2 Chronicles 23

After six years hidden in the house of God, the boy-king Joash is brought out and crowned — and the count will not be passed over. Six years the flesh reigned; in the seventh year Jehoiada strengthened himself (23:1). Seven is the covenant number; the seventh month is the month of atonement; the seventh millennium is the age when the Sin-power is put down. The year of completion is the year the hidden king comes out. And Jehoiada does what David did at Ziklag with everything lost and his own men talking of stoning him: he strengthened himself in a promise that could not fail (1 Sam 30:6), and then he moved.

He gathers the Levites and the heads of Israel, posts the guard, and shewed them the king’s son (2 Kgs 11:4) — captains of thousands drawn quietly into the secret, one at a time, before the day the child is shown to the nation. So the Lord has been gathering out of the Gentiles a people for his Name, against the day he is revealed. And then the word to the assembly: Behold, the king’s son shall reign, as Yahweh hath said of the sons of David. The lamp that Athaliah tried to extinguish is set on the lampstand; the hidden heir is revealed and enthroned, and the covenant promise — a son of David on the throne — is kept against all the murderess could do.

They put the crown on him, give him the testimony, anoint him, and the people shout God save the king. The rightful king, long concealed, is acclaimed; and at the sound Athaliah rushes in crying Treason, treason! — the usurper’s last word as her stolen reign collapses. She is taken out and slain, and the seed of the serpent falls as the seed of the woman is crowned. The hidden child is king; the murdering queen is dead.

Jehoiada then makes a covenant between him, and between all the people, and between the king, that they should be Yahweh’s people. The enthroning of the true king is bound up with the re-binding of the people to Yahweh; a king restored means a covenant renewed. The right king on the throne and a people pledged to Yahweh belong together — the one calls for the other.

And through the boy’s minority Jehoiada reigns as king-priest — the priest who hid the heir now governing beside the heir he hid, the order raised to a standing in the nation it never afterwards lost (cp. Jer 29:26). The thing is plain: the lineage of David was saved through the priesthood. The crown and the mitre stand together over the restored throne, and the shape is Melchizedek’s in shadow — priest and king in one house, holding the kingdom until the child is grown, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both (Zech 6:13).

And the house of Baal is torn down, its altars and images broken, Mattan its priest slain before the altars. The crowning of the true king is the casting down of the false worship; you cannot enthrone the rightful king and leave the idol-house standing. Joash is set on the throne of the kingdom, the city quiet, the usurper dead, the idols broken — the lamp of David burning again over a people made his own.

The hidden heir is brought from the house of God and crowned, the usurper slain, the covenant renewed and the idol-house torn down — the lamp of David burning again, the seed of the woman enthroned over a people made Yahweh’s own.

Daniel 4

Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a great tree reaching to heaven, feeding and sheltering all the earth — and a watcher cries, Hew down the tree… let his heart be changed from man’s, and let a beast’s heart be given unto him; and let seven times pass over him. Daniel reads it plainly: the tree is the king, and he will be driven from men to eat grass like an ox till thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. The world-tree of empire, like Ezekiel’s proud cedar, is marked for felling.

The reprieve is real — break off thy sins by righteousness — but a year later the king walks his palace and boasts: is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty? The word falls while it is still in his mouth. The lifted-up heart is brought down to the ground — the man who would be the tree that fills the earth is given the heart of a beast, driven out to eat grass, his hair like eagles’ feathers, his nails like claws.

There is a progression across the three chapters worth watching, because the pagan king is being catechised by degrees. In ch. 2 Nebuchadnezzar is introduced to the God of heaven and forced to acknowledge divine power — thou art this head of gold. In ch. 3 he is brought to acknowledge that God’s status: there is no other that can deliver after this sort. And now in ch. 4 he is taught the thing the whole book turns on — that this God is at work in the politics of the nations, that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. Power, then status, then sovereignty over the empires. It takes seven times as a beast to finish the lesson.

The lesson is the book’s spine: the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men. The empires that look eternal are Yahweh’s to raise and to fell; the proudest king is a creature he can reduce to a grazing beast in a day. Pride that imagines itself the builder and the majesty is the exact lie of Eden and of Tyre — the man making himself god — and the answer is the same: those that walk in pride he is able to abase.

At the end Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and his reason returns; he blesses the Most High that liveth for ever, confessing all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing… none can stay his hand. The restoration comes through the lifting of the eyes to heaven — the proud heart abased until it looks up and acknowledges who rules. The beast becomes a man again when the man confesses the Most High.

The world-tree of empire is felled and the proud king made a beast until he knows the Most High rules the kingdom of men — and his reason returns only when he lifts his eyes to heaven and confesses none can stay His hand.

Acts 2

At Pentecost the Spirit is poured out — a rushing wind, tongues of fire, the gathered nations hearing in their own tongues. The day is a counted day, and the count is the argument. Pentecost is the fiftieth, the day after seven sabbaths of weeks, and fifty is the jubilee — the year the trumpet sounds on the day of atonement, the debts are cancelled, the slaves go out free, and every man returns to his own inheritance. Israel was commanded to count the days toward it (Lev 23:15), and Luke says it was fully come: the counting is finished. The Spirit falls on the jubilee day, and before evening three thousand debtors walk out free.

Peter names it Joel’s prophecy fulfilled: I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh. The river that deepened from Ezekiel’s sanctuary, the breath that raised the dry bones, now falls on the gathered disciples and overflows toward every nation under heaven. The age of the Spirit opens with a flood.

Fifty days ago Peter was warming his hands at a fire in a courtyard, swearing he had never met the Lord; the jubilee reaches the denier first, and he is the one on his feet. He proclaims the crucified and risen Christ, and grounds the resurrection in David’s own psalm — thou wilt not leave my soul in the grave, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. But he is careful to say it was not David’s own hope realised: David is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day… for David is not ascended into the heavens. David sleeps in his tomb still, awaiting the awakening; the psalm spoke of the Christ, raised before his flesh saw decay. The patriarch is in the dust; the Son alone is risen.

And the risen Son is exalted: God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. The Father has made the Son Lord and Christ — the man crucified is the one Yahweh has raised and enthroned, given the name that means Yahweh saves. The hidden heir crowned, the proud king abased, and now the rejected Christ exalted to the right hand: the Most High rules, and he has given the kingdom to his Son.

The crowd is pricked to the heart and asks what to do, and Peter answers with the gate of the new age: Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Three thousand are baptized, and the first community forms — continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. The Spirit poured out gathers a people, baptized into the exalted Christ, the firstfruits of the harvest the river was always flowing to reach.

And one phrase runs through the whole book from here: with one accord. It is the posture of the twelve waiting in the upper room (1:14), of the gathered company when the Spirit falls (2:1), of the breaking of bread house to house (2:46), of the prayer when the threats begin (4:24), of the signs in Solomon’s porch (5:12). Prayer, worship, fellowship, praise, witness — the same two words over every one of them. The Spirit does not fall on a crowd of individuals who agree; it falls on a people of one accord, and then keeps them that way.

The Spirit is poured out and the risen Christ proclaimed — David still sleeps in his tomb while the Son is raised and made Lord and Christ — and repentance and baptism gather the firstfruits of the harvest.