Articles
A Kingdom Unlike Any Other
When God first made the promises to Abraham, one of the things He promised was, “To your descendants I will give this land” as he was staying in Shechem (Gen. 12:7). Many years later, when He brought the descendants of Abraham — the people we know as the Israelites — out of Egyptian bondage, He did so with the promise that He would bring them “to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exod. 3:8) which He identified then as the land of Canaan.
The Promised Land was indeed promised to the Israelites by God, but it would not come easily. Not long after they had crossed through the Red Sea and God had destroyed the Egyptian army who had pursued them, the Amalekites “came and fought with Israel in Rephidim” (Exod. 17:8). Before they entered Canaan, the Israelites would also face off against the five Midianite kings (Num. 31:1-11), Sihon the Amorite (Deut. 2:24-36), king Og of Bashan and his army (Deut. 3:1-7), and the two kings of the Amorites (Deut. 3:8-10), and attempts were made by Balak the Moabite king to curse them (Num. 22-24). Clearly, these nations heard about the Israelites, and they were not going to simply hand over this land to them without a fight — literally. And this was before the Israelites even entered into Canaan!
And, of course, once the Israelites crossed over into Canaan, they had many more battles to fight before they could claim the land as their own. They began with the city of Jericho (Josh. 6), then struggled to defeat the city of Ai because one amongst them had disobeyed the Lord (Josh, 7-8), then faced the kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon at Gibeon (Josh. 10:1-21), then the cities of Makkedah (Josh. 10:28) and Libnah (Josh. 10:29, 30), the city of Lachish and the king of Gezer (Josh. 10:31-33), the city of Eglon (Josh. 10:34, 35), the city of Hebron (Josh. 10:36, 37), and the city of Debir (Josh. 10:38, 39) in the south.
When the kings of the north heard of all this, king Jabin of Hazor gathered together the kings of Madon, Shimron, Achsaph, and other kings of the mountains and fought against Joshua and the Israelites at the waters of Merom (Josh. 11:1-9), and Joshua then went up against Hazor and the cities of those kings (Josh. 11:10-15). Other cities and people — some named and some left unnamed — were defeated by Israel as they took control and possession of Canaan, but the land was now theirs.
The Israelites settled the land and, after Joshua’s generation passed away, the people started straying and God would send them judges to lead and rule over them for a time; they eventually asked for a king (1 Sam. 8:5), to which God consented. Now, Israel was truly a kingdom, but it was one that required battles to be established and battles to be able to continue to exist. There was seldom a time when some nation did not try to fight against Israel or attempt to take possession of their lands or cities, and eventually some of those nations would succeed in defeating Israel and taking them captive once again — all because of their unfaithfulness to God.
During the latter years of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah [a sad reality, since the one nation of Israel split into two kingdoms], God sent prophets to them as He attempted to turn them back to Him and escape punishment and captivity again, but they seldom listened. Eventually, God started telling them, through the prophets, of a coming King and Kingdom, giving them hope during a time of seeming hopelessness. Through Jeremiah, for example, God told the Israelites that this King would “reign and prosper,” and, “In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell safely” (Jer. 23:5, 6). While he and many other Israelites were in captivity, Daniel would tell the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar of a coming kingdom that God would establish “which shall never be destroyed;…it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever” (Dan. 2:44).
This prophesied Kingdom was mentioned even by David long before Israel would go into captivity (Psa. 110:1-4); this, of course, would be a reference to the promise God had made to David that He would establish a king from his descendants who would rule on his throne forever (2 Sam. 7:12-16). Daniel — while in captivity to the nation who brought the kingdom of Judah to an end — would see a vision where the Son of Man would come to the Ancient of Days [Jesus returning to the Father in heaven] and, upon that return, “Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed” (Dan. 7:13, 14).
Isaiah would write [before the Israelites were taken to Babylon] of this coming Kingdom, too. He would describe it this way: “Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it” (Isa. 2:2). [Note: The “mountain” represents a kingdom.] He would further speak of this time when the Kingdom would come, saying, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isa. 2:4). This description is important!
Many commentators who are better educated in the original languages than I, and who have written some otherwise insightful points about Bible texts, have all seemingly missed the weight of these words, explaining it as prophecies of literal worldwide peace [or at least peace in the kingdom], peacefulness in the hearts of the citizens, peacefulness as the message of its inhabitants, or just a hopeful glance long into the future for a peace that has not yet materialized.
The meaning of this text (Isa. 2:4) is none of the above! What God is telling the Israelites [and us] is that this new kingdom would not be like that of old, established by physical, carnal battles and maintained by physical, carnal battles; those days are over, hence the swords and spears being beat into implements of peacetime. This new kingdom would not be one with physical land borders that was established by sword and spear, or need defending by sword and spear.
Paul noted this when he wrote, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal” (2 Cor. 10:3, 4). The battles we fight within this kingdom today are not carnal! Jesus Himself would make clear the nature of His Kingdom when He said to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight” (John 18:36). This is exactly what Isaiah was referring to when he noted that, from the outset and throughout the existence of this new Kingdom, there would be no physical battles for the conquest and maintenance of some piece of land, as was the case with Israel.
Jesus the King now reigns over that Kingdom (cf. Acts 2:30-36), a Kingdom unlike any other! — Steven Harper
