Chapter Two

The Jewish understanding of the Kingdom of God/Heaven

The Jewish understanding of the Kingdom of Heaven  can be traced from the Mosaic revelation.   Before the law was given God himself came down on the Mount Sinai and dwelt among the people of Israel and showed himself to the people of Israel.  The laws itself was handed down to them directly by word of mouth by the Lord.

 Covenant between God and Israel

 The covenant itself was sealed by God with his direct presence in the covenant dinner with 70 elders and Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abhihu. 

(Exo 24:9-11)  Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: and they saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone and as it were the very heaven for clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: and they beheld God, and did eat and drink.

 Here is a typical court of the King with his ministers in a dinner setting.  The reason why God entered into covenant with Israel was to make them his people in the ultimate plan of redemption of the cosmos.

Exo 19:6 “and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.”

 God among his People

 So Israel was to be a kingdom with God as their King.  But their business was to serve as priests to the rest of the world.

After the covenant wherever the Israelites encamped, God the King was in residence in the middle of the congregation of Israel in his tabernacle with the Levites surrounding the tabernacle close to it and all the twelve tribes with their standards encamping all around.  This is described in Numbers 2.

When they entered into the land of Canaan, God resided in the midst of the people in the tabernacle with the charismatic Judges ruling under the guidance and the inspiration of God.  However the people wanted a visible King.  When they asked for a king like all other nations God was sad. The government of Israel upto this point was a theocracy, in which God himself ruled directly through his divine laws as given by God’s hand through Moses

1Sa 8:7 “And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not be king over them.”

 Israel under Kings

 Thus, Israel came under the worldly Kings instead of God the King. God clearly told the Israel the difference and the consequences of that choice. Samuel was chosen as the King.  In fact Samuel acted very much like a Judge and lived with the people. With the sublime conception of God as King, the actual monarchy was only a compromise, the reigning monarch passing for Yahweh's representative on earth. God was still in control of the Kingdom through his Prophets and Priests who directly go themselves involved with the executive power of the Kings. This idea of monarch as representative of God on earth is still indicated in the coronation of monarchs by the priests.  Thus the checks and balance did work to a great extent.  In David, the man after God's own heart, the compromise was not unsatisfactory.  David was of contrite heart and heeded the angry outbursts of the Prophets. Politics and religion gradually got independent.  In Solomon it was still tolerable, but by the end of Solomon’s era, the grips of the prophets were lost. Within the divided kingdom, YHVH lost all control.  

 The period of Kings showed how Kingship of the world is in direct opposition to the Kingship of God.  However the Israelic concept of Mesiah was based mostly on the earthly Kingdom.

 In Daniel 2:44 Daniel says,  "the 'God of heaven'  will set up a 'kingdom'  which will never be destroyed."

God's Kingdom is described in many of the canonical and deutrocanonical scriptures.  Some of them can be found in: Ps. xxii. 29 (A.V.28), ciii.19, cxlv.11-13; Ob. 21; Dan. iii.33 (A.V.iv.3); Tobit,xiii.1; Sibyllines,iii.47-48, Psalms of Solomon, xvii.3; Wisdom, x.10; Assump.Moses,x.1; Song of the Three Holy Children, 33; Enoch, lxxxiv. 2.

The Lord shall be King

The words "The Lord shall be King" are translated in the Targum commentary on the books of Moses as, "The Kingdom of God shall be revealed"; and the ancient Jewish liturgy culminates in the prayer that "God may establish His Kingdom speedily” But there is a precondition to the establishment of  The Kingdom of God which is dependent on the community of God.  Man must "take upon himself the yoke of the Kingdom of God" or  the Kingdom of Heaven ("'Ol Malkut Shamayim").  This submission is expressed by Israel in the daily reciting the Shema' (Ber. ii. 2); and by the angels when when they sing their "Thrice Holy" (Hekalot); and in the future "all men shall take upon themselves the yoke of the Kingdom of God when casting away their idols" (Mek., Beshallaḥ, 'Amalek, 2).

According to the Prophecy of Ezekiel, YHVH will establish the New Jerusalem with all the twelve tribes around.  See  Ez. 48:28-35 See figure below.

According to the Midrash (Cant. R. ii. 12), "when the Kingdom of Rome has ripened enough to be destroyed, the Kingdom of God will appear." The same concept is repeated in the revelation of John.