THE DAVIDIC COVENANT

THE DAVIDIC COVENANT

2 Samuel Chapter 7 contains very important scripture regarding the life of David as well as the relationship of God with mankind.  This is the chapter describing the Davidic Covenant. 

God has a known pattern for making agreements with mankind.  He establishes promises containing His will for mankind through covenants with kingdom leaders whom He trusts.   God trusted David. 

THE COVENANT WITH ADAM

Before God trusted David, He trusted Adam with a covenant at Creation.  Adam broke the covenant he had with God. Adam as well as everyone after him had to suffer the consequences. Every covenant since that time has been established to repair what Adam broke. The Hebrews have an old saying. It is “repair the world.” God repairs the world through His covenants with mankind.

THE COVENANT OF NOAH

 Next, God trusted Noah with a covenant which renewed the earth and saved the future of mankind.  Noah was faithful. the covenant did its work.  Eventually however, men whom God could not trust came along and destroyed its effectiveness.

THE COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM

After God renewed the earth through the covenant with Noah, God wanted to establish a people and a nation to be an example for all other nations.  He made this covenant with Abraham.  Abraham was faithful to keep the covenant.  A nation was established called Israel.  They came from the sons of Jacob, who came from the seed of Abraham. God promised Abraham a people and a land. This people and this land were given.

THE COVENANT WITH MOSES

People always seem to have trouble keeping God’s covenants. When God needed a new leader for this holy nation He established a covenant with Moses.  Moses was faithful to carry this people from slavery in Egypt to a new life in the promised land. He taught the people God’s laws, but the people sinned and broke the law.

THE COVENANT WITH DAVID

These people who broke covenant with God, needed a way to be cleansed and renewed from their many sins.  God would eventually send a Messiah to accomplish their salvation.  He would establish a family from which this Messiah would come.  This promise and covenant became known as The Davidic Covenant.  It was a promise from God to David saying that God would build his lineage into a House who would bring this Messiah who would save the world. 

This Davidic Covenant came about when David was feeling guilty about placing God’s throne inside a tent while he lived in a house built of cedar.   David expressed his feelings to the prophet Nathan.  Later Nathan had a dream. The Prophet Nathan’s dream confirmed this covenant God was granting to David.  When Nathan explained the dream to David, he noted it would be David’s son who would build this House for God. David humbly accepted God’s will. He thanked God for the provision and promises of the Davidic Covenant.

MAN’S WAYS AND GOD’S WAYS

This whole story is an interesting comparison of the way God thinks as opposed to the way mankind thinks.  David looked around himself and saw that he lived in what he felt was grandeur.  His house was made from costly cedar wood. It was designed and built by the finest architects.  God, in contrast, had come to dwell inside a flimsy little tent outside the palace walls.

 From David’s perspective, this was completely backwards.  God’s perspective was different though.  After all, it was God who created the cedars as well as the architects who designed David’s house. God made the trees grow in the way they grew. He put the thoughts into the brains of the architects as they designed.  God knew everything that was there, and yet, way back in the days of Moses He had very carefully designed a tent for His dwelling among men.  In those days God was moving people from one location to another. By the time of David’s life the people had reached the location He desired for them, but their hearts and minds needed to catch up with that destiny. The people were physically in the right place, but they still had so much to learn. They were not quite ready for this permanent structure, but possibly under David’s leadership they could become ready.

GOD DESIRES PEACE FOR HIS HOME

Now David lived in the center of the location where God had moved the people God had chosen to represent His nation.  David was living in the right location for God’s permanent home, but his hands were covered and stained from the bloodiness of war.  God could not let someone with blood-guilt build His permanent residence in Jerusalem. His House must be built by hands seeking peace.

The tent could become permanently located now. That was a first step. It could stop moving because it had reached its perfect designation.  However, there needed to be one who established peace in lieu of war, and life in lieu of the death. God desired a man of peace to build a permanent structure where He could dwell among men. 

PEACE AFTER YEARS OF WAR

God loved David so much.  These character traits preventing David, or disqualifying him from building the house for God were the same character traits he had used well to build up the nation of Israel.  They had served his purpose and destiny in life.

Now there finally was peace in Jerusalem. To achieve it David had to make use of blood-stained hands.  So God made David a promise that his son would be the one to build this house of worship in Jerusalem.  David’s house would begin the process by collecting and storing all of the materials. David’s son would build the house. 

GOD’S REVERSAL FOR DAVID

All of these things were just the material side of the Davidic Covenant.  This was a promise that David’s son would build a physical Temple.  It pleased, surprised, and honored David, that God would turn the thing David had offered around and give it back to him.   How amazing is that?  David wanted to build God a house, but now God is promising to build David a house.

Consider the verses from 2 Samuel 7, verses 9-12:  I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth. And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.

THE PHYSICAL PROMISE

This is a great promise, both for David and for the nation of Israel.  It was a promise that David’s name would be great, and Israel would have an established place to live where they would no longer be disturbed.  This was the case for the seventy years of David’s reign over Isreal. Finally they would have a place where the wicked could no longer oppress them.  With this promise, Israel and The House of David could finally enjoy rest in peace and safety.  This was all the people had ever hoped for in this Promised Land they had come into so long ago.

THE SPIRITUAL PROMISE

Even better were the spiritual blessings from the establishment of David’s House by God.  The spiritual blessing was that one would come from David’s lineage who would become The Messiah. He was the One who would save the world.  David already knew of this promise made to Eve from the beginning of time. He believed it even before it happened.  Because of his faith and belief, David’s House would become the lineage of this Messiah.  

THE HOUSE OF DAVID

This is the “House” which God was now establishing through David.   This lineage would begin with David and the Son of David who would build the Temple for God. Later this House would produce a Messiah who would rule an everlasting Kingdom. 

Consider the scriptures of 2 Samuel 7: 11b-16:  “‘The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.’”

That word “forever” is repeated several times. 

God always keeps His promises. 

PRAYING WITH DAVID

PRAYER:  What better prayer can we pray than the one David prayed on the day that God established his House?  ““How great you are, Sovereign Lord! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears. And who is like your people Israel—the one nation on earth that God went out to redeem as a people for himself, and to make a name for himself, and to perform great and awesome wonders by driving out nations and their gods from before your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt? You have established your people Israel as your very own forever, and you, Lord, have become their God.  Amen

SONG WITH A MESSAGE: THERE IS NONE LIKE YOU by Lenny LaBlanc: https://youtu.be/yx8hBj9UXhk?si=3DAXz1AUZ_qiO0e_.