Messianic King or Kingdom of God?
What is Judaism’s ultimate goal, and what do the messianic times look like? What is the ideal society according to the Torah? A human kingdom with true moral leadership, or a Kingdom of God, where human beings and the Divine are connected without intermediaries?
Ezekiel, the biblical prophet from the 6th century BC, describes the Messiah as King David’s descendant, who, like David, will reunite the two divided kingdoms of Judah and Israel:
“And My servant David shall be king over them, and one shepherd shall be for them all, and they shall walk in My ordinances and observe My statutes and perform them.
And they shall dwell on the land that I have given to My servant, to Jacob, wherein your forefathers lived; and they shall dwell upon it, they and their children and their children’s children, forever; and My servant David shall be their prince forever.” (Ezekiel 27:24–25)
Even before Ezekiel, Hosea (3:5) prophesized the return of Israel to the Land and David’s kingdom restoration.
On the other hand, Zachariah and Ovadiah both envision a Kingdom of God that will be established after the day of judgment:
And the Lord shall become King over all the earth; on that day shall the Lord be one, and His name one. (Zachariah 14:9).
And saviors shall ascend from Mt. Zion to judge the mountain of Esau, and God shall have the kingdom. (Ovadiah 1:29).
This tension between a human king and God’s Kingdom already becomes apparent some 500 hundred years before Zachariah. When the elders of Israel ask Samuel to appoint a king “like all the nations,” God accepts their request; however, He comforts Samuel by saying:
they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from reigning over them. (Samuel 1, 8:7)
The human kingdom seems to be the least worst political structure but still the most pragmatic one at that time, due to the poor moral state of the people of Israel, while the Kingdom of God is the ideal desired by God and Samuel.
Even earlier, when Moshe and the Hebrew slaves sang the Song of the Sea after experiencing the Red Sea parting and the Egyptian cavalry sinking, they envisioned the building of the Temple in Jerusalem and the establishment of God’s Kingdom: “God will reign to all eternity” (Exodus 15:18).
Clearly, the ultimate goal is God’s Kingdom, but how practical is such a political structure, and what is the Messiah’s role?
In his monumental codification of Talmudic law, Maimonides suggests a two-phase interpretation of the prophecies : in the first phase, a human kingdom committed to the Torah, which will prepare the ground for God’s Kingdom.
In the future, the Messianic king will arise and renew David’s dynasty, restoring it to its initial sovereignty. He will build the Temple and gather the dispersed of Israel. (Laws of Kings 11).
In the next chapter, Maimonides describes God’s Kingdom as a natural evolution of the righteous messianic kingdom:
In that era, there will be neither famine nor war, envy or competition for good will flow in abundance, and all the delights will be freely available as dust. The occupation of the entire world will be solely to know God… according to the full extent of human potential, as Isaiah 11:9 states: “The world will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the ocean bed.”
God’s Kingdom brings peace, economic prosperity, and the full realization of human potential through progress in science and technology. This is achieved through the “knowledge of God,” an intimate connection between God and humans, which is alluded to in the Leviticus blessings (26:12):
If you follow My statutes and observe My commandments and perform them … I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be My people.
Rashi’s commentary:
“I will stroll with you in the Garden of Eden, as if I were one of you, and you will not be terrified of Me.”
God’s Kingdom brings intimacy between the human and the Divine, unveiling the Divine nature of human beings, unleashing full human potential, and bringing the world to the Garden of Eden. This is the purpose of creation, as revealed by the Torah.
