Father; and the bearings of this law upon the whole plan of God’s moral administration toward our fallen race. CHAPTER XVI. THE HEBREW THEOCRACY. NATURALLY following the national covenant (Ex. 19) and the giving of the law from Sinai (Ex. 20) and preliminary to the civil code――“the statutes and judgments”――comes in the _Theocracy_――a term used to designate the system of government established for the Hebrew people. Here we may consider briefly the following points: I. _The Supreme Power._ II. The powers of _Jehovah’s vicegerents_――his chief executive officers. III. The _general assembly_ or congregation, and their _elders_. IV. The scope afforded for self-government-democracy. V. The fundamental principles of this entire system. VI. Its union of church and state. VII. Its principles and usages in respect to _war_, with a notice of the war-commission against the doomed Canaanites. I. _The Supreme Power._ God himself was _king_. In every respect the supreme power was his. Precisely this is the sense of the term “_theocracy_”――_a government of God_. This comprehensive fact appears in the following particulars: 1. God demanded supreme homage as their king (Ex. 19: 6 and Deut. 6: 4–15, and 7: 6–11, and 10: 12–21, and 33: 4, 5 and 1 Sam. 8: 6–8, and 10: 18, 19 and Judg. 8: 23). 2. God enacted the statutes. He was the Supreme _Lawgiver_. We sometimes speak of the “Mosaic code,” of the “statutes of Moses,” meaning by these phrases only that the statutes came from God to the people by the hand of Moses; never that Moses was himself the author of these statutes――the true legislator. (See Ex. 21: 1 and Deut. 6: 1). 3. God _nominated the chief executive_. He called Moses (Ex. 3: 10, 12, and 4: 16 and 1 Cor. 10: 2); and Joshua (Num. 27: 18–23 and Deut. 3: 28, and 31: 3 and Josh. 1 and 5: 13–15). The same was true of the Judges, raised up for special emergencies (Judg. 2: 16, 18, and 3: 9, 15, and 4: 6, and 6: 12, etc., etc.) God called the kings:――Saul (1 Sam. 9: 17, and 10: 1); also David (1 Sam. 13: 14, and 16: 1 and 2 Sam. 5: 2 and Ps. 78: 70, 71); and to name no more, Solomon (1 Chron. 28: 5).