Deuteronomy 17:18-20 - When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.
I wonder if any king of Israel -- from Saul to David to Solomon on down -- ever made his own personal copy of the law as Moses directed. True, it would be a long time after Moses wrote this before Israel ever had their first king, but the Levites still had copies of the law and some, if not all, of them knew what it said here in Deuteronomy.
If any king did this, you would think it would have been David. However, I wonder if even he did it. If he did, I don't think it's noted anywhere. I can think of several kings who very likely did not make a copy. Some of them were in office so few days that they would barely have had time to start copying the first sentence much less finish the whole thing.
Note that God considers active, physical use of his word a good thing, a great teaching method. Maybe each of us should attempt to make our own handwritten (or possibly typed) copy of the Bible. I wonder how long it would take.
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