Jul 13, 2019

The overall problem that Samuel was addressing was not merely the fact that there was no king in Israel. He was not trying to point out the failure of the system of Judges or shortcomings of the Judges. He was exposing the hearts of the people and the failure of any and all systems of government to bring righteousness to the earth.

Samuel himself had the benefit of seeing a king in Israel, for he had anointed Saul at the word of the Lord. He had seen how Saul looked so promising at the start of his reign yet began to degenerate as early as his second year. When Saul was fully disqualified in his 18^th year, Samuel essentially retired and never went to see Saul again (1 Samuel 15:34, 35).

God sent him to the house of Jesse to anoint a new king. God’s reasoning was that He sought for a man after His own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). David was by no means perfect, but his heart was in the right place. He knew that the throne was not his to rule by his own will but to steward by the will of God. Authority was not a license to sin but a responsibility to establish righteousness.

Samuel’s lament, then, that “there was no king in Israel,” can be seen as a reference to there being no legitimate king in Israel, no king who could bring righteousness to the land, no king who could truly establish a kingdom model that genuinely reflected the pattern in heaven. Saul was of Benjamin, not Judah, so it was never possible for him to succeed. David was of Judah, yet he was but a type and shadow of Christ, so his kingdom, however righteous, could not long succeed.

The real King, the permanent King, the true Anointed One, was the only King who could possibly succeed in the long term.

The Glory of His Presence

The True King was represented by the glory of God that hovered over the mercy seat upon the Ark of the Covenant. Samuel was at Shiloh when Phinehas took the Ark into battle. Though he yet remained in the background, he saw the glory depart. I believe he saw the glory depart from Shiloh long before the Ark was taken by the Philistines. I believe he saw the glory leave Shiloh even as Ezekiel saw it depart from Jerusalem many years later.

When the Philistines returned the Ark, the glory did not return. “Ichabod” had been declared upon Shiloh, and so the glory could never again be found there. The Ark was moved to various places, such as Kirjeath-jearim and Gibeon, but the glory itself remained aloof until the Ark was placed in Solomon’s temple. Only then did the glory return.

Hence, the glory was not present over the Ark during the entire reigns of Saul and David. It is not that God was absent in the absolute sense, for He is omnipresent. But in a prophetic sense the Kingdom models were incomplete. God was showing us that there was yet a greater era ahead.

We have repeated the pattern of the rule of Saul during the Pentecostal Age of the Church, which saw an imperfect and rebellious model that was doomed to failure from the start. The disciples of Christ were all from Galilee, north of Jerusalem, where the tribe of Benjamin had settled after the Babylonian captivity (Nehemiah 11:31-36).

Matthew-Levi was obviously a Levite, and Judas was from Hebron and was therefore of the tribe of Judah. But Matthew was neutral insofar as the tribes were concerned, and Judas was ultimately replaced by Saul/Paul, who was of Benjamin. Thus, for all practical purposes, the Church was a Benjamin phenomenon, even though Jesus Himself was of Judah. The Church was Pentecostal by anointing, which reflected the fact that Saul was crowned on Pentecost, the day of wheat harvest (1 Samuel 12:17).

In this long-term prophetic view, the 40-year reign of Saul was a type of the Church’s reign of 40 Jubilees (40 x 49 years). The Age to come, then, can be seen properly as the fulfillment of the reign of David. It will not be perfect, but it will be a greater manifestation of the Kingdom, as it expands from a small “stone” to a mountain range that fills the whole earth (Daniel 2:35).

This Davidic Kingdom shifts the anointing from Pentecost to Tabernacles. All will see the glory of God on some level, yet the full glory will rest only upon the manifested sons of God. These are the overcomers who, like David, have a heart for God and are not caught up in the lawless rebellion of the house of Saul.

After the Tabernacles Age (of “David”) comes a new era, typed by Solomon and the building of the temple where the glory returned. This, in essence, brings us to the Great White Throne, where the glory of God will be seen by all who have ever lived. No one in that day will be able to stand (2 Chronicles 7:1, 2, 3). Every knee will bow, as Paul says, and every tongue will profess that He is Lord (Philippians 2:10, 11).

The progression of Ages, then, begins with the Passover Age from Moses to Christ, the Pentecost Age between the two comings of Christ, and the Tabernacles Age from the second coming of Christ to the Great White Throne judgment. Having completed the cycle of feast days in long-term prophecy, Christ will rule with the overcomers until all things have been put under His feet, and “the last enemy that will be abolished is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26).

The first death (mortality) will end at the Great White Throne (Revelation 20:14), but because the majority of imperfect humanity will experience the second death of divine judgment, God will not yet be “all in all” until the second death itself ends at the Creation Jubilee. Only then will God’s glory fully cover the earth as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14).

Prophetic Timing: 390 Years

The idea of “no king in Israel” ultimately is about the glory departing, for God Himself is the true King. This occurred at the downfall of the house of Eli, when his grandson, Ichabod, was born (1 Samuel 4:21). A few years later, the people demanded an earthly king, and God told Samuel, “they have rejected Me from being king over them” (1 Samuel 8:7). God then gave them their desire, which began the time of the kings in Israel, but there was no true King in Israel.

On this higher level of understanding, the time of “no king in Israel” properly began with the era of Judges and extended through the reign of Saul and David until the glory of God returned in the early days of the reign of Solomon. When Solomon laid the foundation of the temple in the fourth year of his reign (2 Chronicles 3:1, 2, 3), he prophesied of a greater temple that was yet to come, a temple having Jesus Christ as its Foundation (1 Corinthians 3:11).

It was exactly 390 years from the first Judge to the fourth year of Solomon.

In 1 Kings 6:1 we read that it was 480 years from Israel’s exodus from Egypt until the fourth year of Solomon, when the foundation of the Temple was laid. We know that Israel spent those first 40 years in the wilderness, so it was 440 years from the Jordan crossing to the laying of the foundation of the temple. In my book, Secrets of Time, chapter 13, I showed how Israel’s first captivity to the king of Mesopotamia ended with Israel’s first Jubilee in the land of Canaan. The captivity began 42 years after the Jordan crossing, and it lasted eight years, when Othniel finally delivered them.

So by subtracting those 50 years from our total (440 minus 50), we see that the period of the Judges properly began 390 years before the foundation of the temple was laid. Hence, the number 390 is associated with the idea of “no king in Israel.” When viewed as a chronological period of time, 390 years ends with a King in Israel.

Applications to America

The Virginia colony was the first successful and permanent colony in America, founded in 1607. It was followed in 1620 by the Plymouth colony farther north, where the Pilgrims landed. These two dates can be thought of as the twin foundations of what was later to become the USA. Each date began a 390-year period of time of “no king in Israel,” ending in 1997 and 2010.

When the USA became an independent nation, George Washington was asked if he would accept the crown as king, if the founding fathers should decide to set up a monarchy. He declined, saying that America already had a King. The founders ultimately rejected a monarchy and decided instead upon a Republic. Thus, America had “no king in Israel.”

Furthermore, America’s Declaration of Independence in 1776 was precisely “seven times” (2,520 years) from the beginning of Israel’s deportations in 745 B.C. It took 24 years for Israel to be fully destroyed, however, because its capital, Samaria, was destroyed in 721 B.C.

Dating from the fall of Israel’s capital, it was “seven times” (2,520 years) to the building of America’s capital in Washington D.C. in the year 1800. Hence, America was founded as a restored House of Israel, at least on a fleshly level.

America’s form of government was patterned after the time of the Judges in Israel. The president was seen mostly as a military commander, a Judge, rather than as a king.

But getting back to the 390-year cycles, we see two endpoints in American history: 1997 and 2010. The first 390-year cycle ended in 1997, when the Promise Keepers descended upon Washington D.C. on October 4, 1997 to proclaim Jesus Christ as King. They knew nothing of the 390-year cycle that they were fulfilling, but by proclaiming Christ as King, they prophetically laid the Foundation of the greater Temple in an American context.

The double witness came on August 28, 2010, when Glenn Beck organized a rally in Washington D.C. to declare Jesus Christ as King. Once again, he did not know the significance of the 390-year cycle from 1620, but yet God used him to bear witness to Christ’s kingship in America.

Even more significant was the fact that the 390-year cycle from 1620-2010 was only the 7^th such cycle since the fall of Samaria in 721 B.C. In other words, from 721 B.C. to 2010 A.D. is 2,730 years, or 7 x 390 years. The final 390-year cycle was merely the culmination of the longer period of time which actually links Israel to America.

Building the Temple of Solomon

As we said earlier, it was 480 years from the exodus to the fourth year of Solomon, when he laid the foundation of the temple. The temple took seven years to build (1 Kings 6:37, 38). Hence, the structure itself was completed 487 years after the exodus from Egypt. It then took an unspecified number of years to build the temple vessels (1 Kings 7:13-51). I believe that it took three years and that the Ark was placed in the temple 490 years from the exodus.

Hence, it was 390 years from the first Judge to the year that the foundation of the temple was laid, and it was 490 years from the exodus to the year that the glory of God filled the temple and to its dedication.

The completion of these time cycles took place long after Samuel’s death, but his writings give us the basic principles to help us understand the times and seasons, both in his day and in our time today.

This is part 8 of a series titled "No King in Israel" To view all parts, click the link below.

No King in Israel