A king
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מֶלֶךְ (melek) is the Hebrew word for king — the political sovereign who rules, judges, and leads his people. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 2,526 occurrences, making it one of the most frequent nouns represented in the index, and its theological importance is commensurate with its frequency: the entire OT is concerned with the question of who is the true king, what genuine kingship looks like, and.
Reader summary
Full entry for מֶלֶךְ (H4428) · Open the biblical lexicon
מֶלֶךְ (melek) is the Hebrew word for king — the political sovereign who rules, judges, and leads his people. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 2,526 occurrences, making it one of the most frequent nouns represented in the index, and its theological importance is commensurate with its frequency: the entire OT is concerned with the question of.
The BSB source-word alignment has 2,525 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include the king (584), king (547), of the King (136), kings (68), of the Kings (68).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 14:1. Its strongest book concentrations include 2 Kings (370), 1 Kings (305), 2 Samuel (283), 2 Chronicles (277).
מֶלֶךְ (melek) is the Hebrew word for king — the political sovereign who rules, judges, and leads his people. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 2,526 occurrences, making it one of the most frequent nouns represented in the index, and its theological importance is commensurate with its frequency: the entire OT is concerned with the question of who is the true king, what genuine kingship looks like, and how the kingdoms of the earth relate to the kingdom of God.
The OT's most fundamental theological claim about melek is that YHWH Himself is king. 'For the Lord is the great God, and the great King (melek) above all gods' (Ps 95:3). 'The Lord is King (melek) forever and ever' (Ps 10:16). Isaiah's vision in the temple is of the Lord sitting on a high throne, and the seraphim's declaration — 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory' (Isa 6:3) — is addressed to 'the King, the Lord of hosts' (6:5). God's kingship is not metaphorical or derivative; it is the original and genuine form of which all human kingship is at best a reflection and image.
The institution of human kingship in Israel is introduced in 1 Samuel 8 under ambiguous conditions: the people ask for a king 'like all the nations' (8:5), and the Lord says to Samuel, 'they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them' (8:7). Human kingship in Israel is not the fulfillment of God's design but an accommodation to Israel's desire, hedged with warnings about what a human king will cost. The laws of the king in Deuteronomy 17:14-20 set out the conditions for a king who functions properly: not multiplying horses (military dependence), not multiplying wives (personal indulgence), not multiplying silver and gold (wealth accumulation), and writing a copy of the Torah and reading it all his days. The king who is genuinely king in Israel is the one who is the Torah-keeping servant of YHWH.
Psalm 2 holds the two dimensions together: the nations rage against the Lord and His anointed (His melek, v. 6: 'I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill'), and the Lord's king will ultimately rule the nations. The Davidic king is the Lord's representative melek — and the NT reads this as fulfilled in Christ: 'You are my Son; today I have begotten you' (Ps 2:7) is quoted in Hebrews 1:5, Acts 13:33, and applied to the resurrection.
For the preacher, מֶלֶךְ is the word that puts all human authority in its place: under the one King who is Lord of lords and King of kings, whose kingdom will have no end.
מֶלֶךְ is counted about 2,526 times in the local Hebrew index, marking it as one of the most frequent royal nouns in the corpus. The range covers Canaanite kings, Egyptian pharaohs, Assyrian and Babylonian emperors, Israelite kings from Saul to the exile, and — most theologically significant — YHWH as the eternal and universal King. The Psalms concentrate the divine-kingship theology (Pss 24, 44, 47, 89, 93, 95-99), and the prophets develop the Messianic-king expectation (Isa 9, 11; Jer 23:5-6; Ezek 37:24; Zech 9:9).
For God is King of all the earth; sing to Him a psalm of praise.
The declaration of YHWH's universal kingship: melek kol ha-arets (King of all the earth). The Psalm calls all nations to clap hands and shout to God (v. 1) because His kingship is not national but universal. The worshiping community does not merely acknowledge a tribal deity but the King of the whole earth. This is the eschatological claim that underlies all Israel's covenant confidence: their God is not merely their king but the King who rules over all kings.
Lift up your heads, O gates! Be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of Glory may enter!
The entrance of the King of glory (melek ha-kavod) into the sanctuary. The threefold interrogation — 'Who is this King of glory?' — and the threefold answer — 'The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory!' — establish the absolute identification of divine kingship with glory. The procession of the ark into Jerusalem becomes the liturgical anticipation of the ultimate entrance of the divine King. Worship gatherings that echo this psalm rehearse this question and answer.
And the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you. For it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected Me as their king.
The foundational tension in Israel's kingship: the request for a human king is framed as a rejection of divine kingship. This is the deepest structure of the Israelite monarchy: human kingship exists in the shadow of the king-rejection of YHWH. Every failure of the human king — which is frequent and total — is an expression of this original substitution. The prophecies that look for a better king (Jer 23:5-6; Ezek 34:23-24) are looking for a king who will not displace YHWH but represent Him.
Then I said: “Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips dwelling among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.”
Isaiah's vision of the divine King: the encounter with melek YHWH tsvaot produces undoing. Seeing the King who is truly King is the moment that exposes all human pretension and uncleanliness. The response — 'woe is me' — is the appropriate human response to the divine King's holiness. The vision comes in 'the year that King Uzziah died' (6:1) — the death of the human king is the frame in which the eternal King is seen. Human kingship ends; the divine King endures.
Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your King comes to you, righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
The Messianic king's entry: tsaddiq (righteous), noshi'a (saved/saving), ani (lowly, humble) — arriving on a donkey, not a war horse. The contrast with the standard royal entry (triumphant, mounted on a charger) is absolute: this king comes in humility, with salvation rather than conquest. The NT explicitly fulfills this in Jesus' entry into Jerusalem (Mat 21:5; Jhn 12:15). The Messianic king who Israel's prophets anticipated is the one who comes in the opposite spirit from the kings the nations expect.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. a king
a king BDB: king Usage: king, royal.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 2,526 lexical occurrence verses.
It affirms that ultimate restoration centers on the Lord’s reign, anticipating the messianic kingship fulfilled in Christ. Hosea 13:9-16
Affirms the Lord’s supreme authority over Zion. Hosea 3:1-5
Highlights misplaced trust in monarchy. Isaiah 33:13-24
Highlights political collapse before restoration. Micah 2:12-13
Greek words that correspond to or develop the meaning of this Hebrew word in the New Testament.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
מֶלֶךְ is the word that gives the entire biblical story its most fundamental question: who is king? The OT's answer is both simple and complex. Simple: YHWH is King in the final and ultimate sense. Complex: human kings are given, fail, are judged, are replaced — and the prophetic anticipation is for a Messianic king who will reign in righteousness and not repeat the failures of Saul, Solomon, or the kings who came after.
The NT's claim is that this king has come: Jesus of Nazareth, who enters Jerusalem on a donkey (Zech 9:9), who is declared King by a sign over His cross ('King of the Jews'), who rises from the dead and is declared 'Lord of lords and King of kings' (Rev 19:16). The story of the melek in the OT is the story of the search for a king who will not betray the kingdom's owner — and the gospel's answer is the Son who does not displace the Father's kingship but reveals and mediates it.
The preacher who takes the melek-theme seriously will help the congregation understand that the gospel is not only a personal spiritual transaction but a royal proclamation: the King has come, and His kingdom is the frame within which all other questions of allegiance, authority, and direction are now answered.
Ps.47.7
מֶלֶךְ is from the root MLK (to be king, to rule). The verb malak (to reign) and the nouns melukhah (kingdom) and malkut (royal rule, dominion — the Aramaic form) are all from the same root. The word group is one of the most politically and theologically loaded in the Hebrew Bible. The divine epithet melek olam (eternal king, Jer 10:10) and melek ha-kavod (king of glory, Ps 24:7-10) concentrate the highest theological weight.
The Davidic covenant texts use melek to establish the perpetual dynasty: 'your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever' (2 Sam 7:16). The Hebrew malku (Aramaic form) appears in Daniel's visions of the four kingdoms and the eternal kingdom of the Son of Man (Dan 7) — a text the NT reads as fulfilled in Christ. The NT's basileia (kingdom) and basileus (king) translate the Hebrew melek/malkut tradition into the Greek context.
The NT's king-theology is the direct fulfillment of the OT's melek trajectory. Matthew begins with the genealogy of 'Jesus Christ, the son of David' — the Davidic king line. The magi ask for 'the king of the Jews' (Mat 2:2), and the sign over the cross reads 'King of the Jews' (Mat 27:37). Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey (Zech 9:9's Messianic king — Mat 21:5).
Pilate's interrogation centers on 'are you the King of the Jews?' (Jhn 18:33-37), and Jesus' answer — 'my kingdom is not of this world' — locates His kingship in the realm of truth and witness rather than political conquest. Revelation 19:16 names the returning Christ 'King of kings and Lord of lords' — the melek YHWH tradition's ultimate expression. Paul's doxologies name God as 'the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God' (1 Tim 1:17) and 'the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords' (1 Tim 6:15).
The prayer Jesus taught — 'your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven' (Mat 6:10) — is the NT's form of Israel's melek-hope: that the divine King will fully reign over all the earth, as He does in heaven.
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