The Kingship of God in the Prophets and Psalms

Abstract

The recurrence of the conception of the Reign of Jahweh in the Psalms and in prophecy both before and after the Exile, in Jewish and Christian apocalyptic, and in the Gospel of our Lord is sufficient justification for the present study. The theophany of Jahweh as King was the inspiration of the mission of Isaiah of Jerusalem (Isaiah vi); the proclamation to Jerusalem 'Thy God reigneth' was the gospel of the great prophet of the restoration from the Exile (Isaiah lii 7); it was the basis of the faith of the Jews in the Seleucid persecution (Daniel vii) and of the Christians in the sub-apostolic age, (Revelation iv, v), and was the theme of our Lord's proclamation at the outset of his mission (Mark i 15; Matthew iv 17) and the subject of many of his parables 1). The significance of this central theme of Scripture becomes apparent when we consider the complex of ideas traditionally associated with the acknowledgement that God was King. From a study of the material in the Psalms and Prophets, and particularly Apocalyptic, a definite pattern emerges. In such a vital organism as the faith of Israel, of course, we must expect the rigidity of such a pattern to be transcended occasionally, and if, as we maintain, the kingship of God was an idea not native to Israel, we must be prepared to find it considerably modified by conceptions which were the fruit of the distinctive religious and historical experience of Israel, such as the deliverance from Egypt and the Covenant. When all this is said, however, passages which deal with the conception of the kingship of God reveal an astonishing agreement, often mentioning explicitly all the main elements of the complex of ideas, namely conflict against the powers of evil or disorder, victory, God's manifestation as King,