'Princes' in the Bible
As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.
These are the sons of Ishmael and these are their names, by their villages, and by their camps; twelve princes according to their tribes.
even all the cities of the plain and all the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites who reigned in Heshbon, whom Moses struck with the chiefs of Midian, Evi and Rekem and Zur and Hur and Reba, the princes of Sihon, who lived in the land.
“And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah;As was Issachar, so was Barak;Into the valley they rushed at his heels;Among the divisions of ReubenThere were great resolves of heart.
And he captured a youth from Succoth and questioned him. Then the youth wrote down for him the princes of Succoth and its elders, seventy-seven men.
the princes of the Ammonites said to Hanun their lord, “Do you think that David is honoring your father because he has sent consolers to you? Has David not sent his servants to you in order to search the city, to spy it out and overthrow it?”
by loving those who hate you, and by hating those who love you. For you have shown today that princes and servants are nothing to you; for I know this day that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased.
But Solomon did not make slaves of the sons of Israel; for they were men of war, his servants, his princes, his captains, his chariot commanders, and his horsemen.
All these were the sons of Asher, heads of the fathers’ houses, choice and mighty men of valor, heads of the princes. And the number of them enrolled by genealogy for service in war was 26,000 men.
But the princes of the sons of Ammon said to Hanun, “Do you think that David is honoring your father, in that he has sent comforters to you? Have not his servants come to you to search and to overthrow and to spy out the land?”
So David said to Joab and to the princes of the people, “Go, number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan, and bring me word that I may know their number.”
Shemaiah, the son of Nethanel the scribe, from the Levites, recorded them in the presence of the king, the princes, Zadok the priest, Ahimelech the son of Abiathar, and the heads of the fathers’ households of the priests and of the Levites; one father’s household taken for Eleazar and one taken for Ithamar.
for Dan, Azarel the son of Jeroham. These were the princes of the tribes of Israel.
Now David assembled at Jerusalem all the officials of Israel, the princes of the tribes, and the commanders of the divisions that served the king, and the commanders of thousands, and the commanders of hundreds, and the overseers of all the property and livestock belonging to the king and his sons, with the officials and the mighty men, even all the valiant men.
Then the rulers of the fathers’ households, and the princes of the tribes of Israel, and the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, with the overseers over the king’s work, offered willingly;
Then Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and the princes of Judah who had gathered at Jerusalem because of Shishak, and he said to them, “Thus says the Lord, ‘You have forsaken Me, so I also have forsaken you to Shishak.’”
So the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, “The Lord is righteous.”
It came about when Jehu was executing judgment on the house of Ahab, he found the princes of Judah and the sons of Ahaziah’s brothers ministering to Ahaziah, and slew them.
Although Ahaz took a portion out of the house of the Lord and out of the palace of the king and of the princes, and gave it to the king of Assyria, it did not help him.
Then King Hezekiah arose early and assembled the princes of the city and went up to the house of the Lord.
For the king and his princes and all the assembly in Jerusalem had decided to celebrate the Passover in the second month,
The couriers went throughout all Israel and Judah with the letters from the hand of the king and his princes, even according to the command of the king, saying, “O sons of Israel, return to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, that He may return to those of you who escaped and are left from the hand of the kings of Assyria.
The hand of God was also on Judah to give them one heart to do what the king and the princes commanded by the word of the Lord.
For Hezekiah king of Judah had contributed to the assembly 1,000 bulls and 7,000 sheep, and the princes had contributed to the assembly 1,000 bulls and 10,000 sheep; and a large number of priests consecrated themselves.
and has extended lovingkindness to me before the king and his counselors and before all the king’s mighty princes. Thus I was strengthened according to the hand of the Lord my God upon me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me.
and 220 of the temple servants, whom David and the princes had given for the service of the Levites, all of them designated by name.
and I weighed out to them the silver, the gold and the utensils, the offering for the house of our God which the king and his counselors and his princes and all Israel present there had offered.
Now when these things had been completed, the princes approached me, saying, “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, according to their abominations, those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians and the Amorites.
For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has intermingled with the peoples of the lands; indeed, the hands of the princes and the rulers have been foremost in this unfaithfulness.”
“Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and lovingkindness,Do not let all the hardship seem insignificant before You,Which has come upon us, our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers and on all Your people,From the days of the kings of Assyria to this day.
in the third year of his reign he gave a banquet for all his princes and attendants, the army officers of Persia and Media, the nobles and the princes of his provinces being in his presence.
to bring Queen Vashti before the king with her royal crown in order to display her beauty to the people and the princes, for she was beautiful.
and were close to him: Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena and Memucan, the seven princes of Persia and Media who had access to the king’s presence and sat in the first place in the kingdom—
In the presence of the king and the princes, Memucan said, “Queen Vashti has wronged not only the king but also all the princes and all the peoples who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus.
This day the ladies of Persia and Media who have heard of the queen’s conduct will speak in the same way to all the king’s princes, and there will be plenty of contempt and anger.
This word pleased the king and the princes, and the king did as Memucan proposed.
Then the king gave a great banquet, Esther’s banquet, for all his princes and his servants; he also made a holiday for the provinces and gave gifts according to the king’s bounty.
After these events King Ahasuerus promoted Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him and established his authority over all the princes who were with him.
Then the king’s scribes were summoned on the thirteenth day of the first month, and it was written just as Haman commanded to the king’s satraps, to the governors who were over each province and to the princes of each people, each province according to its script, each people according to its language, being written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king’s signet ring.
Then Haman recounted to them the glory of his riches, and the number of his sons, and every instance where the king had magnified him and how he had promoted him above the princes and servants of the king.
and let the robe and the horse be handed over to one of the king’s most noble princes and let them array the man whom the king desires to honor and lead him on horseback through the city square, and proclaim before him, ‘Thus it shall be done to the man whom the king desires to honor.’”
So the king’s scribes were called at that time in the third month (that is, the month Sivan), on the twenty-third day; and it was written according to all that Mordecai commanded to the Jews, the satraps, the governors and the princes of the provinces which extended from India to Ethiopia, 127 provinces, to every province according to its script, and to every people according to their language as well as to the Jews according to their script and their language.
Even all the princes of the provinces, the satraps, the governors and those who were doing the king’s business assisted the Jews, because the dread of Mordecai had fallen on them.
Or with princes who had gold,Who were filling their houses with silver.
“The princes stopped talkingAnd put their hands on their mouths;
Who shows no partiality to princesNor regards the rich above the poor,For they all are the work of His hands?
In place of your fathers will be your sons;You shall make them princes in all the earth.
The princes of the people have assembled themselves as the people of the God of Abraham,For the shields of the earth belong to God;He is highly exalted.
There is Benjamin, the youngest, ruling them,The princes of Judah in their throng,The princes of Zebulun, the princes of Naphtali.
He will cut off the spirit of princes;He is feared by the kings of the earth.
“Nevertheless you will die like menAnd fall like any one of the princes.”
Make their nobles like Oreb and ZeebAnd all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna,
To imprison his princes at will,That he might teach his elders wisdom.
He pours contempt upon princesAnd makes them wander in a pathless waste.
To make them sit with princes,With the princes of His people.
It is better to take refuge in the LordThan to trust in princes.
Even though princes sit and talk against me,Your servant meditates on Your statutes.
Shin.Princes persecute me without cause,But my heart stands in awe of Your words.
Do not trust in princes,In mortal man, in whom there is no salvation.
Kings of the earth and all peoples;Princes and all judges of the earth;
“By me princes rule, and nobles,All who judge rightly.
Luxury is not fitting for a fool;Much less for a slave to rule over princes.
By the transgression of a land many are its princes,But by a man of understanding and knowledge, so it endures.
I have seen slaves riding on horses and princes walking like slaves on the land.
Woe to you, O land, whose king is a lad and whose princes feast in the morning.
Blessed are you, O land, whose king is of nobility and whose princes eat at the appropriate time—for strength and not for drunkenness.
And I will make mere lads their princes,And capricious children will rule over them,
The Lord enters into judgment with the elders and princes of His people,“It is you who have devoured the vineyard;The plunder of the poor is in your houses.
The princes of Zoan are mere fools;The advice of Pharaoh’s wisest advisers has become stupid.How can you men say to Pharaoh,“I am a son of the wise, a son of ancient kings”?
The princes of Zoan have acted foolishly,The princes of Memphis are deluded;Those who are the cornerstone of her tribesHave led Egypt astray.
Who has planned this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns,Whose merchants were princes, whose traders were the honored of the earth?
“For their princes are at ZoanAnd their ambassadors arrive at Hanes.
“His rock will pass away because of panic,And his princes will be terrified at the standard,”Declares the Lord, whose fire is in Zion and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.
Behold, a king will reign righteouslyAnd princes will rule justly.
Its nobles—there is no one thereWhom they may proclaim king—And all its princes will be nothing.
“So I will pollute the princes of the sanctuary,And I will consign Jacob to the ban and Israel to revilement.
Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel and its Holy One,To the despised One,To the One abhorred by the nation,To the Servant of rulers,“Kings will see and arise,Princes will also bow down,Because of the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen You.”
Now behold, I have made you today as a fortified city and as a pillar of iron and as walls of bronze against the whole land, to the kings of Judah, to its princes, to its priests and to the people of the land.
“As the thief is shamed when he is discovered,So the house of Israel is shamed;They, their kings, their princesAnd their priests and their prophets,
“It shall come about in that day,” declares the Lord, “that the heart of the king and the heart of the princes will fail; and the priests will be appalled and the prophets will be astounded.”
“At that time,” declares the Lord, “they will bring out the bones of the kings of Judah and the bones of its princes, and the bones of the priests and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem from their graves.
then there will come in through the gates of this city kings and princes sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and this city will be inhabited forever.
Jerusalem and the cities of Judah and its kings and its princes, to make them a ruin, a horror, a hissing and a curse, as it is this day;
Pharaoh king of Egypt, his servants, his princes and all his people;
When the officials of Judah heard these things, they came up from the king’s house to the house of the Lord and sat in the entrance of the New Gate of the Lord’s house.
(This was after King Jeconiah and the queen mother, the court officials, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem.)
But rather we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths, by burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, just as we ourselves, our forefathers, our kings and our princes did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had plenty of food and were well off and saw no misfortune.
“As for the smoking sacrifices that you burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your forefathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them and did not all this come into His mind?
“For because of your trust in your own achievements and treasures,Even you yourself will be captured;And Chemosh will go off into exileTogether with his priests and his princes.
“Wail, O Heshbon, for Ai has been destroyed!Cry out, O daughters of Rabbah,Gird yourselves with sackcloth and lament,And rush back and forth inside the walls;For Malcam will go into exileTogether with his priests and his princes.
‘Then I will set My throne in ElamAnd destroy out of it king and princes,’Declares the Lord.
“I will make her princes and her wise men drunk,Her governors, her prefects and her mighty men,That they may sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake up,”Declares the King, whose name is the Lord of hosts.
The king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and he also slaughtered all the princes of Judah in Riblah.
All her majestyHas departed from the daughter of Zion;Her princes have become like deerThat have found no pasture;And they have fled without strengthBefore the pursuer.
The Lord has swallowed up; He has not sparedAll the habitations of Jacob.In His wrath He has thrown downThe strongholds of the daughter of Judah;He has brought them down to the ground;He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
Her gates have sunk into the ground,He has destroyed and broken her bars.Her king and her princes are among the nations;The law is no more.Also, her prophets findNo vision from the Lord.
Princes were hung by their hands;Elders were not respected.
“Say now to the rebellious house, ‘Do you not know what these things mean?’ Say, ‘Behold, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem, took its king and princes and brought them to him in Babylon.
“As for you, take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel