The word ‘me•lech’ is mentioned over a thousand times in the Bible, but only a handful of references pertain to the Lord God. Interestingly, the title ‘me•lech’ is a part of God’s name in every Jewish prayer. All Hebrew prayers begin with “Blessed are You Lord, King of the universe.” It makes us wonder why we see only a few references to God as a King? Many of the Hebrew prayers were inspired by the Book of Psalms. Perhaps the poetic nature of this book inspired the ancient prayer writers to choose the name that is most frequent in Psalms to be attributed to our mighty God.
“Thus says the Lord the King of Israel…”
“The Lord is King for ever and ever”
“and the Lord sits enthroned as King forever”
“For the Lord Most High is awesome; he is a great King over all the earth”
All other references of ‘me•lech’ are of the the many human kings mentioned in scripture.
A similar name to ‘me•lech’ is the ancient god, ‘Mo•lech,’ whose worship involved human sacrifices. The ‘Mo•lech’ is mentioned in the Bible several times:
“that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech”
Even King Solomon has built a high place for the Molech:
“Then did Solomon build a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the Ammonites”
It is noteworthy to mention that Messiah is also called ‘King Messiah.’ ‘See this New Testament verse:
“They began to accuse him, saying, ‘We found this man perverting the nation, forbidding paying taxes to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king'”
To end this subject with another cheerful note, let’s look at the beautiful depiction of God in the New Testament: ‘Me•lech Me•la•chim va•A•do•ney ha•A•do•nim’
“…KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS”
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