4. Царство (теократия)

The sacred-sacrificial cleansing of the Jewish people, even from the Old Testament point of view, was only symbolic 260. Behind the parts of the body, people, place, time, fruits dedicated to God, the whole and real life of the people was hidden. According to the meaning of the Old Testament, all this actual life of the people must belong to Jehovah. The resettlement of Abraham, the exit of the Jews from Egypt, the occupation of the promised land, the wars with the Canaanite peoples - all this was service to Jehovah, the work of God. The kingdom of the Jewish people was especially God's work. Here we come to one of the most important points of Old Testament religion. We must pay special attention to the fact that the old covenant was concluded by Jehovah specifically with the Jewish people, and not with one or another person or member of it. Therefore, the covenant was concluded at Sinai itself and only previously with the forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Even to these forefathers God revealed himself with the name Almighty God ( שַׁדָי אִל ), and as Jehovah He revealed himself only to the Jewish people 261 . Thus it was said to all Israel: “Jehovah our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. Jehovah did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, who are all alive here today.”262 The essence of the Old Testament is that the Jews were to belong to and serve their God as a people, to become a holy people 263 - to serve as a people's society, to be a society of Jehovah 264. Holiness had to be manifested in the structure of the entire society. “Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying: Proclaim to all the congregation of the children of Israel and say to them: Be holy, for I, Jehovah your God, am holy” 265 . The requirement to be holy throughout the Old Testament Bible is never addressed to an individual person, but always to a collective whole, to a national society. The word of Jehovah, His decrees and statutes are addressed to all of Israel, to the entire Israeli society: “Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God, Jehovah is one,” 266 etc. Essentially, all these statutes and regulations are aimed at improving the public life of Israel, all promises are given to Israel as a people: so that your fathers and mothers are honored and the people’s life based on the foundations of the family is strengthened, so that you have just courts, so that there are no murders, adultery, etc. among you. In all these establishments, what was meant was not the personal perfection of each member, but the improvement of the entire society. Each had meaning, rights and responsibilities, not in himself, but only as a member of society; no one was above society by virtue of his own importance, as the Israelites said to Moses and Aaron: “Enough for you; the whole community, all are holy, and Jehovah is among them! Why do you place yourselves above the people of Jehovah” 267? And conversely, every Jew already by birth had the rights of Israel, participated in its holiness... The holiness of Israel must be manifested in its social structure. The first question of social improvement is the question of the shepherd, without whom Jehovah's society remains like sheep without a shepherd 268. The Jewish people awakened to historical life under the prophet-leader Moses, who was extremely important for the religious destiny of the Jewish people, as the culprit in the birth of religious self-awareness in them, the revival of the faith of their fathers in the Jewish people. Moses was followed by his successor in spirit and importance, Joshua 269 . Then came the period of the judges - a time of external disasters and social unrest, when everyone did what seemed fair to him 270. Finally, the Jewish people became a kingdom that, under the first three kings, Saul, especially David and Solomon, achieved complete external peace and internal legal order, extraordinary power and economic prosperity, unification of not only the people, but also the religious - with the construction of a single magnificent church. The establishment of royal power was especially useful in the matter of legal improvement of public life. Law grew out of folk customs 271 and was more precisely determined by the statutes of leaders and kings 272 . The tsar had power that gave him the opportunity to enforce the law: the tsar-judge seemed to the people to be an angel of God 273, under him the troubles of the previous time became impossible. The king was more beautiful than the sons of men; grace poured out from his lips. Strong, girded with glory and beauty, he sat on the chariot for the sake of truth, and meekness, and righteousness. The rod of righteousness is the rod of his kingdom; he loved truth and hated lawlessness 274. For the young king, the people prayed to God to give him justice and truth, so that he would judge people and the poor righteously in court 275. The truth of the internal order was naturally followed by victory over enemies, external peace 276 and the well-being of the people. The time of the undivided kingdom was the happiest time for the Jews throughout their centuries-old history, when they expected almost nothing from the future, when their religious and national ideals almost coincided with reality. According to the religious view of the Jews, common to the Semitic peoples, legislative, judicial 277 and royal power belongs to God. The god of the people is their Moloch, their Baal. And Jehovah was king of Israel 278 . And, undoubtedly, the splendor of the Jewish kingdom served to develop the idea of ​​divine kingship, and the earthly king naturally turned out to be the bearer of Jehovah's power 279. This is what Josephus later called a theocracy 280 . The king sits on the throne of Jehovah - on the throne of Jehovah's kingdom 281 . He is the bearer of Jehovah's royal power; he sits at the right hand of Jehovah 282. If all the figures in the history of the Jewish people are the anointed of God, as inspired by the Holy Spirit, the wisdom of Jehovah and His word, then primarily such an anointed one - the Messiah (יהיָה משִׁיחַ) is the king of God's chosen people 283. He is a representative of truly divine power, he is elohim 284, he is the son of God 285, the predicates of divine power are transferred to him - universality and eternity. “Jehovah said to him: You are My son; Today I have given birth to you. Ask of Me, and I will give the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession.”286 “He will rule from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. And all kings will worship him, all nations will serve him." 287 “His name will endure forever; as long as the sun stands, his name will increase" 288. The eternity of the king, of course, is the eternity of the dynasty - the royal house of David, to which Jehovah said: “When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers; then I will raise up your seed after you, which will come from your loins, and I will establish his kingdom, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his Father, and he will be My son; and if he sins, I will punish him with a rod like a man and with blows like the sons of men; but I will not take My mercy from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I rejected before you. And your house will be established, and your kingdom will be established before you forever, and your throne will stand forever.”289 This is where the root of the Old Testament messianism is, this is where the Old Testament foundations of the New Testament teaching about the kingdom of God are. The Messiah is the king, the bearer of theocracy. This is not an abstract teaching of the Old Testament, it is the fruit of the religious and historical experience of Israel. We see two sides to the Old Testament messiahship: anointing as the basis, and the expectation of the future fulfillment of goals. In the brilliant times of the Jewish kingdom under David and Solomon, the future was reduced to hopes for the eternity of the Davidic dynasty and to a weak expectation of the universal power of the Israeli kings; Mainly, based on contentment with the present, the Israeli thought rested on the actual anointing of his kings. But nothing on earth lasts forever. Already under Solomon's successor, the Jewish kingdom was divided into two - the northern Israeli kingdom, more extensive and powerful, which at times reached the splendor of past times, but with a constant change of dynasties, and the southern Jewish kingdom, loyal to the House of David, but weak and outnumbered. Both were quickly approaching a fatal end, which was brought to an end by the world monarchies of Assyria, which swallowed up the northern kingdom of Israel, and Babylonia, which, some time later, captured the Jews. External decline revealed an even sadder internal decline. Already in his old age, Solomon began to serve the pagan gods; of the later kings of Israel and Judah, with the exception of a few, especially Hezekiah and Josiah, almost none followed the paths of David, and the division of the kingdoms entailed a radical disunity in the cult. Religious disorder was accompanied by social disorder. The wealth accumulated by trade caused the vices of luxury, class divisions, injustice and corruption of judges. When the kingdom of Israel fell, the kingdom of Judah, which retained its independence, focused the hopes of the faithful sons of Israel on the house of David; when this kingdom also fell, the glorious throne of David, idealized in the memory of descendants, became the national ideal of the future: the expectation crystallized in the image of the coming descendant of David, the Messiah-king, who would not only establish the kingdom of Judah and restore the glory of the kingdom of David, but would also make it universal and eternal - universal in the likeness of the world-wide pagan monarchies, but with enduring glory. This Messiahship to come was created by the prophetic spirit of Israel. Before moving on to the Jewish prophets, let's say a few words about the attitude of kings to the priesthood. Moses, who had such enormous significance in the initial history of the Jewish people, who created the national identity of the Jews and revived the faith of the fathers, was at the same time a prophet 290, a leader with the powers of a king, 291, and the organizer of the “Old Testament” priesthood with sacred authority 292. The spirit of God operating in him, the religious-national genius, had not yet been divided into separate talents and ministries. Moses' successor, Joshua, was commanded to obey the priests: "and he will turn to Eleazar the priest and ask him for a decision through the Urim before Jehovah" 293 . In general, the questioning of Jehovah through the priestly Urim and Thummim, through the ephod 294 and through the lot 295 was widely practiced in the days before the kings 296. Samuel, the priest-prophet-judge, installed a king for Israel. It was by him that the first king Saul was rejected for disobedience, which is the same as magic and idolatry 297, and for disrespect for the priesthood 298 and the second king David was installed, who gained the complete favor of God. How did the kings treat the priesthood? First of all, it should be noted that the kings themselves appeared before the people in priestly dignity 299, although at the same time they had priests with them and took care of the splendor of the divine service 300. The nature of worship, both in the kingdoms of Israel and in the kingdoms of Judah, depended entirely on the kings. Religious reform under Hezekiah and Josiah was the work of the kings 301 . In general, priests under the kings had a secondary importance, and this is all the more so as the priesthood became more decisively separated from prophecy over time: the priesthood gave symbolic sanctification to the kingdom, the priests were executors of the sacred will of the kings 302, they were actually royal officials 303. And this predominance of the kingdom over the priesthood is highly characteristic of the Jewish religion, of Jewish messianism: it is precisely in this that the nationalistic limitations of the Jewish religion are revealed. The power that stood above the kings was not the priests, but the prophets, although they still did not cross this border, since their last hopes were connected with the royal dignity of the Messiah. See eg. Ref. XXXI, 13.17; Lion. XXVI, 4; Jer. IX, 25. 26; Ezek. XLVI, 7, etc. Ref. XIX, 6; Deut. VII, 6. Number XX, 4; Lion. VIII, 3.5; IX, 5, etc. Deut VIT 4; IX, 1; XXVII, 9. Court. XVII, 6; XVIII, 1; XIX; XXI, 25. Ref. XV, 25; I Nav. XXIV, 25; 1 Samuel XXX, 25. Deut. I, 17; Is. XXXIII, 22. Ref. XV, 18; 1 Sam. XII, 12. Evidence has been preserved of the opposition that was encountered during the establishment of the kingdom (1 Kings VIII, 7; cf. XII, 12; Judges VIII, 22.23), which is not understandable in view of Num. XXIII, 21; Deut. XVII, 14 – 20; XXVIII, 36; XXXIII, 5; 1 Sam. IX, 16 and therefore referring us to Hos. XIII, 11. 1 Par. XXVIII, 5; XXIX, 23. Ps. II, 2; XVII, 51; 1 Sam. XXIV, 6 – 11; XXVI, 9, etc. Ps. II, 7; 2 Kings VII, 14. Number XII, 6 ff. Deut. XXXIV, 10. The ephod does not appear to have originally meant priestly clothing. Court VIII, 27; XVII, 5 ff. (ephod and teraphim); Os. III, 4. Number XXVI, 55 ff. I. Joshua VII, 14 ff. XIV. The questioning of Vog through priestly mediation was mentioned for the last time under David I Kings. XXIII, 9 ff. XXX, 7 words. Wed. XXII, 15, etc. 1 Sam. XIII, 9; 2 Sam. VI, 14; 1 Kings VIII, 64; XIII, 1; 2 Kings ХVI, 12.13; ΧΧ III, 3. Under the Asmonaeans, the princely and high-priestly dignity were united in one person. Wed. By. SIH, 4. Not only David, Solomon, Josiah, but also Jeroboam built churches on high and appointed priests from among the people (1 Kings). XII, 31, etc. Also 2 Kings. XII, 4 ff. XVI, 15 ff. Wed. 1 Kings I, 32 ff. with the anointing of Saul and David from Samuel. 2 Kings VIII, 17; XX, 25 26; 1 Kings IV, 5; 1 Par. XVIII, 16. You might be interested in: