquire accreditation to every important gathering; grasses waving enthusiastically at the back despite having only the vaguest idea what the meeting is about; birds occupying the press gallery and chirping breaking news before anybody has actually said anything; monkeys mysteriously established in the VIP enclosure and already interfering with the refreshments; and somewhere beyond the perimeter, tangled beside a dusty footpath, scratching passing goats and collecting pieces of windblown polythene on his thorns, sits the bramble, outwardly insignificant but inwardly nursing the magnificent conviction that the only thing standing between the forest and unprecedented prosperity is the forest's inexplicable failure to make him king.
The delegation first approaches the olive tree, and one can almost see the distinguished old gentleman standing there in his silver-green foliage, branches heavy with fruit, complexion polished with oil, calm in the manner of somebody whose usefulness was established long before most members of the delegation germinated. This is not a tree suffering from an identity crisis. He produces oil for food, light, medicine and sacred use; Judges 9:9 itself speaks of his fatness "wherewith by me they honour God and man," and consequently when the delegation solemnly informs him that the forest would like him to abandon productive life and begin waving ceremonially over everybody else, he appears genuinely perplexed. Why should he leave his fatness and "go to be promoted over the trees?" One imagines him lowering his spectacles, looking carefully at the committee as though attempting to determine whether this is satire, then returning quietly to olive production. There are lamps to be filled, meals to be prepared and useful work to be done. He does not require outriders to prove that he matters. He does not need his portrait hanging in public offices to establish that he exists. Nobody must address him as His Excellency before oil emerges from his fruit. The forest has therefore encountered its first great political difficulty: a demonstrably useful individual who does not appear psychologically dependent upon possessing power.
The disappointed delegation proceeds to the fig tree, another unmistakably productive citizen, though altogether different in personality. If the olive tree resembles the dignified elder statesman, the fig tree is the prosperous merchant one encounters after church, comfortably built, pleasantly dressed, smiling broadly, carrying an atmosphere of sweetness around himself and appearing to know exactly where lunch will be served. His branches bend beneath figs; bees conduct legitimate business around him; children know that approaching him may result in something edible; and when the delegation says, "Come thou, and reign over us," he too seems astonished that anyone should regard abandoning demonstrable usefulness for political elevation as an obvious promotion. "Should I forsake my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees?" he asks in Judges 9:11, and the question itself is devastating. Here is a fellow already producing something society can taste, measure and appreciate, being invited to exchange sweetness for status. One can almost see him glancing at his fruit, glancing at the delegation, checking his watch, handing them a basket of figs for the journey and returning to business. The committee departs with refreshments but without a candidate, and somewhere in the minutes the secretary records, with bureaucratic understatement, that consultations remain ongoing.
They next arrive at the vine, and the atmosphere changes again because the vine appears to be enjoying life immensely. One imagines him stretched comfortably along a trellis, collar slightly loosened, grapes hanging in magnificent clusters around him, looking like a gentleman who has personally tested Ecclesiastes 9:7, "Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart," and found no theological difficulty requiring urgent amendment. The delegation clears its throat and announces that the forest urgently requires leadership. The vine raises an eyebrow. Leadership? At this hour? "Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?" (Judges 9:13). He is already producing cheerfulness for heaven and earth and these people want him to abandon grapes for cabinet meetings, coalition negotiations, security briefings, parliamentary questions and delegations of angry shrubs demanding regional balance. Absolutely not. One imagines him settling even more comfortably upon his trellis while the committee trudges away, perhaps carrying something for medicinal purposes, and thus the pattern becomes impossible to ignore: the olive has fruit and declines power; the fig has fruit and declines power; the vine has fruit and declines power; three useful trees have been approached, three know precisely what they contribute to the commonwealth, and not one appears consumed by the conviction that unless he occupies the highest office the forest will perish.
By now the selection process is deteriorating. The sun is descending, delegates are restless, lunch allowances have become a constitutional issue, birds in the press gallery are reporting that negotiations with leading candidates have collapsed, the monkeys in the VIP enclosure have consumed refreshments intended for accredited delegates, one shrub has risen on a point of order to complain that thorn-bearing vegetation is historically marginalised, another demands regional rotation of kingship, grassroots representatives insist with considerable botanical justification that the next candidate must literally come from the grassroots, and somebody proposes suspending proceedings for consultations. Consultations accordingly begin beneath one tree, followed by consultations beneath another tree to discuss what was agreed during the first consultations, after which a technical committee is established to harmonise the competing consultations, whereupon the technical committee recommends creation of a smaller technical committee empowered to constitute a liaison committee whose report will be considered by the principals at an appropriate time. The cedars are becoming impatient. The palms are checking their watches. The fig tree has gone home. The olive tree is producing oil. The vine is by now cheerfully unavailable for further comment. Night approaches, the forest has no king, and then, at precisely that moment when exhaustion has reduced institutional standards to their lowest defensible level, somebody slowly points towards the dusty edge of the gathering and asks the question upon which the subsequent history of the forest will turn: what about the bramble?
One imagines an extraordinary silence falling across the convention. The olive tree, hearing the suggestion from afar, slowly removes his spectacles and wipes them although there is nothing wrong with the lenses. The fig tree pauses in mid-bite. The vine lowers his cup. The mighty cedars of Lebanon exchange the sort of glance senior men exchange when somebody has just proposed something so preposterous that dignity prevents immediate response. The bramble, meanwhile, is sitting beside the footpath looking exactly like a bramble: short, tangled, dusty, prickly, one branch hooked into the wool of an unfortunate passing animal, another displaying an old plastic bag acquired during recent winds, no olives visible, no figs detectable, no grapes anywhere, no measurable canopy worth mentioning and no historical record of anybody deliberately approaching him except to retrieve a football. Children have been taught to avoid him. Shepherds negotiate his presence using sticks. Travellers who encounter him accidentally generally leave with evidence upon their skin. His principal contribution to human experience has been scratching people. Yet somewhere inside that tangled republic of thorns beats the heart of a statesman who has apparently spent years wondering when the forest will finally recognise his leadership potential.
The delegation approaches cautiously, but before its spokesman has completed the introductory courtesies the bramble has discerned the hand of destiny. Unlike the olive, which had to consider what it would abandon, the fig, which remembered its sweetness, and the vine, which reflected upon its wine, the bramble has no corresponding productivity crisis to resolve. He is available. Magnificently available. Historically available. Almost suspiciously available. One can imagine him springing upright before the chairman has finished explaining the vacancy, accepting the nomination, thanking the people for their overwhelming confidence although no vote has yet occurred, announcing that he has heard the cry of the forest although nobody remembers crying, explaining that after extensive consultation with elders, youth, women, religious leaders, businesspeople and grassroots vegetation he has reluctantly yielded to popular demand, despite having spent the previous decade arranging precisely this moment, and declaring that the ground has shifted so decisively that nothing can stop the coming transformation. Within hours a campaign secretariat materialises. One thorn becomes Director of Communications, another is appointed Chief Strategist, a particularly aggressive thorn assumes responsibility for mobilisation, several shrubs emerge claiming to have supported the bramble since nursery school, an official photographer begins documenting spontaneous encounters which required four days to organise, and posters appear across the forest proclaiming BRAMBLE 2027: FRESH THORNS, FRESH HOPE. By sunset his social biography reads "Incoming King of the Forest", his supporters are referring to him as His Excellency, and anyone asking whether perhaps the forest should first examine his fruit is dismissed as an enemy of transformation.
Then the bramble opens his mouth and utters one of the most magnificent sentences in the history of political satire: "If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow" (Judges 9:15). Shadow! The olive tree freezes. The fig tree stops chewing. The vine nearly loses a grape. Somewhere in the front row a cedar slowly removes his dark glasses and looks directly at the candidate for the first time. One desperately wishes that before proceeding with the coronation the forest had retained a quantity surveyor, because the proposed shadow immediately raises serious questions of measurement. Where exactly is it? What are its dimensions? Could somebody table the drawings? At what solar angle was the alleged shadow observed? What is the gross floor area of this shade? What is the net usable area after deduction of thorns? How many mature trees can reasonably occupy it? Has an environmental assessment been undertaken concerning the relocation of an entire forest beneath vegetation that presently appears incapable of sheltering a moderately sized rabbit? Yet the bramble remains supremely confident. Somewhere beside his roots, if one bends low enough at approximately 4:47 in the afternoon, squints carefully and knows what one is looking for, there may indeed be a dark patch approximately the size of a handkerchief, but the Director of Communications quickly explains that critics are deliberately confusing the current shadow with the transformed shadow envisioned under the candidate's long-term development agenda.
And what a transformed shadow it will be! There will be universal shade, affordable shade, inclusive shade, bottom-up shade, climate-resilient shade, digitally enabled shade, shade for mama mboga, shade for boda boda, shade for grass, shade for shrubs, shade for trees presently excluded from the formal shade economy and, through an ambitious public-private partnership, intergenerational shade for seedlings not yet germinated. A National Shade Development Fund will be established. A small mandatory levy will be collected from every tree to finance affordable shade for trees unable to obtain shade through conventional market mechanisms. Consultants will conduct feasibility studies. Contractors will be prequalified. Groundbreaking ceremonies will be held. Plaques will be unveiled. Artists' impressions will depict smiling cedars relaxing beneath enormous canopies apparently produced by some entirely different species. Millions of square metres of shade will be promised by the end of the first phase. When impertinent journalists ask how a bramble without a canopy intends to produce continental quantities of shade, the communications team will accuse them of negativity, remind them that transformation requires imagination, explain that Rome was not built in a day, announce that previous administrations neglected the shade sector for decades, and request citizens to give the programme time.
Then, with the forest still attempting to understand the financing model for universal bramble shade, the candidate completes his manifesto: "and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon" (Judges 9:15). The cedar in the front row, who until this moment had been listening with the detached amusement of a large tree observing a small shrub, sits upright. Fire? Apparently the affordable-shade programme contains an enforcement clause. Within a single verse the bramble has travelled from universal shelter to incineration. Trust my shadow or prepare for combustion. The same vegetation that cannot cover a rabbit is threatening to burn Lebanon. And there, beneath the hilarity, lies the terrifying genius of Jotham's parable: the bramble cannot feed the forest like the fig, enrich it like the olive, cheer it like the vine or shelter it like the cedar, but it possesses two things in abundance, thorns and ambition, and when ambition cannot produce fruit it may eventually discover that fear is easier to manufacture.
Yet Scripture refuses to allow the forest to leave the courtroom after laughing at the bramble, because Judges 9:14 remains sitting upon the record like an unpaid invoice: "Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, and reign over us." The bramble did not invade the forest. It did not overthrow the olive tree. It did not imprison the fig tree, poison the vine or arrive riding upon a foreign tank. The trees went looking for it. They found it beside the dusty path. They examined the thorns, observed the absence of fruit, considered the shortage of shade and nevertheless said, in effect, this is our man. Suddenly the laughter becomes uncomfortable, because democratic societies sometimes behave after elections as though governments were delivered mysteriously during the night by unidentified angels. Citizens who queued, campaigned, danced, sang, defended, rationalised, insulted neighbours, wore the T-shirt and cast the ballot can eighteen months later be heard asking in genuine astonishment who brought these people into government. Galatians 6:7 quietly enters the polling station: "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Hosea 8:4 adds with frightening severity, "They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not." Proverbs 14:15 observes that "the simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going." Democracy therefore contains an uncomfortable agricultural principle: the harvest has a distressing tendency to resemble the seed. One cannot knowingly plant brambles in August and then convene national prayer meetings in November demanding emergency figs.
And just when Judges 9 has finished interrogating the voter, Scripture opens 1 Kings 12 and places the ruler in the witness box. Solomon is dead. Rehoboam, his son, ascends the throne carrying one of the most intimidating political inheritances imaginable. His father had been Solomon: builder of the Temple, speaker of three thousand proverbs, composer of songs, international celebrity, recipient of the Queen of Sheba and a man whose wisdom had become an international tourist attraction. Rehoboam therefore begins public life under the occupational hazard familiar to sons of giants: everybody knows his father's CV. The people assemble at Shechem and present a petition so simple that no task force should have been necessary to interpret it: "Thy father made our yoke grievous: now therefore make thou the grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee" (1 Kings 12:4). Notice their moderation. They do not demand abolition of government. They do not burn the palace. They do not ask Rehoboam to resign before he has begun. They simply say the yoke is heavy; lighten it and we will serve you. In modern language, the cost of living is hurting us, the burden is excessive, please provide relief. Even a ruler with only moderate hearing should have detected the principal noun in the memorandum: burden.
Rehoboam initially behaves with encouraging sanity. He tells the people to return after three days and consults the old men who had stood before Solomon. These elders are not fellows who discovered government yesterday. They had watched Solomon administer a complicated kingdom; they had seen splendour and taxation, wisdom and bureaucracy, construction and labour, and they understand something which power repeatedly forgets until it is too late: people who feel heard are easier to govern than people who feel crushed. Their advice is exquisite in its simplicity: "If thou wilt be a servant unto this people this day, and wilt serve them, and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they will be thy servants for ever" (1 Kings 12:7). Proverbs 15:1 had already said, "A soft answer turneth away wrath." Proverbs 11:14 says that "in the multitude of counsellors there is safety." Proverbs 15:22 warns, "Without counsel purposes are disappointed." Micah 6:8 requires justice, mercy and humility. Deuteronomy 17:20 had specifically warned Israel's king that "his heart be not lifted up above his brethren." The elders therefore advise servant leadership centuries before management schools begin charging executive fees to teach it. Rehoboam has before him experience, Scripture, prudence, political arithmetic and plain common sense, all pointing towards the same door. Naturally, he walks through the other one.
He forsakes the counsel of the old men and consults "the young men that were grown up with him" (1 Kings 12:8), and suddenly the atmosphere changes from council of state to alumni WhatsApp group. These are his boys. They know him. They grew up together. Nobody needs to explain the jokes. Nobody risks ruining dinner by reminding His Majesty that His Majesty may be wrong. One can picture them lounging around the palace, full of confidence available only to men who have not personally carried the yoke under discussion, assuring their childhood friend that the elders are thinking too traditionally and that what the new administration requires is boldness. The people say Solomon's burden was heavy? Excellent. Tell them they have not yet encountered heaviness. Your little finger will be thicker than your father's loins. Your father chastised them with whips? Tell them you will chastise them with scorpions. It is difficult to read 1 Kings 12:10-11 without imagining a nervous civil servant at the end of the table slowly removing his spectacles and asking whether "scorpions" must necessarily appear in the final communiqué. Perhaps, Your Majesty, we could say "enhanced compliance measures". Perhaps "temporary pain for long-term transformation". Perhaps "a broadening of the national burden-sharing framework". Perhaps "difficult but necessary reforms". Rehoboam, however, is spiritually committed to zoological clarity. Scorpions.
Thus is born what I call the Rehoboamic mentality: that extraordinary condition in which a government hears citizens say that the yoke is heavy and concludes that the most appropriate response is to demonstrate that government owns heavier yokes. The people say they are hurting; power hears disrespect. They say the burden is unbearable; power suspects sabotage. They ask questions; advisers identify hostile forces. They complain that the shoe pinches; an official in an air-conditioned office releases a twenty-page report proving that, according to macroeconomic indicators, the shoe is actually extremely comfortable. They say they cannot afford bread; somebody explains that the fundamentals remain strong. They ask for relief; another spokesman appears on television to explain that suffering is evidence that the reforms are working. If the public continues complaining, a second spokesman arrives to explain the first spokesman. If confusion persists, a task force is formed. If the task force confirms the suffering, another committee is appointed to validate the task force. Eventually the citizen who originally said "this yoke is heavy" may die of old age while awaiting stakeholder engagement, whereupon the government announces that the matter is receiving the highest attention.
Scripture, however, is extraordinarily inconvenient to rulers who wish to treat suffering as background noise. "Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees," cries Isaiah 10:1. "He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker," says Proverbs 14:31. "Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor," commands Jeremiah 22:3. Isaiah 1:17 says, "seek judgment, relieve the oppressed." Amos refuses decorative religion while justice is absent and demands, "let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream" (Amos 5:24). Ezekiel 34 condemns shepherds who feed themselves instead of the flock. Jesus later takes the entire worldly conception of leadership, turns it upside down and declares that whereas Gentile rulers exercise dominion, "whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant" (Matthew 20:25-27). Then, lest anybody think this is merely rhetorical, the Lord of glory kneels in John 13 and washes feet. Rehoboam, by magnificent contrast, is presented with weary backs and begins discussing improved whipping technology.
The result is catastrophic. Israel answers, "What portion have we in David? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse" (1 Kings 12:16), and the kingdom fractures. Rehoboam learns in one afternoon what rulers throughout history have repeatedly learnt after paying enormous tuition fees to reality: one may win the press conference and lose the people. One may have the final word and lose the argument. One may possess the motorcade, the guards, the parliamentary numbers, the official residence, the microphones, the red carpet, the intelligence briefings, the ceremonial chair, the anthem and enough advisers to populate a small county, yet discover that the hearts of the governed have quietly left the building. Proverbs 16:18 says, "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." Proverbs 29:23 says, "A man's pride shall bring him low." Scripture appears determined to warn political power that self-exaltation has a terrible long-term maintenance record.
And if, having survived the bramble and escaped Rehoboam's scorpions, the citizen imagines that the biblical political gallery must surely now be exhausted, another gentleman appears beside the road, and this one is considerably better looking. His name is Absalom. Scripture makes the extraordinary observation that "in all Israel there was none to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty: from the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him" (2 Samuel 14:25), and then, as though the Holy Spirit wishes the reader to appreciate the full dimensions of the political problem, the following verse discusses his hair. Absalom's hair was apparently so remarkable that when he cut it at the end of the year it was weighed. One pauses to absorb this. David is governing a kingdom, Joab is commanding armies, priests are ministering, prophets are speaking, enemies are plotting, and somewhere within the royal establishment there is apparently a weighing scale sufficiently important to record the annual tonnage of the prince's hair. One imagines Absalom emerging into the Jerusalem sunlight each morning with a mane requiring its own administrative department, shaking it gently while citizens gasp and fifty men run before his chariot. If social media had existed, the hair alone might have had more followers than several ministries combined. There would have been slow-motion campaign footage of it moving in the wind, accompanied by solemn music, aerial shots of Jerusalem and the words A NEW ISRAEL IS POSSIBLE.
But Absalom is much more dangerous than a handsome man with spectacular hair because he understands political theatre with frightening sophistication. Second Samuel 15:1 tells us that he "prepared him chariots and horses, and fifty men to run before him." Before he has obtained the throne, therefore, he already looks presidential. The convoy precedes the constitutional authority. One can almost hear Absalom before seeing him: hooves, runners, dust, shouting, movement, spectacle, fifty energetic young men announcing by their very exhaustion that somebody of tremendous importance must be approaching. Then he rises early and positions himself "beside the way of the gate" (2 Samuel 15:2), precisely where citizens bringing grievances to the king will pass. He does not wait for wananchi to locate him; he locates wananchi. A man approaches with a dispute. Absalom asks his city, listens gravely and then delivers the sentence every aggrieved citizen longs to hear: "See, thy matters are good and right; but there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee" (2 Samuel 15:3). Observe the efficiency. He does not require the other party. Evidence is unnecessary. Every complainant who reaches Absalom is mysteriously correct. Nobody arrives at his roadside office and discovers, after careful examination, that perhaps his neighbour actually owns the goat. "Thy matters are good and right." What judicial efficiency! At this rate the backlog will disappear before lunch.
Then comes the political message: "Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice!" (2 Samuel 15:4). Absalom does not technically say, "Make me king." He merely spends his mornings beside the national grievance corridor explaining how wonderfully government would function if somebody, entirely hypothetically, gave him authority. And he is tactile. When a citizen bows before him, Absalom stretches out his hand, takes him, embraces him and kisses him (2 Samuel 15:5). The prince is accessible! The prince understands ordinary people! The prince does not hide in the palace! Elderly women return home saying the young man held their hands himself. Youths say he understands them. Traders say he listened. Every grievance becomes a campaign office; every handshake becomes political capital; every embrace becomes a manifesto; every kiss acquires electoral potential. Then Scripture, with breathtaking economy, gives the forensic conclusion: "so Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel" (2 Samuel 15:6). Stole. Long before political consultants discovered branding, optics, grievance harvesting, motorcades, personal touch and retail politics, Absalom had assembled the complete starter pack, including the hair.
The warning is not that beauty, handshakes, motorcades or sympathy are inherently wicked. It is that political performance must never be mistaken for political character. Absalom could kiss the very hand whose heart he was quietly detaching from David. He could speak continuously about justice while his deeper project was acquisition of the throne. Proverbs 29:5 says, "A man that flattereth his neighbour spreadeth a net for his feet." Proverbs 26:25 warns, "When he speaketh fair, believe him not." Jesus gives the enduring test: "Ye shall know them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:16). A kiss is not a policy. A handshake is not character. Fifty men running before a chariot are not evidence of administrative competence. And hair, however magnificently weighted, remains hair.
Then Scripture introduces Saul, perhaps one of its most tragic studies in what power can do to an insecure heart. Saul begins impressively. First Samuel 9:2 describes him as "a choice young man, and a goodly," physically towering above everybody from the shoulders upward. When Samuel first speaks of kingship, Saul even sounds humble, pointing to his small tribe and family (1 Samuel 9:21). Yet power gradually exposes fractures within him. He becomes impatient when Samuel delays and offers sacrifice unlawfully (1 Samuel 13:8-14). He receives explicit instructions concerning Amalek, disobeys them and then greets Samuel with the magnificent declaration, "I have performed the commandment of the LORD" (1 Samuel 15:13), while evidence of non-performance is literally making animal noises behind him. Samuel asks one of the greatest forensic questions in Scripture: "What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?" (1 Samuel 15:14). One can almost see Saul maintaining the official government position while sheep behind him dismantle the press statement one bleat at a time. There are moments when reality establishes its own communications department.
Saul then discovers another durable political technology: blame distribution. "The people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen" (1 Samuel 15:15). Moments earlier it was "I have performed"; once Samuel produces evidence, responsibility becomes beautifully decentralised. Success is singular; failure is devolved. Eventually Saul admits, "I have sinned... because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice" (1 Samuel 15:24), yet even after judgement is pronounced he begs Samuel, "honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel" (1 Samuel 15:30). The kingdom is slipping away, obedience has failed and divine judgement has been announced, but optics remain urgent. Whatever happens between heaven and the throne, please do not allow embarrassment before the cameras.
Then David begins rising, women sing, "Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands" (1 Samuel 18:7), and one song destroys the king's peace. "Saul eyed David from that day and forward" (1 Samuel 18:9). There is the politics of insecurity compressed into seven words. A ruler ceases governing the kingdom and begins governing his rival. Every success of the other man becomes a threat. Every cheer becomes conspiracy. Every achievement demands political interpretation. David may merely be playing the harp while Saul is considering whether a spear would improve the performance. Soon enormous state energy is consumed pursuing David through wildernesses while Israel still has actual enemies. The tragedy of Saul is almost unbearable: a man can sit upon the throne and nevertheless be psychologically governed by somebody who does not.
David, by contrast, gives us a vastly more complicated portrait because Scripture refuses to turn its heroes into campaign posters. David is courageous before Goliath, restrained when he twice has opportunities to kill Saul, generous towards Mephibosheth, a worshipper, warrior and ruler, yet he also commits grievous sin in the matter of Bathsheba and Uriah in 2 Samuel 11. The relevant distinction is therefore not that David never failed. He failed terribly. The question is what happened when truth entered the palace. Nathan does not arrive carrying incense for the king's ego. He tells David about a rich man who seized a poor man's only ewe lamb, allows David's own sense of justice to pronounce condemnation, and then drives the prophetic sword home with four words: "Thou art the man" (2 Samuel 12:7). Here is the counsellor every ruler needs and every insecure ruler eventually removes: a man capable of standing inside the palace, looking directly at the king and refusing to confuse proximity to power with exemption from truth.
David's response is equally revealing. He does not have Nathan arrested. He does not accuse him of being financed by hostile foreign interests. He does not establish a commission of inquiry into how Nathan obtained confidential information. He does not deploy palace bloggers to announce that Nathan once attended a meeting with somebody from the opposition. He does not demand comparative statistics showing how many previous kings had taken other men's wives. He says, "I have sinned against the LORD" (2 Samuel 12:13). Psalm 51 opens the interior of that confession: "Have mercy upon me, O God... For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me" (Psalm 51:1,3). Repentance does not cancel the consequences, and David's house suffers grievously, but the episode reveals a quality indispensable to public leadership: the capacity to hear unwelcome truth without declaring war upon the truth-teller.
And Scripture is equally forensic about advisers, because kings rarely become disastrous entirely by themselves. Ahithophel was no fool. Second Samuel 16:23 says his counsel was regarded "as if a man had enquired at the oracle of God." This was intellectual heavyweight territory. Yet Ahithophel joins Absalom's rebellion (2 Samuel 15:12), placing formidable intelligence at the service of political revolt. When David hears this, he offers perhaps the most economical prayer ever uttered concerning a political strategist: "O LORD, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness" (2 Samuel 15:31). Hushai the Archite then enters Absalom's circle and counters Ahithophel's counsel. Absalom accepts Hushai's advice, "for the LORD had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel" (2 Samuel 17:14). When Ahithophel sees that his counsel is rejected, his story ends tragically in suicide (2 Samuel 17:23), a dark passage from which humour properly withdraws. Yet the political lesson remains: brilliance is not character, intelligence is not fidelity, and a gifted adviser untethered from moral principle can become extraordinarily dangerous.
Thus Scripture gives us Nathan, Ahithophel, Hushai and Rehoboam's childhood companions, four portraits of what can surround power. Nathan speaks truth inward even when truth wounds. Ahithophel possesses extraordinary intelligence but shifts allegiance into rebellion. Hushai deploys loyal intelligence strategically. Rehoboam's boys tell the ruler precisely what his pride wants to hear. Proverbs 13:20 therefore says, "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed." Proverbs 27:6 says, "Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." A ruler with a Nathan may occasionally endure an extremely unpleasant afternoon and preserve something of his soul. A ruler surrounded entirely by professional applauders may enjoy magnificent afternoons until the kingdom begins coming apart at the seams.
Now place them all in one biblical political gallery and behold the astonishing completeness of the exhibition. There stands the bramble, promising shade it does not possess and threatening fire when questioned. There sits Rehoboam, presented with weary citizens asking for a lighter yoke and ordering the palace storekeeper to locate the scorpions. There rides Absalom, magnificent hair flowing behind him, fifty runners exhausting themselves ahead of his chariot while he intercepts grievances, validates everybody, kisses everybody and quietly steals hearts. There towers Saul, physically head and shoulders above the people yet inwardly shrinking under insecurity, announcing obedience while sheep conduct an audible fact-check behind him, blaming the people when exposed, demanding public honour after private failure and eventually spending national energy pursuing a rival. There stands David, glorious and grievously flawed, yet capable of hearing Nathan say, "Thou art the man," and answering, "I have sinned." There stands Nathan, apparently unaware that advisers are supposed to tell kings how wonderful they are. There stands Ahithophel, brilliant enough for his counsel to resemble an oracle yet demonstrating that intellect without moral anchorage is no guarantee of righteous direction. There stands Hushai, reminding us that counsel itself can become a battlefield. And above the entire gallery hangs Proverbs 16:18 like an inscription carved into stone: "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."
What more, exactly, does an electorate require? Kenya approaches another constitutional encounter with the ballot. The next General Election is constitutionally expected on Tuesday, 10th August 2027, while Article 38 of the Constitution protects the citizen's freedom to make political choices and the right to free, fair and regular elections based upon universal suffrage and the free expression of the electors' will. This means that what approaches is not merely another national festival of billboards, helicopters, caps, branded shirts, roadside declarations, defections, endorsements and microphones subjected to grievous bodily harm. It is the constitutional moment when the citizen becomes examiner, and Scripture has already supplied an extraordinarily detailed marking scheme.
Election seasons, of course, perform miracles that would astonish experienced theologians. Old enemies suddenly discover that their disagreements were exaggerated by the media. Politicians who spent four years describing one another in vocabulary normally reserved for criminal indictments embrace publicly until their ribs nearly fracture and announce that they have always shared a common vision for the country. Friends who previously called one another brothers discover irreconcilable ideological differences approximately forty-eight hours after failing to agree who should become presidential candidate. Defections become "listening to the ground". Returns become "coming home". Sackings become "reorganisation". Appointments become "national inclusivity". Bargaining for positions becomes "consultations on the future of our children". A politician may cross from one coalition to another, return to the first, cross again and explain at every press conference that his movements are motivated exclusively by the suffering of ordinary wananchi. Ecclesiastes 1:9 says there is "no new thing under the sun," although Kenyan coalition politics occasionally appears determined to test the proposition experimentally.
Then come the manifestos, those magnificent literary documents during whose launch scarcity itself is temporarily suspended. Jobs will multiply. Taxes will descend. Roads will spread. Hospitals will flourish. Agriculture will awaken. Industry will roar. Corruption will tremble. Debt will become obedient. Youth unemployment will flee. Every household will prosper, every village will connect, every farmer will reach market and every entrepreneur will obtain affordable credit, all within fiscal arithmetic occasionally bearing a suspicious resemblance to the calculations behind the bramble's shadow. At such moments Proverbs 14:15 deserves prominent display: "The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going." The prudent voter does not despise promises; he measures them. If somebody promises shade, produce the canopy. If somebody promises fruit, inspect previous harvests. If somebody promises fiscal transformation, bring the calculator. If somebody claims unprecedented integrity, examine stewardship when temptation was smaller. Luke 16:10 says, "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much." If a tree has produced thorns consistently in the village, documentary evidence should probably be requested before accepting assurances that mangoes will commence immediately after inauguration.
Nor should any political camp imagine that these tests apply only to opponents, because political idolatry has a remarkable ability to reorganise eyesight. Once afflicted, a citizen acquires two moral measuring tapes. If our candidate changes parties, he has listened to the people; if theirs changes parties, he has no principles. If our side demonstrates, democracy is alive; if theirs demonstrates, sinister forces are destabilising the country. Our appointments are strategic; theirs are tribal. Our borrowing is investment; theirs is recklessness. Our candidate's wealthy ally is a successful entrepreneur; theirs demands forensic investigation. Our candidate's harsh words are refreshing candour; theirs reveal dangerous character. Isaiah 5:20 warns against calling evil good and good evil. James 2 warns against partiality. Leviticus 19:15 commands judgement without favour. Amos's plumb line remains stubbornly vertical regardless of whose building is being measured. A biblical political conscience cannot possess one standard for friends and another for enemies. If the bramble is a bramble, party colours cannot photosynthesise it into an olive tree.
And speaking of political eyesight, there is an extraordinary incident in Mark 8:22-26 which, when placed beside Jotham's botanical convention, becomes almost irresistibly hilarious, although its spiritual implications are exceedingly serious. At Bethsaida, a blind man is brought to Jesus, who takes him by the hand, leads him out of the town, ministers to him and asks whether he sees anything. The man looks up and makes one of the most remarkable observations in the Gospels: "I see men as trees, walking" (Mark 8:24). Men as trees! Walking! One can almost imagine the poor fellow looking around in bewilderment as human beings move before him like a forest that has suddenly acquired legs, wondering whether the entire botanical kingdom has escaped from its roots and commenced a political procession. And having just accompanied Jotham through an election in which olive trees, fig trees, vines, cedars and brambles were behaving like politicians, I find this encounter at Bethsaida almost too magnificent to overlook. For what if our national political eyesight is suffering from a comparable deficiency? What if we have been looking at men and seeing trees, but without sufficient clarity to distinguish the olive from the bramble, the fig from the thornbush, the fruitful vine from the shrub whose principal contribution to public life is scratching everybody within reach? What if we have been applauding brambles as cedars, measuring thorns as though they were fruit, confusing political convoys with forests of righteousness and mistaking a handkerchief-sized shadow for the canopy of Lebanon? What if the trouble is not merely that the bramble has been exaggerating its qualifications, but that the electorate has been examining its credentials through eyes requiring further divine attention? One can almost imagine the disciples standing beside the man at Bethsaida while a particularly ambitious bramble walks past, its fifty campaign runners panting in the background, and the recovering patient exclaiming that he can see a magnificent cedar approaching, whereupon Peter, who was never especially renowned for withholding his opinions, might have felt compelled to point out that the alleged cedar was in fact a rather disorderly thornbush accompanied by an expensive publicity department. Yet the wonder of the passage is that Jesus does not abandon the man to partial vision. Mark 8:25 records that He "put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly." There is our national prayer as 2027 approaches. Not that we should literally confuse politicians with vegetation, nor that this miracle was originally given as an election manual, but that the spiritual lesson of restored clarity should arrest us with irresistible force. If, while reading these biblical portraits, we begin to suspect that we are already living through a bramble moment of our own, if the shadow we were promised is proving difficult to locate, if the thorns are becoming increasingly familiar, if the public yoke is heavy and somebody appears to be negotiating a fresh consignment of scorpions, if the campaign kisses have dried upon our cheeks while the grievances remain unresolved, and if the sheep behind the official podium have been bleating so loudly that even the microphones cannot suppress them, then perhaps the most urgent national requirement is not another manifesto, another coalition, another procession of fifty runners or another committee to explain the dimensions of imaginary shade. Perhaps we need to come collectively before the Lord and pray for that second touch, that our eyes may be opened to discern clearly, our judgement delivered from political enchantment, our consciences liberated from partisan blindness and our hearts established in truth. For the tragedy would not merely be that a bramble presented itself for kingship; it would be that an entire forest, having already experienced the thorns, approached another election still unable to distinguish them from olives. May the Lord, who opened the eyes of the man at Bethsaida, grant us the clarity to see every claimant to power as he truly is, to recognise fruit where fruit exists, to recognise thorns where thorns abound, and to approach the ballot of 2027 with eyes no longer satisfied by the first blurred impression. After all, it would be an extraordinary national embarrassment to emerge from an election loudly proclaiming that we have chosen a mighty cedar, only to discover, upon the restoration of our eyesight, that we have once again installed a bramble and are already being invited to admire its shadow.
This is why Psalm 146:3 becomes essential election-season medicine: "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help." Jeremiah 17:5 warns against making flesh one's arm. This is not an argument against government. Romans 13 recognises governing authority; 1 Timothy 2:1-2 commands prayer for kings and all in authority; 1 Peter 2:17 says, "Honour the king." It is an argument against political worship. Honour is not hypnosis. Prayer is not abdication of judgement. Respect does not require removal of the brain. Acts 17:11 praises the Bereans for checking even apostolic teaching against Scripture. If the Bereans could fact-check Paul, surely a citizen may fact-check a manifesto. First John 4:1 says, "believe not every spirit, but try the spirits." Election season might profit from a modest civic corollary: believe not every billboard; test the fruit.
So let Kenya proceed towards 10th August 2027. Let the rallies come. Let drums beat. Let helicopters descend upon football fields and produce enough dust to obscure several campaign promises simultaneously. Let convoys stretch along highways. Let politicians rediscover villages they last visited during the previous election and express astonishment that electricity has still not arrived. Let men accustomed to bottled water suddenly be photographed drinking tea from enamel cups. Let candidates sit beside mama mboga with expressions suggesting that they have only just discovered tomatoes. Let leaders who have not entered a matatu for thirty years explain transport economics to conductors. Let former enemies embrace. Let new enemies emerge. Let slogans multiply after their kind according to Genesis 1. Let aspirants announce, after deep prayer, wide consultation and enormous personal reluctance, that they have finally yielded to the overwhelming demand of citizens that they seek precisely the office for which everybody has watched them campaign for years. Let all these democratic festivities proceed.
But let the citizen bring a tape measure, a fruit basket, a Bible and, if necessary, a sheep. When the bramble promises shade, measure the shadow. When it promises fruit, inspect the branches. When it says only enemies are preventing prosperity, look carefully for the matches. When Rehoboam hears the people say that the yoke is heavy, watch whether somebody begins unpacking scorpions. When a candidate arrives with fifty runners, do not mistake exhausted young men for public policy. When Absalom stations himself beside every grievance and assures every complainant that "thy matters are good and right," ask what happens when he finally meets somebody whose matter is wrong. When the kisses become plentiful, remember Proverbs 27:6. When the hair becomes magnificent, remember that hair, however beautifully weighted, remains hair. When a ruler begins watching his rival more closely than he watches the country, remember Saul. When official statements proclaim perfect obedience while livestock are bleating audibly in the background, believe your ears. When everybody around the ruler agrees with him, search urgently for Nathan. When a Nathan finally appears and says, "Thou art the man," watch what happens next, because that reaction may reveal more character than a thousand campaign speeches. When advisers are brilliant, ask whether they are principled. When courtiers are loyal, ask whether they are truthful. When criticism becomes treason, remember the prophets. When rulers become intoxicated with greatness, remember Nebuchadnezzar and the grass. When crowds begin sounding like worshippers, remember Herod. When politicians promise salvation, remember Isaiah 43:11: "beside me there is no saviour." And when anybody announces that the nation cannot survive without him, remember that cemeteries are populated by people once considered indispensable.
For Scripture has already conducted the experiments. It has shown us fruit without ambition and ambition without fruit. It has shown us kings who listened and kings who would not. It has shown us the danger of the flattering crowd and the necessity of the courageous prophet. It has shown us the politician who stole hearts at the gate, the ruler who became obsessed with a rival, the king who sinned terribly yet could still repent, the adviser whose intelligence became detached from fidelity, the young courtiers who converted arrogance into policy, the bramble offering imaginary shade and the monarch answering exhaustion with scorpions. It has shown us that leadership may be handsome and hollow, tall and insecure, brilliant and treacherous, powerful and foolish, grievously flawed yet repentant, outwardly unimpressive yet fruitful. The Bible therefore refuses the lazy politics of appearances. "Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).
Kenya does not approach 2027 politically naked. We have Jotham on Mount Gerizim. We have Moses warning kings in Deuteronomy 17. We have Samuel warning Israel in 1 Samuel 8. We have Saul and his bleating sheep. We have David and Nathan. We have Absalom at the gate. We have Ahithophel and Hushai. We have Rehoboam and his boys. We have Naboth's vineyard warning what happens when private appetite acquires public machinery. We have Elijah confronting Ahab. We have Micaiah refusing to join four hundred agreeable prophets in telling a king what he wanted to hear. We have Amos roaring for justice. We have Micah demanding mercy and humility. We have Daniel watching empires rise and fall. We have John the Baptist telling Herod that possession of authority does not legalise wrongdoing. We have Jesus Christ declaring that rulers must become servants. We have the apostles commanding prayer for authority without ever confusing authority with divinity. We have the blind man at Bethsaida whose first vision was blurred, whose second touch restored clarity and whose testimony now returns to us as an invitation to examine our own political eyesight. And towering above every temporary throne, coalition, dynasty, administration and republic stands the One whom Revelation 19:16 calls "KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS."
The case file is therefore enormous. The witnesses have testified. The exhibits have been marked. The olive is in evidence. The fig is in evidence. The vine is in evidence. The bramble is in evidence. The imaginary shadow is in evidence. The threatened fire is in evidence. Absalom's chariot is in evidence. His fifty runners are panting somewhere outside the courtroom. The hair has been weighed and entered into the record. The kisses are in evidence. Saul is in evidence. The sheep, magnificently uncooperative with the official narrative, are bleating in evidence. David is in evidence. Nathan is in evidence. Ahithophel is in evidence. Hushai is in evidence. Rehoboam's boys are in evidence. The heavy yoke is in evidence. The whips are in evidence. The scorpions are most certainly in evidence. The fractured kingdom is in evidence. And now the man from Bethsaida has entered the courtroom, initially reporting men walking about like trees, but finally seeing every man clearly after the second touch of the Lord. The Constitution has supplied political choice, and the ballot approaches. After all the rallies, defections, endorsements, handshakes, manifestos, opinion polls, campaign songs, helicopters, roadside declarations, prophetic pronouncements, tribal arithmetic, coalition mathematics, economic promises, kisses at the gate and enough projected shade to place the entire republic beneath one enormous imaginary canopy, the questions confronting the citizen remain devastatingly simple: What manner of tree is this? What fruit has it borne? What happens when it is contradicted? Does it listen when the people hurt? Who whispers into its ears? Can anybody around it say no? Is there a Nathan anywhere in the building? Are those actual achievements behind it, or merely fifty men running through dust? And if somebody insists that everything has been done according to instructions, what precisely is that bleating we can hear behind the podium? Above all, are we seeing clearly, or do we still require that second touch before we approach the ballot?
The Bible has already supplied the case studies.
The Constitution has supplied the ballot.
The forest must supply the wisdom.