The New Testament, and particularly the Gospels, are filled with references to the kingdom of God. In the Old Testament they are harder to find until one reaches books like Isaiah and Daniel. It’s surprising then to find a reference to the kingdom of God in Psalm 22.
Psalm 22 is a well-known messianic Psalm: v1 (“My God, my God was hast Thou forsaken me?”); v.16 (“They pierced my hands and my feet.”); v. 17 (“I can count all my bones.”); v18 (“And for my clothing they cast lots.”). But as often as these verses are cited and discussed, the prophetic verses in the later half of the psalm are ignored.
Here are the verses to which I am referring:
All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord,
And all the families of the nations will worship before 1You.
For the kingdom is the Lord’s
And He rules over the nations.
All the prosperous of the earth will eat and worship,
All those who go down to the dust will bow before Him,
Even he who cannot keep his soul alive.
Psalm 22:27-29
My question is, “How did David expect that all the earth would turn to the Lord and worship Him?” At the time David spoke these words, Israel occupied a modest portion of the Middle East. King David knew the Philistines, the Moabites and the Egyptians didn’t yet worship the Lord.
I suspect when David spoke these words, he was looking down the road thinking his kingdom or his descendants’ kingdom would continue to expand and bring the knowledge of the Lord to the ends of the earth. Of course, a prophet needn’t understand fully the meaning of his prophecy, and I believe that was the case here. Here, I believe David was prophesying of the coming kingdom of God. He was speaking of the kingdom, whose ruler is not a man, but the Lord, “For the kingdom is the Lord’s, and He rules over nations.” (v. 28).
Anyway, that’s how it reads to me. GS
