Kingdom Presence: Old Testament (8)

“Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise;
Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;
Your father’s children shall bow down before you.
Judah is a lion’s whelp;
From the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He bows down, he lies down as a lion;
And as a lion, who shall rouse him?
The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
Nor a lawgiver from between his feet,
Until Shiloh comes;
And to Him shall be the obedience of the people. Genesis 49.8-10

“Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites. And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel.” Deuteronomy 17.18-20

Bridge to the Kingdom
We need to back-and-fill a bit at this point, since Moses represents in many ways a bridge to a fuller, broader understanding of God and His Kingdom.

We recall that Moses is the author of the Law of God, the first five books of the Bible, as Jesus intimated in John 7.22. His purpose in compiling and writing these books was to establish Israel as a people directly descended from God through Adam, Abraham, and the patriarchs. They were a people of God’s covenant, mandated to rule the earth and exercise dominion under their Most High King.

Moses brings the covenant with Abraham forward to the people of Israel, who, in certain ways, had lost their identity during the 400 years of captivity in Egypt. Moses brought them out and renewed them in God’s covenant at Mt. Sinai. Then he pointed through that covenant to a coming kingdom and dynasty by which, and in submission to whom, the people would realize the precious and very great promises of God and be the envy of the surrounding nations.

Kingdom and covenant continue to come together and be enlarged under the teaching and leadership of Moses. And this is especially so as Moses points forward to an earthly king, a dynasty of kings, and a coming Ruler for Whom all this kingdom and covenant have been especially prepared.

A dynasty of kings
Through Moses, God instructed His people to embrace the notion of kingdom and kingship—an idea and promise first vetted through Abraham, then focused by Jacob, Abraham’s grandson. God promised to create a dynasty descending through the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49.8-11) and give His people a king when they came into the land (Deut. 17.14-20).

The kings who would rule in Israel, however, were not to be anything like the pagan kings Israel had known. The kings of Israel were not to be motivated by selfish ambition or the desire for wealth. They were not to take advantage of the people for their own aggrandizement. And they were to live and rule according to the just and holy statutes and precepts of the Law of God. As they read and studied it day by day, the Law of God would keep the hearts of Israel’s kings humble, so that they could serve the people well.

The kings Israel was to know in the land of promise would thus be regents of God, obedient to His Law, and devoted to serving His people for the fullness of covenant blessings. They would be descendants of Judah, and would begin a dynasty that would only end with One Whose name is Shiloh—a word, as we have seen, that means something like, “Him Whose It Is.”

Thus, Moses reported to the people of Israel that God had great Kingdom purposes in mind for them, and they must trust Him, enter fully into His promises, live as His Kingdom people according to His Law, and look forward to the day of Shiloh’s coming, when all kingdoms and nations would come under His authority and rule.

It is clear, therefore, that the Kingdom presence was to be considered inextricable from the further development of God’s covenant and the expression and realization of all He promised and commanded His people from the beginning.

A reminder in the wilderness
When, just as the generation born in the wilderness was preparing to enter the land, the report was brought to Moses of the prophecy of the false prophet, Balaam, he must have been encouraged to see how God had impressed on even this pagan the certainty of these regal and covenantal matters.

Balaam acknowledged, quite against his will, that God was King in the midst of His people, and that He would lead and sustain them against every attempt to frustrate His purposes (Num. 23.22-24: note how Balaam’s words echo those of Jacob in Gen. 49.8-11). In language pointedly reminiscent of God’s promise to Abraham, Balaam declared that God’s stated purpose for His people is sure, and all nations would be wise, therefore, to seek His blessing from the kingdom of God’s people (Num. 24.8, 9).

Fortified with the recovered stories of their forebears, observers of destroyed kings and realms, and recipients of promises directly related to kings and a Kingdom where blessing and prosperity were to be known by all, Israel was much encouraged to follow Joshua in the work of conquest. 

The kingdom vision Moses received reached back to Israel’s beginnings and forward to the land of promise, then beyond that to a final, coming King. It situated the people of Israel as citizens in a nation ruled by God, but overseen by earthly kings, submitted to God’s Law. It saw the nations as seeking the favor of God by blessing His people or knowing the curse of God by opposing them. And, throughout their journey through the wilderness, God gave His people ample evidence that what He had promised, He was well able to provide.

For reflection
1. What was to be the role of the Law of God in the kingdom God would establish for His people?

2. How would the nations respond as they saw Israel living that way?

3. What “kingdom lessons” are suggested by this first part of our study of the Kingdom presence?

Next steps—Preparation: Review all we have seen thus far about the kingdom idea in the Old Testament. Has this affected your thinking about the Kingdom of God in any ways?

T. M. Moore

A companion book to this study of “Kingdom Presence” is available at our bookstore. Learn more and listen to an excerpt from The Kingdom Turn, by clicking here. Then order your free copy.

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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study.