2 Samuel 7:12-17
12 And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever. 14 I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men: 15 But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. 16 And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever. 17 According to all these words, and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak unto David.
Imagine desiring and deciding to do something for someone and they respond by refusing your action and promising to do something for you instead. That is what happened to David when he had his desire to build a house for the ark of the Lord in 2 Samuel 7. After David expressed his desire to Nathan the prophet and Nathan gave him the permission to follow through, the Lord responded to David’s desire by reminding David of how He had never needed to dwell in a house throughout all of His history in dealing with His people. He also reminded David of His own goodness toward David in bringing him from his father’s house tending sheep to being made king over all of Israel. Then, he promised to do something amazing through David instead. He promised to build David a “house.” What did God mean by this? David already had an immaculate palace of cedar in Jerusalem. That was the whole reason he felt the need to build the Lord a more beautiful, lasting house in the first place.. Instead, what the Lord meant was establishing David’s household through a lineage of kings to come who would sit on the throne of Israel. In the verses that followed in 2 Samuel 7:12-17, the Lord would reveal His amazing promise and plan to establish David’s throne forever through a descendant that would eventually come and rule the Lord’s everlasting kingdom. What we have in this text today is what we call the Davidic Covenant. One scholar referred to this covenant as “the climax of the Old Testament.” This is because, in the covenant, God revealed that His plan of redemption would be carried out through a King, a Messiah who would come from the line of David. It is the last covenant revealed in the storyline of the Bible before the New Covenant and it points us forward to that covenant throughout the remainder of the Old Testament until the coming of Christ. The Davidic Covenant teaches us about the nature of the promises of God in Scripture and there are three things that we learn about them from this passage.
First, we learn that God’s promises are intentional. In verses 12-13, the Lord expressed His ultimate intentions for what He would promise David. How would the Lord build David a “house”? He would do so through a descendant who would build the Lord a house and God would establish His rule forever. Here we see the “seed” promise that we find throughout the Old Testament carried forward. Originally, it was made to the serpent in the Garden of Eden about how he would meet his demise through the “seed” of the woman (Genesis 3:15). Then, it was narrowed to the “seed” of Abraham, the father of the Jewish people (Genesis 12:1-3; 22:18). It was carried forward through Isaac (Genesis 26:24). Then to Jacob was reiterated the same promise with the addition of “kings shall come out of thy loins” (Genesis 35:10-13). That promise was then carried forward to Judah when Jacob blessed his sons and called Judah “a lion’s whelp” and promised that a “sceptre shall not depart from” him (Genesis 49:8-10). In this promise made to David, a descendant of Judah, we have the elements of those previous promises regarding “seed” and a king carried forward. The original promise made in the Garden of Eden about Satan’s defeat and mankind’s redemption is now narrowed to the lineage of David. The word “house” is a word that can be used to describe a physical building, but it can also be used to describe a “household” or “family.” God’s promise to David here has the concept of what we call “telescoping,” in which a prophecy in the Bible has a near, partial fulfillment in a type or picture and a far, ultimate fulfillment in the distant future. The promise made to David about his son building a house spoke immediately to his son Solomon building the temple, but that was used as an incomplete and imperfect picture of the work of Christ, the greater descendant of David, in making the people of God into His temple (Ephesians 2:19-22). God’s promises are intentional. He will accomplish His plan and His intended purpose throughout the ages is to redeem a people who put their trust in Him through the work of His Son. Those people will are His dwelling place now (1 Corinthians 3:17; 6:19-20) and He will eternally dwell with them (Revelation 21:3-4). That has always been and is His intention today for His promises. Are our plans and desires in line with His intentions? Are our lives as believers lived in such a way that reflects that we are God’s dwelling place?
Second, we learn that God’s promises are good. Verses 14-15 show us the near, immediate fulfillment of God’s promise to David in the life of his son, Solomon, and those men in his lineage that would come after him. God promised to lovingly discipline Solomon and the other kings that would come from David’s lineage instead of giving them completely over to their own way as He had Saul (v. 15). He promised to discipline Solomon and, by extension, the other kings from David’s line as He had faithfully done while walking with David all of those years. God’s promises are always for the good of His people and the glory of His name (Romans 8:28). Everything He purposes, promises, and does, He does for good. The goodness that is highlighted here is the loving relationship that God promised to Solomon by treating him as His son. When Solomon strayed from the Lord, and he would, the Lord promised to faithfully discipline him. In this way, God’s “mercy” would “not depart from him.” In reflection upon the Lord’s own love and discipline in his life that led him through all that he did, David wrote: “He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake…Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever” (Psalm 23:3, 6). David knew that God would be faithful to continually lead him in righteousness and that God’s “goodness and mercy” demonstrated in his loving discipline would bring him to the desired end of being in God’s house forever. Solomon experienced the Lord’s discipline himself and would write to his own son to “despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of His correction: For whom the Lord loveth He correcteth; even as a father the son in whom He delighteth” (Proverbs 3:11-12). One of the greatest evidences that a person is truly a born-again child of God is that God displays this mercy in their life. God’s loving, fatherly discipline in our lives proves that we are His children. God disciplines through conviction of the Spirit, through trials, etc., all to work out sin in our lives and grow us in Christ-likeness. Hebrews 12:5-11 uses Proverbs 3:11-12 and applies it to New Testament Christians, telling us that God’s promise to lovingly discipline Solomon is true of all those that truly belong to the Lord. He does this because He loves us, He has a desire to work all things for good in our lives (Romans 8:28-29), and He promises to never leave us (Hebrews 13:5). Ultimately, Solomon’s discipline pointed forward to the greater Son of David who would need no discipline, but would be obedient to the Father in every way. The Lord Jesus came to make us children of God so that all of us could enter into such a relationship with Him. This was God’s plan for David’s lineage. His promises are good.
Third, we learn that God’s promises are eternal. God’s ultimate plan was to establish David’s kingdom forever. He would do this by one day bringing in an eternal King. David’s line would claim the throne of Israel and, after the divided monarchy, the southern kingdom of Judah all the way up through the Babylonian captivity. God would preserve this line and bring in His Messiah, the Lord Jesus, who would be born to Mary and Joseph, descendants of David. Throughout the rest of the Old Testament, the Lord would promise through various prophets that this King would one day come and save God’s people. He would deliver His people from all of their enemies and rule from David’s throne in a restored, eternal kingdom (Isaiah 9:6-7; Luke 1:31-35). What God does lasts forever. His promises ultimately all point to His eternal plan of bringing all things under the feet of King Jesus who will rule and reign in perfect righteousness forever in a New Heaven and Earth (Revelation 21:1-7). Those who belong to Him are secure in Him because God never defaults on what He has promised. Jesus will not fail to save or deliver any that come to Him by faith (John 6:37-40; 10:28-29). One of the last promises of Scripture given to God’s people is about the New Heaven and Earth: “And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.” (Revelation 22:4-5).
The Davidic Covenant addresses three great problems that we have. First, it answered the problem of death. David would die, Solomon would die, and all of his descendants would die, but there would come the One descendant that would conquer death itself and give eternal life to God’s people. Second, it addressed the problem of sin. David had sinned and would still sin, Solomon would sin, and their descendants would all sin, some in grievous ways. However, God would send His Son through David’s lineage who would be perfectly obedient, die to atone for sin, and rise in victory over it for God’s people. Third, it addressed the problem of time. In time, God’s people would forget God’s ways. David, Solomon, and all their descendants would only rule for a fixed amount of time, but God addressed the problem of time by sending His eternal Son, whom He promised in His eternal, unbreakable Word, and who would establish His eternal kingdom. You and I have the problem of death. We will all die (Hebrews 9:27). We have the problem of sin. We have all sinned (Romans 3:23). We have the problem of time. Our lives are finite and eternity is forever (James 4:13-14). In Christ, God has provided the answer for all three. Are you a child of God? Can you claim His promises by faith?