2 Dan, Joseph, and Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.

The Israelites being born into national existence under Moses as a ruler and deliverer, he led them from the Red Sea to the foot of Mount Sinai to meet with God. On their arrival there, the Lord commanded Moses to say to them,

"Ye have seen what I did to the Egyptians; now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine, and ye shall be UNTO ME a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exod. 19:3-6).

This was an offer on the part of God to become their King, predicated upon what He had done for them. If they closed in with the proposal, they would henceforth be a kingdom. Hitherto they had been a crowd of slaves subject to the will of the kings of Egypt. But He proposed to organize them; to give them a constitution, religion, and laws; to appoint them a government; to exalt them by his instructions to the freedom, independence, and moral excellence, which are attainable only by the influence of divine truth; to make them the envy and admiration of surrounding nations: to make them, in short, his kingdom, and his beloved nation.

This was a proposal rich with blessings. All God would require of them was obedience, and adhesion to the covenant He had made with their fathers. The terms of the compact were highly eligible. No nation had received such a liberal and honourable proposal before, or since. Would they accept it, and abide by it? Moses was sent to see.

Having arrived at the encampment, he convened the elders of the people, and laid the proposition before them. Having consulted the nation, they returned answer to Moses, saying,

"All that the Lord hath spoken we will do."

Upon this, Moses returned the words of the people to the Lord. In this transaction a formal agreement was entered into between Israel and the Lord. In the word they sent back by Moses, they accepted the Lord as their King, and became his subjects, or "the children of his kingdom."

The relation of God to the tribes as their king is undoubted; for when they demanded a visible king like other nations, the Lord told Samuel that they had not rejected him but the Lord himself, whose representative among them he was. By this political compact, Abraham's natural seed became "THE KINGD0M OF GOD." It was the first, and the only kingdom, He has ever had among the sons of men. He will yet have other kingdoms.

All the kingdoms of the world will become his; and will yet acknowledge the king He has provided to rule over them (Rev.11:15). But even then, the kingdom founded at the beginning of the ages, the kingdom of Israel, will be his "peculiar treasure above them all.

If, then, we would understand "the things of the kingdom of God," we must never lose sight of Israel in connection with the kingdom. Indeed, without them there is no kingdom of God; and to affirm the contrary is to believe in a kingdom over which there is no nation to rule! No misconduct of Israel can dissolve the covenant entered into between them and God.

Elpis Israel 2.4.

3 The sons of Judah; Er, and Onan, and Shelah: which three were born unto him of the daughter of Shua the Canaanitess. And Er, the firstborn of Judah, was evil in the sight of Yahweh; and he slew him.

The covenant made with Abraham promised an immortal inheritor of Canaan; and in Jacob's last prophecy it was plainly revealed that he should be its King, and should descend from Judah. By this, it was understood that Judah would be the royal tribe; but it was not known what family of Judah he would be born of.

This was a matter which remained in abeyance until the fourteenth generation. The nation had been long settled in Canaan. For four hundred and fifty years the laws of the kingdom had been administered by judges, until at length the people demanded a king who should go in and out before them, as among the neighbour nations.

This happened in the days of Samuel the prophet, who laid their request before the Lord. Though He was displeased at the demand, as it was in effect a rejection of Him, He nevertheless granted their request, and gave them Saul, of the tribe of Benjamin, until another man upon whom He had set His heart, should have been sufficiently trained in the school of adversity to take his place.

This was David, the son of Jesse, and of the tribe of Judah. God ordered Samuel to anoint him king over Israel. By this act David became the Lord's anointed, or Christ; and when he ascended the throne, ruled the nation as YAHWEH'S king.

Elpis Israel 2.4