The question of whether subjects may lawfully resist a ruler’s unjust commands is not merely theoretical. Samuel Rutherford, in Lex Rex, builds his argument for the right of resistance on concrete historical precedents drawn from Scripture, treating them as real cases of civic action that illuminate enduring constitutional principles. These examples are not offered as isolated acts of heroism but as evidence that communities and lesser authorities have always possessed the lawful capacity to check tyrannical power — a capacity that became foundational to the English constitutional tradition and, ultimately, to American political thought.
The Revolt of Libnah Against King Jehoram
The city of Libnah revolted against King Jehoram of Judah (2 Chronicles 21; 2 Kings 8:22). Jehoram had led the people into idolatry and oppression, compelling false worship and ruling with cruelty. Rutherford treats Libnah’s revolt not as rebellion but as a lawful act of civic resistance. The city did not reject the institution of kingship; it rejected a king who had broken the covenant that made his authority legitimate. Jehoram had violated his obligation to rule according to God’s law and the people’s welfare, and the city withdrew its allegiance accordingly.
This precedent is significant because it demonstrates corporate resistance at the civic level — an entire community acting in concert, not a lone assassin or mob. Rutherford argues that when a king leads the people into gross evil, the people are not bound to follow him into destruction. The act of Libnah mirrors the logic later articulated in the right of resistance tradition: that political authority is conditional, not absolute, and that the covenant between ruler and ruled can be broken by the ruler’s faithlessness.
The City of Abel’s Defense Against Joab
The city of Abel-beth-maachah provides a second example of lawful civic resistance under duress. When General Joab besieged the city in pursuit of Sheba ben Bichri, the citizens did not simply submit to military destruction. A wise woman negotiated with Joab from the walls, demanding to know why he would destroy “a city and a mother in Israel” (2 Samuel 20:19). The city’s inhabitants acted in their own defense, preserving their community while resolving the immediate threat by delivering the fugitive.
Rutherford draws from this episode the principle that a community possesses the inherent right to defend itself against unjust violence — even when that violence comes from a lawful military commander acting under the king’s authority. The city of Abel exercised judgment, negotiated, and acted to protect its people. This is not anarchy; it is ordered, corporate self-defense exercised by the community’s recognized leadership. The parallel to later English developments is clear: communities and their representatives retain defensive rights that no royal officer may override without lawful cause. The principle reappears in the Magna Carta era, when English barons asserted the right to resist a king who violated the law of the land.
The People’s Oath to Protect Jonathan from Saul
Perhaps the most striking example Rutherford deploys is the people’s rescue of Prince Jonathan from King Saul’s unjust death sentence (1 Samuel 14). Saul had issued a rash oath forbidding his soldiers from eating during battle. Jonathan, unaware of the command, ate honey and was condemned to death by his father the king. The people — including nobles, captains, and common soldiers — swore a binding oath that Jonathan would not die, directly contradicting and overriding the king’s decree.
Rutherford emphasizes several features of this event. First, it was not a rogue act by a single individual but a collective decision by the armed community, including its recognized leaders. Second, the people did not deny Saul’s kingship or seek to depose him; they resisted a specific unjust command. Third, the oath was praised by biblical interpreters as laudable resistance to tyranny rather than condemned as rebellion. The people used the implicit threat of force — they “rescued” Jonathan, the Hebrew implying physical intervention — to prevent the king from carrying out an unjust execution.
This example is central to Rutherford’s broader argument in Lex Rex because it shows that even in a theocratic monarchy with divine sanction, the king’s authority was not unlimited. The law stood above the king, and when the king violated justice, the people and their leaders had both the right and the duty to intervene. The people did not wait for a higher court to overrule Saul; they acted directly in defense of the innocent.
Principles Drawn from the Precedents
Across these three examples, Rutherford identifies consistent principles that later became cornerstones of Reformed resistance theory and English constitutionalism:
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Authority is covenantal, not absolute. Rulers govern under a compact with the people and under the higher law of God. When a ruler violates that compact, the obligation of obedience is broken at the point of violation.
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Corporate resistance is distinct from private rebellion. In every case, resistance is exercised by communities, cities, or recognized leaders — not by lone actors. This maps directly onto the doctrine of lesser magistrates, which holds that intermediate authorities (magistrates, nobles, city councils) bear a particular duty to check tyrannical power.
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Defensive resistance preserves order rather than destroying it. Libnah did not seek to overthrow the Davidic monarchy; it withdrew from a faithless king. Abel defended itself without waging aggressive war. The people protected Jonathan without deposing Saul. Resistance is conservative in aim — it protects the existing legal and moral order against a ruler who has departed from it.
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The law is king. The recurring thread is that the law — God’s law, the covenant, the obligations of justice — holds a higher position than any individual ruler’s will. This is the core thesis of Lex Rex itself: lex rex, the law is king, not rex lex, the king is law.
From Ancient Precedent to Constitutional Tradition
These biblical examples did not remain academic curiosities. They became operational arguments in the political crises of early modern Europe. Rutherford and other Reformed political theologians wielded them during the English Civil War and the Scottish resistance to Stuart absolutism, as explored in the broader context of the English Civil War. The logic of covenantal, corporate, defensive resistance flowed directly into the Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos and from there into English constitutional development and ultimately the American founding.
For the prepared citizen today, these examples frame the foundational question: political authority exists to serve justice and protect the people, and when it fails catastrophically in that duty, the community’s right to defend itself does not vanish. This principle underwrites not only the Sixth Commandment case for self-defense but also the broader understanding that the citizen-soldier tradition is not a modern invention — it is as old as organized political life itself.