The Three Tenses in the Kingdom of God
Traces the liturgical formula 'The Lord reigns, has reigned, and will reign forever,' assembled from three separate biblical verses, back to its sole Torah source in the Song at the Sea, and surveys commentators from Rashi through Ramban on whether Exodus 15:18 envisions God's kingship as limited to Israel or extending universally, arguing the tension is echoed in later rabbinic and philosophical formulations of God's eternal nature.
Chinitz traces the familiar liturgical line “The Lord reigns, has reigned, and will reign forever” to its single Torah source at the end of the Song at the Sea, and asks whether that verse envisions God’s kingship as confined to Israel or extending to the whole world. Surveying commentators from Rashi and Rashbam through Ramban and later Hasidic and philosophical sources, he shows the same tension recurring in Rambam’s parallel formulations of God’s eternal nature.
Jacob Chinitz was ordained at Yeshiva University and is a member of The Rabbinical Assembly. He has taught at several colleges and written articles in twenty journals in the United States, Canada, and Israel, and served as rabbi in Philadelphia, Halifax, and Montreal.
Cite this article
Jacob Chinitz. "The Three Tenses in the Kingdom of God." Jewish Bible Quarterly 38, no. 4 (October – December 2010): 255–260.
Jacob Chinitz. "The Three Tenses in the Kingdom of God." Jewish Bible Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 4, 2010, pp. 255–260.