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Israel and Judah, part 1

From time to time it is necessary—mostly for the sake of new readers—to go back to the basics of biblical teaching so that we do not lose sight of the fundamental truths on which the deep things of God are based.

In 1971 God began to show me things that began my journey beyond the teachings of the church (and Bible College) that I had believed all my life. It started with the realization that Israel and Judah were two distinct nations. This knowledge also prepared me for the onslaught against Christianity that I encountered at the University of Minnesota from 1971-1972.

At the University I took a course in Biblical History, which was taught by a Jewish professor. He quoted the prophets who claimed that Israel was to be restored, telling us that it was never restored at all. He knew, of course, that the House of Israel was the northern kingdom which had been exiled to Assyria. The Israelites never returned to the old land—even to this day. By thus undermining the prophets, he shook the faith of some Christian students who had assumed that the Jews were of Israel and that the Israeli state was the restoration of the House of Israel.

The professor, of course, well understood the difference between Israel and Judah, and he used this knowledge against those Christians who did not understand the Scriptures well enough to withstand the onslaught. He took great delight in destroying their confidence in the biblical prophets, thereby casting doubt upon the Bible as a whole and, by extension, faith in Christ.

Fortunately, I had just learned the truth in this regard, and so I was able to share this with a number of my fellow students. Instead of the professor shattering my faith, he only reinforced what I had already learned. At the time, this basic truth became an extremely important truth in keeping me grounded in the word. And so, in the coming years, when Christians chided me for teaching this truth on the grounds that it had nothing to do with salvation, I saw that there are more important truths in Scripture that go beyond salvation teaching.

I will never forget the day that my parents came to visit me. I had an opportunity to sit down with my dad, open my Bible, and show him from Isaiah and Jeremiah how the prophets spoke of Israel and Judah as distinct nations, each having its own set of prophecies. In showing him the basic difference between Israel and Judah, my dad’s eyes were opened, and he said, “I knew that, but I didn’t know it!”

All the years that my dad was a pastor and a missionary to the Philippines, he had known about the Divided Kingdom intellectually, but yet he had remained blind to the prophetic implications of this basic historical truth. His blindness opened my own eyes as to the general blindness in the church, especially among Christian Zionists, who think that the prophecies of Israel apply to the descendants of Judah (i.e. Jews).

This basic truth began my journey that diverged from mainstream church teaching that I had learned in my early years.

The Divided Kingdom

Israel originally consisted of 12 landowning tribes in a confederation. During the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon, all of these tribes were united in the nation of Israel. But after Solomon died, the kingdom was divided into two nations, primarily over the issue of high taxes. God Himself took credit for this division, for He brought judgment against Solomon for his apostasy. So we read in 1 Kings 11:9-11,

⁹ Now the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, ¹⁰ and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not observe what the Lord had commanded. ¹¹ So the Lord said to Solomon, “Because you have done this, and you have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant.”

Verse 13 then says,

¹³ “However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.”

Note that it was “the kingdom” that was taken from Solomon and from Judah itself. In this division, “the kingdom” resided in Israel, not Judah. In a general sense, both nations were kingdoms, each having its own line of kings. But in this case God was talking about the Kingdom of God, a concept that was yet to be clarified in the New Testament. The Kingdom of God does not reside in Judah but in Israel, even though the King Himself was to come from the tribe of Judah.

Christians today who think that the Israeli state is the beginning of God’s Kingdom, with the earthly Jerusalem as its capital from which Christ will rule in the age to come, are looking in the wrong place for the Kingdom. They do not realize that the Kingdom was taken from the House of Judah and given to the House of Israel. Christian Zionists, then, are in error, for there is no place in Scripture telling us that the Kingdom would be restored to Judah. Christ was to rule over the House of Israel.

The Prophetic Witness

1 Kings 11:28-31 says,

²⁸ Now the man Jeroboam was a valiant warrior, and when Solomon saw that the young man was industrious, he appointed him over all the forced labor of the house of Joseph. ²⁹ It came about at that time, when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, that the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him on the road. Now Ahijah had clothed himself with a new cloak; and both of them were alone in the field. ³⁰ Then Ahijah took hold of the new cloak which was on him and tore it into twelve pieces. ³¹ He said to Jeroboam, “Take for yourself ten pieces; for thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Behold, I will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon and give you ten tribes.”

This establishes two facts. First, the kingdom was taken from Solomon and given to Jeroboam, who was of the tribe of Ephraim of the House of Joseph. Second, Jeroboam was to rule ten tribes. Two centuries later, these ten tribes were taken to Assyria, and historians came to refer to them as the “ten lost tribes of Israel.”

Judah continued to be ruled by Rehoboam, Solomon’s son; Israel, “the kingdom,” began to be ruled by Jeroboam, who was Solomon’s “servant” (as prophesied in 1 Kings 11:11). Jeroboam’s ten tribes came to be known also as the House of Joseph (1 Kings 11:28). This term had been used many times previously. See, for example, Joshua 18:5, “the house of Joseph shall stay in their territory on the north.”

Dividing and Reuniting the Birthright

When Jacob-Israel blessed his twelve sons, he divided his birthright among them. This division included three main divisions. To Judah he gave the right to give birth to the kings of Israel (Genesis 49:10; 1 Chronicles 5:2); to Levi he gave the right of priesthood (1 Chronicles 6:48, 49); to Joseph (Ephraim) he gave the rest of the birthright (1 Chronicles 5:2), which was to bring forth the sons of God. So Jacob said in Genesis 49:22, “Joseph is a fruitful bough” (that is, a fruitful son, ben), a reference to the Fruitfulness Mandate in Genesis 1:28).

In accordance with these blessings, King David came from the tribe of Judah, the priests came from the tribe of Levi until they were replaced by the Order of Melchizedek in the New Testament, and the House of Joseph retained the right of birth to bring forth the sons of God. Each of these rights, under the Old Covenant, were based on genealogy. However, this was altered when Jesus Christ came.

Hebrews 7:12 speaks of “a change of law” in that King Jesus was not only the son of David (of Judah) but was also the high priest of the Melchizedek Order. Being of the tribe of Judah, “a tribe with reference to which Moses spoke nothing concerning priests” (Hebrews 7:14), Jesus could not be a high priest over a Levitical Order. For that matter, neither could King David, and yet God said to him in Psalm 110:4, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” For this reason, David was able to minister in the tabernacle of David, where he had placed the Ark of the Covenant.

Jesus began to reunite the callings of the birthright that Jacob had divided among his sons. The kingly line and the priesthood were reunited in Christ’s first coming; Joseph’s birthright will be reunited at His second coming when the sons of God are manifested. In the second coming, the dominant theme shifts to the House of Joseph, and for this reason Revelation 19:13 says, “He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood.” This identifies him with Joseph, whose robe was dipped in blood (Genesis 37:31).

David was a type of Christ in His first coming; Joseph was a type of Christ in His second coming. David was of the tribe of Judah, whose throne rights were temporary, “until Shiloh comes, and to Him shall be the obedience of the peoples” (Genesis 49:10). In the end, Joseph’s revelatory dreams made it clear that his brothers would all bow to Him (Genesis 37:10). In other words, Judah’s rule would be subsumed into the Kingdom of Joseph.

This is the point where all of the elements of the original birthright will be reunited in Christ.