2 Samuel 7:1-29: God’s Covenant with David

2 Samuel 7:1-29: God’s Covenant with David

We’ve been working our way passage by passage through the book of 2 Samuel, and today the next passage we come to is 2 Samuel 7:1-29, so I’ll be reading a selection of verses from that passage. Hear now the words of the Living and True God:

¹ Now when the king lived in his house and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies, ² the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent.” ³ And Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you.” ⁴ But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, ⁵ “Go and tell my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord: Would you build me a house to dwell in? ⁶ I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling. ⁷ In all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” ’ ⁸ Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. ⁹ And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. ¹⁰ And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, ¹¹ from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. ¹² When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹³ He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. ¹⁴ I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, ¹⁵ but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. ¹⁶ And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’ ” ¹⁷ In accordance with all these words, and in accordance with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David. ¹⁸ Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? … ²⁸ And now, O Lord God, you are God, and your words are true, and you have promised this good thing to your servant. ²⁹ Now therefore may it please you to bless the house of your servant, so that it may continue forever before you. For you, O Lord God, have spoken, and with your blessing shall the house of your servant be blessed forever.”  

May God bless the reading of his Word.

Let’s pray: Father, we know that in order to rightly understand both what this passage is teaching and how it connects to our lives, we need the Holy Spirit. So please, send your Spirit to minister to us through this passage today in a most powerful way. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Before the days of the sophisticated spam filters now employed by most email services, it was pretty common to receive numerous random emails offering incredible things. Perhaps the most common kind of spam email was from someone claiming to be some form of Nigerian royalty. I imagine the vast majority of us who have had email for more than 10 years have received some kind of Nigerian prince email, right?

The email might be from someone identifying themselves as the widow of a recently deceased Nigerian prince. And this widow supposedly has a massive fortune but unfortunately has no way to get these funds to where she wants to move them. So, if you’ll just help her out a little bit by letting her use your bank account to transfer her massive fortune, she’ll richly reward you by giving you a substantial amount of her money. Sounds like a pretty good deal, doesn’t it? Except it’s not. Because we all know that rich Nigerian widow doesn’t really exist. She’s actually some middle-aged guy sitting at his computer in his underwear licking Cheetos cheese off of his fingers as he tries to find more people to steal from. The whole thing is a scam. And pretty much everyone knows that. Just about everyone’s aware that, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Yet at the same time, on rare occasions, there are exceptions to that rule. And we find one of those exceptions here in 2 Samuel 7:1-29 in God’s promise to David. God promises David something extraordinarily wonderful—something that other kings could only dream of. God promises him that his throne will be established forever. That’s the main idea of this passage. God promises David that his throne will be established forever. And as we’ll see, this promise is enormously relevant not only to David’s life 3,000 years ago but to our lives today.

So, let’s explore this passage beginning with verses 1-3: ¹ Now when the king lived in his house and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies, ² the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent.” ³ And Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you.”

Now, I think we can all agree that David’s desire in these verses is admirable. He’s in the midst of a prolonged period of peace and notices that, in contrast to his own luxurious palace, the ark of God—in which God’s manifest presence was located—was only housed in a tent. Of course, as we read about in Exodus 26, it was a very large and fancy tent, but it was still only a tent nonetheless.

And when David implies to the prophet Nathan that he wants to do something to remedy this situation, Nathan tells him, “Go, do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you.” It seems that, in this statement, Nathan hasn’t yet received any official word from the Lord but is simply giving David what he thinks is helpful advice.

Yet God has a much different perspective, as we see in verses 4-7: ⁴ But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, ⁵ “Go and tell my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord: Would you build me a house to dwell in? ⁶ I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling. ⁷ In all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” ’

So, God makes it clear that if he had wanted a fancier building for the ark, he would have asked for one. And the fact that he hasn’t yet asked for one implies that he hasn’t wanted one. I also think the tone of God’s question to David in verse 5 is very telling: “Would you build me a house to dwell in?” In other words, “I’m the God who spoke this entire universe into existence. Do you really think that I need you to build me a house?”

This contrast between God as “I” and David as “you” then continues in verses 8-11. And as we read these verses, I think it’s very helpful to read them in a way that emphasizes that contrast. God says,  ⁸ Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. ⁹ And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. ¹⁰ And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, ¹¹ from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.

So, notice that, instead of David doing something for God, God says he has done and will do a number of things for David. First, God reminds David that he’s the one who made David what he is. David was a lowly shepherd before God raised him up as king of Israel. David didn’t acquire the kingship for himself but rather was put in that position by God—just as it was God who also protected David and gave him victory over his enemies. Every “achievement” in David’s life wasn’t actually an achievement at all but rather a blessing God bestowed on David.

And God promises to continue blessing David with a great name in verse 9 and, in verse 11, rest from his enemies and even—most notably—"a house.” That’s what God says at the end of verse 11: “the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.”

So, as you’ll recall, David had basically said to God, “Let me build you a house.” But God says in response, “No, David, I’m going to build you a house.” You see, the kind of house God was most interested in wasn’t a house of cedar but a dynasty for David—a dynasty through which God would accomplish his saving purposes in this world. So, God insists on being the one to build David a house rather than allowing David to supposedly do him a favor by building a house for the ark.

And that, right there, is the very heart of the gospel. Christianity isn’t about us doing something for God but about God doing something for us. You see, the Bible teaches that, in our natural condition, we’re not able to do anything for God. Ephesians 2:1 describes us as spiritually dead in our sin. Our spiritual condition is comparable to a corpse’s physical condition. Obviously, a corpse isn’t able to do anything. If you ask it to stand up, it can’t stand up. If you ask it to speak, it can’t speak. A corpse can’t even dress itself—it has to be dressed by a mortician.

Similarly, we’re not able to do anything whatsoever that’s morally good or commendable in the eyes of God—nor are we able to take even one step closer to God through our own abilities. Instead, we’re spiritually dead, rightly condemned, and helpless to do anything about it.

Yet the good news of the gospel is that, even when we were in that wretched condition, God showed us extraordinary mercy. God the Father sent his own Son Jesus into this world to do for us what we could never do for ourselves and rescue us from our sin. Jesus accomplished this rescue by becoming a man, living a perfectly sinless life, and dying on a cross to make atonement for our sins. God’s justice requires that sin be punished, but Jesus stood in our place and suffered that punishment so we wouldn’t have to. On the cross, Jesus wasn’t just suffering the physical agony of crucifixion but the full measure of the wrath of God Almighty.

Yet the tragedy of Jesus’s death was soon followed by the triumph of his resurrection. And because Jesus was raised from the dead, he now stands ready to save everyone who will turn away from their sin—including all of their prideful attempts to earn God’s favor through their own moral or religious accomplishments—and instead put their trust exclusively in Jesus for rescue.

So, as you can see, our salvation isn’t about us in our merit reaching up to God but about God in his mercy reaching down to us. As Jonathan Edwards once said, the only thing we contribute to our salvation is the sin that made it necessary. Our salvation is entirely a work of God’s grace. That’s the very heart of the gospel. Just as we see between God and David in 2 Samuel 7, God’s always the glorious and all-sufficient Giver, and we’re always the humble and needy recipients.

I love the way this is expressed in Isaiah 55:1-2, where God says, ¹ “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. ² Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

Notice that this invitation is extended to those who are broke—which, spiritually speaking, is all of us. God invites us to stop chasing after things in life that can never truly satisfy and instead lay hold of the richness of what he’s offering absolutely free. That’s God’s invitation for you today. If you’re “thirsty” for more than this life can give you and “hungry” for real satisfaction, God invites you to “come, buy and eat…without money and without price.”

The Apostle Paul explains it this way in Romans 4:4-5: ⁴ Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. ⁵ And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. When you work for someone as an employee, they’re legally obligated to pay you. They’re not doing you some sort of favor by giving you a paycheck. You’ve earned the paycheck! They’re simply giving you what you’ve earned. Yet, as Paul reminds us, that’s not at all the way it is with our salvation. In giving us a place in heaven, God isn’t paying us wages we’ve earned but rather is giving us a gift—a gift that’s based entirely on his grace. And if you’re not willing to receive it as a gift of grace, you won’t receive it at all.

As the old hymn says,

Not the labor of my hands
Can fulfill Thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and thou alone.

Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress,
Helpless, look to Thee for grace:
Foul, I to the fountain fly,
Wash me, Savior, or I die.

And we find this glorious reality unmistakably present—though in seed form—in God’s response to David in our main passage. God’s promise to David wasn’t based on anything David had done or could do but was based solely on God’s grace.

And friends, that’s good news not only for those who haven’t yet become Christians but also for those of us who are already Christians. Because salvation is based on God’s grace rather than our achievements, we can’t lose it. No matter how much we stumble spiritually and fall into sin—perhaps even grievous sin at times—none of that will cancel out God’s gracious promise of salvation.

Think about David. We’re only a few short chapters away in 2 Samuel from David sinning horrendously. David sleeps with a married woman named Bathsheba and then has her husband killed to cover it up. So, if God’s promise to David was based on David’s moral accomplishments, that would have ended God’s promise right there. The agreement would have been null and void. Yet that nullification didn’t happen—because this promise is what’s known as an unconditional covenant, a sacred agreement that’s not dependent on us rising to a certain standard or performing well enough to keep the covenant intact. Instead, it’s based solely God promise and his own faithfulness to that promise.

So—assuming you’re a genuine Christian—when you’ve fallen into pornography, gossip, anger, or whatever other sin you struggle with for what feels like the thousandth time, remember that no matter how hard you fall or how miserably you fail, God still loves you and won’t ever go back on the promise of salvation he’s made to you. Listen: Since God never took you in because of your righteousness, he won’t cast you out because of your sin. Again, since God never took you in because of your righteousness, he won’t cast you out because of your sin.

And really, you could take this right back to the doctrine of election—the biblical teaching that, from eternity past, God chose us for salvation not because of anything good he foresaw within us but simply on the basis of his own sovereign grace. As Charles Spurgeon once said, “I have no questions that God chose me, because I am quite sure that if God had not chosen me I should never have chosen him; and I am sure he chose me before I was born, or else he never would have chosen me afterwards; and he must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why he should have looked upon me with special love. So, I feel like I am forced to accept this doctrine.”

Brothers and sisters, when you understand what it really means for us to be saved entirely by God’s grace, it’s the sweetest and most comforting truth in the entire Bible.

Then, as we continue on in 2 Samuel 7, God continues his promise to David in verses 12-13. As they commonly say on infomercials, “But wait…there’s more!” God tells David, ¹² When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹³ He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

Now, there would be an immediate fulfillment of part of this promise in David’s son Solomon, who would indeed build a temple for God. Yet, as we can see from the final part of verse 13, this promise wouldn’t ultimately be fulfilled in Solomon. God states, “I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever”—and Solomon only lived to be 80 years old. It kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it, how will this promise ultimately be fulfilled?

And yet, there’s even more. God says in verses 14-15, ¹⁴ I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, ¹⁵ but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. Okay, so that sounds like it’s probably referring to Solomon.

But then, we have verse 16: “And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.” So, again, we have this language of “forever.” God says that David’s “house” or “kingdom” or “throne”—the three terms are somewhat synonymous here—will be established “forever.” This is a major event in redemptive history known as the Davidic Covenant—and sacred agreement between God and David. Yet, as we’ve said, it’s not the kind of agreement where God has a part and David has a part. No, God takes all the responsibility for keeping this covenant entirely on himself.

Yet we have to ask, once again, how would this covenant be fulfilled? Because neither Solomon nor any of the other kings who would come from David in the Old Testament would live forever. Furthermore, the kingdom would eventually decline, the Davidic monarchy would eventually collapse, and God’s people would eventually be exiled. Of course, they’d eventually return from exile, but they’d then continue to be ruled by foreign entities. So, it would seem that the so-called “house of David”—David’s royal dynasty—was a thing of the past. That’s the tension readers of the Bible should be feeling as they read through the Old Testament. Isn’t God going to keep his promise to David? How in the world can God keep his promise of David’s throne being established forever if there’s no longer any local “throne” to occupy—much less a descendant of David occupying such a throne?

But…spoiler alert…it turns out that God didn’t fail to keep his promise. In fact, God kept his promise in a greater way than anyone up to that point had ever imagined—and he did so in and through Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of God’s covenant with David.

This is why the angel Gabriel says to Mary in Luke 1:31-33, ³¹ And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, ³³ and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” So, before Jesus was even born, he was announced as the one who’d inherit David’s throne.

And this is precisely what the Jews were expecting. Although they were significantly mistaken in their assumption that the Davidic monarch would reign through political maneuvering and military conquest, the Jews correctly understood that God would send a Davidic king.

We see evidence of this expectation throughout the four gospels. For example, Matthew 12:22-23 states, ²² Then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw. ²³ And all the people were amazed, and said, “Can this be the Son of David?” You see, Jewish society in the first century was surging with anticipation of a Davidic monarch who’d rule from David’s throne once again.

In fact, this is a key component of what the Hebrew term “Messiah”—translated in Greek as “Christ”—actually refers to. Both “Messiah” in Hebrew and “Christ” in Greek mean “Anointed One.” And guess who was anointed in ancient Israel? Kings. And guess where this king is promised? The Davidic Covenant in 2 Samuel 7. So, this promise God makes to David here in 2 Samuel 7 was a key reason why the Jews of Jesus’s day were expecting a Messiah. This is why they were on the lookout for a so-called “Anointed One” who was a descendent of David and who would rule on David’s throne.

This is confirmed in John 7:41-42, which records some discussion about Jesus among the crowds: ⁴¹ Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee? ⁴² Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” It’s also worth mentioning that Jesus is repeatedly called the “Son of David” in the four gospels. In the Gospel of Matthew alone, Jesus is called the “Son of David” in Matthew 9:27, Matthew 15:22, Matthew 20:30, and Matthew 21:9. And in all of this, we’re really just scratching the surface of New Testament references to Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s covenant with David.

I mean, don’t even get me started on the New Testament references to the “kingdom.” Although there are other places in the Old Testament where “kingdom” language is drawn from, the Davidic Covenant is undoubtedly one of the two most important, the other being Daniel 7:14. This means that every time the New Testament speaks of “the kingdom of God” or the “kingdom of heaven,” it’s doing so, in large part, on the basis of God’s promise to David in 2 Samuel 7.

So, I hope you can see that God promising David in 2 Samuel 7:16 that his throne will be established forever isn’t just some random promise God makes that won’t have much relevance afterwards. Instead, it’s a major event in redemptive history and a huge component of the redemptive framework of the Bible. It might be quite short and relatively simple, but it ends up being a lot more important than a casual reading of 2 Samuel 7 might lead you to believe.

In some ways, it’s comparable to wedding vows. Those vows that a husband and wife make to each other at their wedding might be relatively brief, but they’re absolutely foundational for that couple’s marriage. That couple will look back on the brief few minutes it took to exchange their vows for the next 50 years—or whatever it ends up being—of their marriage. Similarly, God’s promise to David might be brief, but it’s monumentally important for laying a foundation for Jesus the Messiah and Son of David.

So, what should be our response to all of this? Well, perhaps it might be good to look at David’s response in this chapter. In verse 18, the very first thing David says is, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?” So, notice David’s humble spirit in light of all that God’s done for him. Likewise, as we consider God’s grace toward David—and, even more, his grace toward us—our first response should be one of deep humility. If, as we’ve talked about this morning, Christianity isn’t about us in our merit reaching up to God but is instead about God in his mercy reaching down to us, then it follows that we have absolutely no reason to be proud and every reason to be humble.

I can’t help but think of the penetrating questions Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 4:7 (NIV): “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” For us to allow pride to have a place in our hearts kind of reminds me of an overconfident teenager whose parents buy him a super-nice car for his sixteenth birthday. He might be driving that brand-new Mercedes or BMW around town with his sunglasses on and acting like he’s the coolest person in the world, but his money didn’t buy that car. His parents bought it for him! And they probably bought him the sunglasses as well. Similarly, every good thing about us isn’t ultimately the result of our efforts but is instead simply a manifestation of God’s grace. So, for us to be humble is simply to be connected with reality.

Moreover, David continues his response to God in verses 21-22, ²¹ Because of your promise, and according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness, to make your servant know it. ²² Therefore you are great, O Lord God. For there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.

So, like David, our second response to God’s grace should be grateful worship. As we consider the grace God’s shown us even when we were in such a wretched condition, we should be so filled with gratitude that we can’t help but worship him. Our gratitude should overflow into worship. And this includes worshipping God not only with our lips—as David does in these verses—but also with our lives. Our lives should be an expression of grateful worship to God.

Now, it’s important to clarify here that, when we strive to live for God, we’re not trying to pay God back for his grace but are simply expressing gratitude. Remember, once again, as we’ve seen in 2 Samuel 7, that God’s always the glorious and all-sufficient Giver, and we’re always the humble and needy recipients. So, we can never even begin to pay God back.

Instead, our lives should be an expression of gratitude in the same way that a thank you card is an expression of gratitude. Let’s say someone gives you a very generous gift worth several hundred dollars and you send them a thank you card in response. When you do that, you’re not trying to pay them back for their gift. There’s no way a four dollar thank you card would ever be deemed repayment for a several hundred dollar gift—nor is it meant to be. Instead, the thank you card is simply an expression of gratitude.

Similarly, our lives should be a simple expression of gratitude toward God rather than an attempt to repay him. It’s also helpful to keep in mind that, since it’s only by God’s grace that we can do anything truly good in the first place, living for God actually only drives us deeper in our debt to God’s grace. So, that’s why we can never even begin to repay God. Any attempts to repay God for his grace only make us all the more indebted to his grace.

That’s why the only proper response to God’s grace isn’t trying to repay him but simply expressing gratitude to him. As the Dutch theologian G.C. Berkouwer once said, “The essence of Christian theology is grace, and the essence of Christian ethics is gratitude.”