When I was first examining the poetic structure of John’s gospel and realised it is designed to reveal the passing on of different mantles to the followers of Jesus, I was startled. With each subsequent revelation, I felt I should be less surprised—but instead I was more so. My biases were exposed as I uncovered the identities of each of the recipients of some major mantles—Elijah’s, Joseph’s, Reuben’s, Moses’, David’s. I was so shocked at the realisation of who was given David’s mantle that I had to check and re-check to be sure.
First of all, it wasn’t given to one person but to two. It was split.
Second, those two people were a man and a woman. Originally I had thought it was just the woman who received it—and that was astonishing enough—but then I realised it was given to two entirely separate, unrelated people—neither of whom were Jews. How could that be true? Would Jesus really have done that? What in heaven was He thinking?
David’s mantle appears to have been divided between the Samaritan woman and the royal official who asked Jesus to heal his son. He’s called a ‘little king’ in the Greek and there are several faint clues in the text that enable him to be identified as Chuza, the steward of Herod.
His part in the story goes back to the royal official, Jeroboam, who became the king of ten tribes and established a new monarchy in the north of Israel. Jeroboam also had a son who was dying and he sent his wife to Shiloh to inquire of the prophet there what would happen. Jesus reverses the tragedy—He has come from Shiloh through the territory where Jeroboam had his capitals at Shechem and Tirzah to arrive at Cana. There the royal official meets Him and begs Him to heal his son, perhaps indicating what Jeroboam should have done—humbled himself and turned back to the God who had favoured him so extraordinarily.
The woman’s part in the story corresponds to that of Rehoboam, the grandson of David. He was the one whose arrogant response to the people’s request for relief from the oppression of his father Solomon caused the tearaway faction under Jeroboam to form a new nation-state. Her role is a complex one, involving the healing of multiple rips in the historic timeline, but in terms of Rehoboam, she’s there to be the agent of reunification. She’s the kingmaker who has to persuade her people to acclaim Jesus as the equivalent of King.
This man and woman are given a king’s mantle because they are kingmakers, not rulers. They are servants as well as leaders. David, as we’ve seen in the last seven sessions, got it superlatively wrong when it came to leadership. Not only was there never supposed to be a king in Israel because God alone should have held that position, but God doesn’t call David ‘king’: He calls him leader, prince, commander in 2 Samuel 7:8. It seems that David, on being anointed, was meant to turn down the kingship and instead say that God was the only king, but that he would serve as Israel’s champion like the judges of old.
Week after week, we see the leaders of prominent Christian ministries being accused of heinous acts. And month after month we see those leaders restored after less than a year out of the pulpit. We are so invested in leadership like the kingship of David’s, we are blinded to Jesus’ portrayal of kingship. He was the Servant-King and He chose, as the heirs of David’s mantle, servants who would not lord it over others but be kingmakers. He chose people who would lift His name high and not dishonour it through their unwillingness to repent.
Now what the Samaritan woman and the royal official have in common is something very strange, at least assuming the official is Chuza. Chuza is a Nabataean name meaning that he hailed from first century Arabia. He likely came from the capital of the day, now called Petra. The Nabataeans claimed to have come from a place in Mesopotamia called Kutha.
And Kutha was one of the five cities that the Samaritans had been re-settled from when they were brought in to replace the exiled Hebrews. In fact, the Jews didn’t call the Samaritans ‘Samaritans’, they called them ‘Kuthites’, the people from Kutha.
Both the Samaritan woman and Chuza would have claimed Kuthite ancestry. Now, until the twentieth century when we became so intelligent that we could throw out millennia of traditional lore (did I need a sarcasm alert there?), Kutha was also known by another name: Ur of the Chaldees, the city where Abraham grew up.
Now remember that David’s mantle is Abraham’s mantle? Jesus is repairing the mantle so far back, He’s given it to the disenfranchised descendants of the kinfolk of Abraham.
The call to be a blessing to the nations meant not hoarding the knowledge of the King of the Universe so closely that only Israel could bow the knee in true worship. That knowledge was meant to be spread abroad so that everyone in all the world could acknowledge Jesus as Lord and Yahweh as King above all kings.
Yet the patriarchs, prophets and kings couldn’t bring themselves to allow their national god to become international. We’ve looked at Elijah’s mantle and how his actions delayed the incoming of the Gentiles for almost eight hundred years. Elisha had more than one opportunity to speak to some Aramean army commanders and tell them about Yahweh, thus intervening in the annual cycle of war, but he was silent. Jonah pronounced doom on Nineveh, but did not follow up their repentance by preaching of Yahweh. If he had, perhaps the rise of the immeasurably cruel Assyrian empire might have been prevented. Hezekiah showed the visiting Babylonians all the treasures of Jerusalem but did not speak to them of the greatest treasure of all—Yahweh Himself.
The silence continues, century after century.
Yet we see an immediate difference with the Samaritan woman. She breaks the silence, rushing to declare the possibility she’s found the Messiah. And Chuza, on the healing of his wife Joanna, is so transformed he does several things extraordinary in the first century: he supports Jesus financially and he allows Joanna to become part of Jesus’ discipleship band, giving her the chance to learn first-hand from a rabbi and to become a witness of the resurrection. Some scholars think she is the apostle Junia, commended by Paul. And some think she is a part of the family of the high priest Annas.
Perhaps that’s another reason Jesus chose Chuza to receive David’s mantle—because Jewish men, more especially those in high positions, would never have risked their reputations by allowing their wives to study Scripture at the feet of a rabbi.
It wasn’t after all until the age of the kings that women, as a general rule, became nameless in Scripture. Before that era, even during the time of the patriarchs, we have women’s songs and deeds and thoughts and names.
Like Joseph’s mantle that, as we saw, requires a man and a woman in partnership, David’s mantle has a similar aspect. It’s not given to leaders but to servants, and marginalised servants at that. So. if you’re feeling like a nameless nobody and that the calling of God on your life is to be victorious over crushing family dysfunction, perhaps it’s because that mantle, coming from Abraham through David, is yours. Without Jesus, the repair can never happen. It’s impossible. But with Jesus, the mending of both your bloodline and your faithline can be as simple as responding to a request for a drink of water or simply believing that Jesus can do what He says and that the hour of healing has come.
This is Grace Drops; I’m Anne Hamilton. May you be empowered by the grace of Jesus the King and be His kingmaker today.
Thank you to Lorna Skinner of www.riversofmusic.co.uk for the background music.
All the background to David’s mantle will be covered in The Inviolable Kingdom: John 4 and 18: Mystery, Majesty and Mathematics in John’s Gospel #4. Available 2025.
Elijah’s mantle is discussed in The Elijah Tapestry: John 1 and 21: Mystery, Majesty and Mathematics in John’s Gospel #1.
Joseph’s mantle is featured The Summoning of Time: John 2 and 20: Mystery, Majesty and Mathematics in John’s Gospel #2.
Moses’ mantle—and Reuben’s mantle—will be featured in The Lustral Waters: John 3 and 19: Mystery, Majesty and Mathematics in John’s Gospel #3. Available late 2024.
Please get in touch through the contact form at Armour Books if you are in the US, UK or Australia and there are availability/price issues at the retailer for any of these volumes.