- Jul 11, 2007
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Earlier I wrote about the Abrahamic Covenant.Now we should take a serious look at the Davidic Covenant and what it all entails. The best passage of scripture dealing with this in the most detail is 2 Samuel 7:10-17:Moreover I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more, as beforetime,And as since the time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel, and have caused thee to rest from all thine enemies. Also the LORD telleth thee that he will make thee an house.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.He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever.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:But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.From this promise spoken by Nathan, we can safely assume these features of the covenant:1. David will have a house (lineage)2. A seed from His bowels that will carry this promise out.3. This seed will build a house (temple) for God 4. The throne of His kingdom is forever from that day forward.5. If the son disobeys, he will be punished, but the covenant will not be annulled like it was with Saul (and what happened to Saul? He lost his kingdom and right to rule). This means it is an unconditional covenant allowing continual rule in the family line of King David.This was immediately fulfilled in King Solomon, which meant that it was thru Solomon’s lineage that the right to rule was passed down from generation to generation as a “covenant of salt” (see 1Chronicles 28:5, 2Chronicles 13:5)Psalm 89 has various passages that reiterate the eternal nature of this covenant:Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations. Selah.……My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him.His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven.If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments;If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments;Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David.His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me.It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. Selah.In these passages, the author understood (as did the rest of the people) that the covenant with King David was eternal and ruling sons would exist for all generations. This was an unconditional covenant and we can see that this is an earthly throne as evidenced that the sun and moon are faithful witnesses. The sun and moon do not witness to heavenly things, as the Lord is the light of heaven. These lights are for the earth, and one looking at them will see that as long as these astronomical bodies exist, that a descendant of King David is ruling over Israel from an earthly throne.As a matter of fact, if we keep reading Psalm 89, we find in verse 38 that the writer laments that the Lord apparently voided this covenant by saying:But thou hast cast off and abhorred, thou hast been wroth with thine anointed.Thou hast made void the covenant of thy servant: thou hast profaned his crown by casting it to the ground.He seems confused and dazed that this should happen. This indisputably proves that the covenant was unconditional and was expected to be carried out in all generations. Had the covenant been conditional as some would like to believe, then the writer of this psalm would have done better by praying instead to forgive their iniquities restore the fallen throne of David. But why does he not say this? Why? Because God did not make the covenant conditional. He was confused and his world was falling apart. However, the lamenting writer ends the psalm by saying:Lord, where are thy former lovingkindnesses, which thou swarest unto David in thy truth? ……Blessed be the LORD for evermore. Amen, and Amen.He in effect was leaving it in God’s hands because he did not know what to make of the eternal throne that was now “fallen”. Indeed, it did not fall. The prophet Jeremiah transferred the throne to the isles by marrying a Davidic daughter to a Zarahite King of Judah. We can read more about that in this post: Judah and TamarHowever, for the time being, I wanted to simply emphasize the nature of this eternal covenant and I can focus on the details of its continued existence in another post. For now it is sufficient to know that as Ezekiel prophesied that :I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more [i.e. overturned], until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.The throne would change its order and overturn to other locations where the lost tribes resided, until the time that “he whose right it is” will one day take it.I encourage people to look at my genealogy in my signature to show the Lord’s lineage, and then how the Davidic lineage existed thru all generations over traditionally Christian nations (which are in fact the physical seed of Abraham anyway).
