The Covenant with David

2 Samuel 7

            Here is the third great covenant of the Old Testament. The first one the Lord made with Abraham: it was an unconditional promise of God’s blessing. Hundreds of years later, the Lord made a covenant with all of Israel at Sinai. That covenant was of a different sort; it was conditional and many of its blessings depended on Israel’s obedience to the Lord. This third covenant, the promise that David’s throne will endure, is not explicitly called a covenant (at least as far as I can tell), but it is similar to the one made with Abraham, namely, it is unconditional. The Lord recognizes that David’s descendants may not be faithful, that they may need to be punished (v. 14), but He promises that the throne will endure anyway.

            A quick word of ‘forever’ in the Old Testament. The usual phrase for ‘forever’ is more literally ‘for the age,’ or ‘a very long time.’ It’s hard to know when the phrase should be translated ‘forever’ or ‘for a very long time’ or even if the intention is ‘for the whole of this fallen age…’

            I bring the translational bit up because, of course, from a certain point of view, David’s throne does not endure forever. By 586 BC, the nation was carried off into exile in Babylon. When they return some 70 years later they are led by Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel. Zerubbabel is almost always called the governor Judah. I can’t find a place where he is referred to as a king or even a descendant of David. 1 Chronicles 3 identifies Shealtiel as a son of Jehoiachin and therefore of the line of David, but the whole idea of Zerubbabel as a Davidic king is really downplayed.

            For a Christian, the forever aspect of this promise is found in Jesus. Shealtiel and Zerubbabel are there in both of Jesus’ genealogies (Luke 3 and Matthew 1), giving Jesus credentials as the son of David, a theme that runs through the Gospels. Paul declares Jesus a descendant of David according to the flesh. And now Jesus is the one who sits at the right hand of the Father, a phrase denoting kingly rule. So, in Jesus, the Lord fulfilled both the covenant to Abraham (that Abraham’s descendant would bring blessing to all peoples) and to David (because He is the heir of David who will never die; cf. Acts 2).

            God keeps His promises. Sometimes not in the ways that we would expect, to be sure. (I don’t imagine David thinking about the promise in the way that God fulfilled it!) Certainly on His own timeline. But God keeps His promises, and we are saved by His faithfulness.