The people has long recognized and referred to Jesus as King of Israel and when he came into the city at the head of that last week they so cried after him, 'Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel'. Yet the 'Jews' did protest when the Roman had place the name label upon Jesus upon the cross which declared him as 'King of the Jews'. 'Say not that he is King of the Jews, but that he said he was King of the Jews,' was there rebuke of the Roman labeling. But did Jesus himself ever state that he was the King of the Jews? Or did the people ever declare him as such? The scriptures support the concept that the people recognized him as King of Israel. No place in the Gospels but in the reference of the 'Wisemen' and by the Romans is Jesus denoted as King of the Jews. Of a truth in the mind of a Jew in that day the two titles were likely deemed the same. But in the strictest sense they are not. King of Israel implies being King over all the tribes of Israel and/or the Northern Kingdom of Israel, while King of the Jews would have only meant a King of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. And except for Saul, David and Solomon in their day was any 'King of Judah' ever 'King of Israel' except Jesus Christ.

"On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord." ~ John 12:12-13

Often the most obvious and simplist facts of the matter are both the most revealing and quite often the easiest to over look. The phrase 'King of Israel' appears 137 times in scripture, once in the Book of Mormon, four times in the New Testament and the other 132 times in the Old Testament. In the Book of Mormon it is in reference to Pekah the son of Remaliah, the king of the northern kingdom of Israel as referenced in Isaiah, it being one of the 'Isaiah' chapters in the Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 17:1). In the four New Testament listing, the King of Israel is in all cases in reference to Jesus Christ being the King of Israel; twice in John, once in Mark and once in Matthew. Despite its rearity in the New Testament, both the Matthew and Mark reference (Matthew 27:42, Mark 15:32) do confirm the John 12:13 record of the people crying forth 'Blessed is the King of Israel, as the chief priest so mock Jesus to come down from the cross if indeed he be 'The King of Israel'.

In the Book of John the title 'King of Israel' is used twice in reference to Jesus Christ. The first time is unique in that it comes in response to Philip's declaration to Nathanael that the promised Messiah which Moses in the law and the prophets had writen of as 'Jesus of Nazareth', 'the son of Joseph' (John 1:45). And thus so anounced by Philip, when Nathanael first meets Jesus, Nathan responds to him, 'Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel' (John 1:49). This relationship of Christ being 'the son of Joseph', that is Joseph of Egypt, and being 'the King of Israel', the kingdom of Israel being that of Ephraim, ought not to be ignored or belittled. It is a direct association with the Messiah son of Joseph being the legal and rightful heir of the throne of Israel, not just the King of the Jews, but the King of all of Israel who was so prophesied to come.

John's other reference to Jesus as King of Israel is that which comes in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. The prophecy in the Old Testament is contained in Psalms 118 where it speaks of the 'builders' refusal', that is the priests of the Jews, and rejection of the Messiah as the head stone of the corner (Ps. 118:22) and that 'Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the LORD" (Ps. 118:26). This is echoed in Matthew 21:1-11, Matthew 23:39, Mark 11:9 and Luke 13:35. Yet it is only John's record which inserts or restores the crowd's hailing him as 'King of Israel'. As the psalm is likely a singing of that which had been prophesied by the prophets though lost to the Jewish Old Testament cannon as to which prophet(s) had spoken it, it may be possible that the orignal which the psalm sings of did also so reference as does John that appealation of 'King of Israel'. Certainly with that confirmation that the crowd did so praise Jesus as such as the King of Israel mocked by the chief priest of him as he hung on the cross, they did surely understand him to be that fulfillment which he was as 'KING OF ISRAEL', all of Israel!

Now as to the other 132 Old Testament references to the King of Isarel, only King Saul, King David and King Solomon is referenced as 'King of Israel' of the kings prior to Jeroboam and Rehaboam. From the days of the dividing of the kingdom into that of Judah and Ephraim or Israel, only the kings of the northern kingdom which come out of Jeroboam that Ephrathite or Ephraimite, are so called 'King of Israel'. The kingly line in Jerusalem is from thence only referenced as 'King of Judah' and never as being 'King of Israel'. So obvious a distinction it is, yet so telling that for Jesus to also be so called 'King of Israel' must imply that he is heir to and king over all of Israel, the kingdom of Israel and not merely 'King of the Jews'.

Never in the Old Testament is the title 'King of the Jews' used. It is always King of Judah and that only in reference to those kings in Jerusalem since Rehaboam. It is only in the four gospels that the title of 'King of the Jews' is referenced in scripture and there only 18 times. And excepting the single inquiry of the wise men after the newly born Messiah (Matthew 2:2), it is only ascribed to Jesus on the part of the Roman's beginning with Pilate's interogation of Jesus (Matthew 27:11, Mark 15:2, Luke 23:3, John 18:33). It is never used by the chief priest in addressing him, only is objection to Pilate using it on the sign made of him by the Roman's which hung on the cross. It is the soldiers who mock him as 'King of the Jews' (Luke 23:37) and as the gospels of Matthew and Mark so attest, when the chief priests so mock him, they mock him as being 'King of Israel'(Matthew 27:42, Mark 15:32), which has the greater and more expansive meaning of being that King of all of Israel under whose name all of Israel would one day be gathered, and he the Messiah would stand as King once again to a united Israel.

The title of 'King of Judah' is understandably only used in scripture to refer to those kings of Jerusalem from King Rehoboam, the son of Solomon under whom the division between Israel and Judah took place, down to the last King of Judah and Jerusalem, who was King Zedekiah. Of the 151 such scriptural references to the 'King of Judah', 5 are found in the Book of Mormon and all the remaining 146 references of such are to be found in the Old Testament. None are so found in the New Testament. Jesus, the Messiah, is never referenced as being 'King of Judah'. And as already so stipulated just prior, only from the vantage point of the Romans was Jesus labeled as 'King of the Jews', even the Jews resented that appealation being applied to Christ and as so already stated in their mocking of Jesus, they did not attribute him as 'King of the Jews' but rather they mocked him in the claim of being 'King of Israel', as that is, was and will be the proper title of the Messiah to come, even 'King of Israel'.

And thus we see that Jesus the Messiah was to be the Son of Joseph, the Messiah ben Joseph who would be the 'King of Israel'. Those rulers who held the sceptre in the kingdom of Judah would only hold it 'UNTIL' Shiloh, the Christ, the Messiah, would come, and then would the gathering of the people be unto him, King of Israel, not merely King of Judah (Genesis 49:10). The Jews and particularly the Jewish leaders knew this. This was part and parcle of their objection to Christ, the Son and Heir as the parable so presents (Matthew 21:37-39), that they would rather than to loose the rule to him, they would so plot and kill him (John 11:47-53). They had had signs enough to know that he was indeed the promised Messiah, the Son and Heir, that promised Shiloh who would replace them as the new King of Israel. They saw only that their 'place' would be take from them, and thus in so opposing and bring about his death they did lose their place; not of earthly position but that in heaven.