God’s Kingdom/Rule

Psalms of Solomon is an apocryphal book not found in evangelical Bibles like the NIV or ESV. It’s a collection of eighteen psalms written in the first and second centuries BC. Although the Hebrew scriptures of the Old Testament didn’t include them, the Greek version (the Septuagint) and the Syriac version (the Peshitta) included them. Some of these psalms show that the Romans had started occupying Jerusalem under Pompey, dating those psalms around 63 BC. He was pictured as a dragon sent by God to punish the Hasmoneans (Hebrew rulers) who weren’t living and ruling the people as God wanted them to be.

One of the psalms has the term “the kingdom or rule of God” (η βασιλεία του θεού), a phrase so common in the New Testament (64 times) but never in the Old Testament. That psalm says,

“We have hoped in God our Savior because the power of our God is for eternity, along with his mercy. The kingdom/rule of our God is in power for eternity among the nations.” (Psalms of Solomon, 17:3)

This psalm helps us understand how the people of Jesus’s time thought of “the kingdom of God.” It didn’t refer to a physical rule; after all, Hasmoneans were ruling the land, and Romans were at the gate to conquer it. Instead, they thought that where mercy reigned, and hope flourished, God reigned, even among the nations or Gentiles. They considered “the kingdom of God” to be “God’s rule of justice and righteousness.”

This way of looking at God’s kingdom explains Jesus’s conversation with the Pharisees. They approached him and asked,

“When will the kingdom/rule of God will come?” (Luke 17:20a)

The Lord Jesus said to them,

“The kingdom/rule of God will not come while you are watching (paratereseos) nor when they say, ‘Here it is’ or ‘There it is’ because, you see, the kingdom/rule of God is in your midst.” (17:20b–21)

Parateresos is anticipatedly watching something or someone, just as Saul-Paul’s enemies were waiting at Damascus’s gate night and day, watching for him to come so they could capture him (Acts 9:24). When people were so anxiously anticipating God’s rule to come, Jesus said, it would not come. Neither should the Pharisees be fooled when people say, “Here it is” or “There it is.” Instead, God’s rule/kingdom was in their midst.

In other words, when the Pharisees upheld justice based on mercy among the nations, God began to reign in their midst. The same is true of us—when we do justice mixed with mercy, we evidence that God is reigning in our lives.