# Kingship and the House of David

Source: https://enocharchive.com/themes/kingship (Enoch Archive).

The Kebra Nagast, 'the Glory of Kings', is a book about where rightful kingship lives. It follows the rule of the patriarchs from Adam and Seth down to David and Solomon, and then tells how Solomon's firstborn son by the Queen of Sheba was anointed in Jerusalem, carried Zion, the Tabernacle of the Law, to Ethiopia, and founded a line of kings there. Its closing chapters set the king of Ethiopia beside the king of Rome.

The Cave of Treasures treats the same history as a chain of succession. It lists the judges and kings of Israel from Joshua to Zedekiah, with the length of each reign and often the name of each king's mother, and it insists that priesthood and kingship both passed through Judah.

The Testaments make that last point in Judah's own voice: the Lord gave him the kingdom and Levi the priesthood, and set the kingdom beneath the priesthood. The Ascension of Isaiah shows how a throne can be lost in a generation, when Hezekiah's charge to his son Manasseh is forgotten as soon as he dies.

**category:** Historical