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Kings: Often Exercised Power Arbitrarily 1 Samuel 22:17, 18

Then the king ordered the guards at his side, “Turn and kill the priests of the LORD, because they too sided with David. For they knew he was fleeing, but they did not tell me.” But the king’s servants would not lift a hand to strike the priests of the LORD. / So the king ordered Doeg, “You turn and strike down the priests!” And Doeg the Edomite turned and struck down the priests himself. On that day he killed eighty-five men who wore the linen ephod.

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Kings: Often Exercised Power Arbitrarily 2 Samuel 1:15

Then David summoned one of the young men and said, “Go, execute him!” So the young man struck him down, and he died.

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Kings: Often Exercised Power Arbitrarily 2 Samuel 4:9–12

But David answered Rechab and his brother Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As surely as the LORD lives, who has redeemed my life from all distress, / when someone told me, ‘Look, Saul is dead,’ and thought he was a bearer of good news, I seized him and put him to death at Ziklag. That was his reward for his news! / How much more, when wicked men kill a righteous man in his own house and on his own bed, shall I not now require his blood from your hands and remove you from the earth!”

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Kings: Often Exercised Power Arbitrarily 1 Kings 2:23, 25, 31

Then King Solomon swore by the LORD: “May God punish me, and ever so severely, if Adonijah has not made this request at the expense of his life. / So King Solomon sent the order to Benaiah son of Jehoiada, who struck down Adonijah, and he died. / And the king replied, “Do just as he says. Strike him down and bury him, and so remove from me and from the house of my father the innocent blood that Joab shed.

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