king ?

i'm interested to know where the view of God being the dominating king in the OT comes from too. there are references to him being king and having a kingdom of course, but i think they are surprisingly few and tho they're in key places (God's reply to samuel when the people asked for a king - 1 sam 8; baalam's prophecy maybe - numbers 23, ; david's song - 1 chron 29; lots of psalms; twice in job;  isa 6, and 43 onwards; the song of darius - dan 6; zech 9 and 14; malachi; and probably some i've missed) they're  so little that you can hardly say God's  going on and on about it. then there is the title sovereign lord, but that's something given to him in prayer from us not something he imposes in prophecies or teaching or law. other titles like creator, god, judge,  shepherd etc seem to me to be far far stronger or at least as strong.  

the role of kings seems to be principally as warlords. that's why the people of israel originally wanted a king, that was the main activity of Saul and David. Hence that expression "In the spring, when Kings go out to war". David adapted his role to include temple builder and Solomon followed on in that way and also included the role of judge, arbitrator, giver of wisdom. Samuel blew it by using slave labour to build the temple and having foreign wives, which he knew was dodgy. He even built a new palace for the daughter of Pharoh cos he knew she shouldn't really be living in Jerusalem where the Ark of the Covenant had been ! Interesting the way things are written up in Kings (which makes me think it is authentic) - Up to Solomon's death the writing is politically correct in favour of Solomon, (it doesn't even quite say that Solomon was not the rightful heir, it's only allowed to hint at that). Straight after it lists why he went wrong and why the kindom was ripped apart.


all this leads me to think that Jesus is the continuity of an extraordinarily restrained sovereignty. domination is just not part of it. this makes me take things like the picture at the end of revelation, where he turns up to the wedding on a white charger with a sword coming out of his mouth, all the more seriously - it turned out he didnt make empty threats, but he did leave it as long as poss in the hope we'd behave. and even there the next image is of the lamb and a slaughtered one at that ! even the final judgement will not be based on anything arbitrary but will be letting us have the final consequences of our own choices. when God doesnt play by the rules it's only to offer grace, show mercy !
 

It's the Romans of course who use the title King of the Jews for Jesus and it's not picked up again until Paul uses it when writing to Timothy. Then John uses the title for Jesus just a couple of times (significant times though) in Revelation. However the idea of Kingdom comes up a lot in the gospels. Kingdom of Heaven, Kingdom of God. This implies kingship but that rarely seems to be the main direction of these teachings.

of course "king" is a very frustrating word search, i've waded through 2289 OT references !