Royal Illness and Kingship Ideology in the Hebrew Bible

Royal illness as portrayed in the Hebrew Bible anticipates the failure of kingship resulting in the destruction of Israel and Judah. This is the first systematic study of royal illness in this context. It will be of interest to students and scholars of history in the ancient Near East, biblical studies, medical humanities, and disability studies.

In this book, Isabel Cranz offers the first systematic study of royal illness in the Books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles. Applying a diachronic approach, she compares and contrasts how the different views concerning kingship and illness are developed in the larger trajectory of the Hebrew Bible. As such, she demonstrates how a framework of meaning is constructed around the motif of illness, which is expanded in several redactional steps. This development takes different forms and relates to issues such as problems with kingship, the cultic, and moral conduct of individual kings, or the evaluation of dynasties.  Significantly, Cranz shows how the scribes living in post-monarchic Judah expanded the interpretive framework of royal illness until it included a message of destruction and a critique of kingship. The physical and mental integrity of the king, therefore, becomes closely tied to his nation and the political system he represents.