Page 229 - Through New Eyes

228 THROUGH NEW EYES
were succession wars. The new land of Israel, unlike the old,
had a capital city: Jerusalem. The new federal government in
Jerusalem set up administrative districts for federal purposes,
while the tribal governments continued to handle the affairs of
the tribal republics. 13
At last the land was at peace, and God was ready to plant a
new Garden in the new Eden. The new Garden embraced the
Temple and Palace complex on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem.
This is a significant change from the Mosaic establishment.
There was now an Adam in the Land, a King. The High Priest
was the Supreme Adam in the Garden-Sanctuary, and had been
since Moses’ day. Now there is a Supreme Adam in the Land.
The Kingdom of God is moving outward from Garden to Land.
The King’s Palace adjoined and was connected to the Temple or
Palace of God (1 Kings 7:1-12; 14:28). The King was the son of
David. David himself never lived in this Palace; it was built at
the same time as the Temple. Remarkably, God refused to move
into His Palace until the Palace of His vice-regent had been built
(1 Kings 6:38; 7:1; 9:10). God and Solomon moved into their
Palaces at the same time. 14
Diagram 16.1 shows the progress in glory from the time of
Noah to the Davidic or Solomonic establishment.

The Symbolic Polity
Let us first consider Mount Zion as a world model. Zion fig-
ures heavily in the Psalms as God’s new mountain, because the
Temple was set on one of her hills. Zion replicates the three-
story universe. At her Northern extreme is the Temple, a model
of heaven. To the south of the Temple, on Zion proper, is the city
of Jerusalem, a citified Eden. The undeveloped mountain below
represents the world. Below the mountain to the South, in a
deep crevasse, is Gehenna, the pit, symbol of hell or the Abyss. 15
Thus, Zion reproduces the North-South imagery of creation, as
well as the vertical imagery of the three-decker worldlG (see
Diagram 16.2).
A second expansion of symbolic polity is seen in the Song of
Solomon, also called Canticles. We have mentioned that with
the Davidic covenant we have not only the world, land, and gar-
den reestablished; but also a premier Adam put into the land.