And it shall come to pass, when thy days are fulfilled that thou must go [to be] with thy fathers, that I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons; and I will establish his kingdom.
David wanted to build a temple for God, but God turned it around: He would build David a house instead. The verse raises the questions behind the rest of the chapter — which son is meant, and what makes the promise sure?
David wanted to honour God with a building. God's answer put the building in His own hands, and in His own order.
God had another plan, and only His plan is good and wise... He had taken David from the lowest position to be ruler over His people Israel. He had been with him everywhere — cut off his enemies, made him a name, appointed a place for His people... He would subdue all David's enemies. But instead of David building a house for the Lord, the Lord was going to build a house for David. Until that happened, no one could build a house for Him.
What God promised did appear in Solomon's day, but it did not last.
God will be a debtor to no one, and He will build a house for David. In Solomon's day both houses rose as a picture: the king's house and the temple. But once man's obedience and faithfulness counted toward keeping them standing, everything collapsed. The temple fell, and David's house went into captivity.
God dates the promise after David's own days run out. David's reign was not its measure.
David had good reason to feel that the Lord had done much for him. The house of cedar was a great thing for the shepherd of Bethlehem. But what was it compared with the future? What was all that God had done, compared with what He would do?... So these actings of grace were not for his own short forty years only. God spoke of his house too "for a great while to come," even forever.
The wording here differs from the parallel account in 2 Samuel 7, and the difference is not accidental. One phrase names a descendant in general; the other names a son from David's own body.
In verse 11, "I will raise up your offspring after you, one of your own sons," points our thoughts to Christ, the king according to God's counsels. In 2 Samuel 7:12, "your offspring… who shall come from your body" shows Solomon, David's son.
Commentators differ on how far to press this. Others read Solomon as a first, partial fulfilment that points on to Christ.
David was to go to be with his fathers, but God would raise up his son... Solomon partly fulfilled this, but other Scriptures show that Christ was in view. In Christ the throne stands for ever. Solomon built the temple, and in that he pictures the One the prophet writes about: "Behold, the man whose name is the Branch... It is he who shall build the temple of the LORD."
In 2 Samuel the same promise adds a warning about discipline when the son sins — older translations read "If he commits iniquity." Chronicles drops it, and that tells us what this account is for.
Why is this left out in 1 Chronicles 17? Because a greater than Solomon is before the mind of God. Messiah's kingdom is the one that will stand for ever, and there is no room in it for a word like "If he commits iniquity"... But its final, triumphant establishment rests on God's purpose. Nothing can shake that purpose, and man's failure can never reach it.
The New Testament settles where this promise lands.
Between the two there is this difference: 1 Chronicles 17 applies the promise straight to Christ, and 2 Samuel 7 does not show this quite so clearly... Hebrews 1:5 applies these words to Christ.
Every promise of God, including this one, waited for someone able to carry it.
God's promises involved the overthrow of Satan, the bringing in of secure blessing for men, and the establishment of God's purposes. No one else ever stepped forward to do all this. All others failed before Satan, failed before men, failed before God... He took the responsibility of all these promises on Himself, said "Yes" to them all, and set out to carry them through.
- Refused. David's plan was right in heart but wrong in order. God builds first; only then does He accept a house for Himself.
- Reversed. What David offered to God came back to him greater — not a house of cedar, but a house, a line, a throne.
- Reaching. God dates the promise after David's death. His forty years were never its measure; God spoke of his house forever.
- Resting. Chronicles drops the warning "If he commits iniquity." This kingdom rests on God's purpose, beyond the reach of man's failure.
- Realised. Hebrews 1:5 applies this son, "one of your own sons," to Christ. He alone took God's promises on Himself and said Yes to them all.
It is he who shall build me a house, and I will establish his throne for ever.
David wanted to build God a house. God answered by promising a son who would build His house instead, with a throne set up forever. Two questions follow. Who is this son? And how can his throne last forever?
David's plan put the wrong builder in charge. One writer notes how God turned the idea around:
With what kindness and grace God turned David away from his plan! He set His own thoughts and purpose before him instead. If it is a question of building God a house, God must be the builder (Eph. 2:20-22; Heb. 3:3-6). Otherwise, what ruin comes from man's building!
Building the temple was an honour, and it waited for the right person and the right moment:
This better name also brought him the honour of building the house of God. That work should be counted as an honour rather than a service — an honour too great for David the servant, but kept for Solomon the son… God had other reasons as well for holding David back from building the house. In David's time, for instance, the people of Israel had not yet come to their rest. The kingdom was still unsettled, and the people stood ready for service, geared up for war. So the Lord refused to enter His settled home while His people were in that state… The house stood for permanence, as it is written, "The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever."
God moves into a settled home only when His people are settled too. As another writer puts it, "When God gives His people full and complete rest, then the house where He will live among them will be built. God comes among His people according to their condition and their need" (J. N. Darby).
Solomon built the temple. But commentators read the promise of a throne forever as reaching past him:
This was indeed partly fulfilled in Solomon, but other Scriptures show that Christ was in view. It is in Christ that the throne stands firm forever. As the builder of the temple, Solomon is a picture of the One the prophet writes about: "Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: for he shall branch out from his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD… and shall sit and rule on his throne. And there shall be a priest on his throne" (Zech. 6:12-13).
Israel's history up to this point had been a cycle of crises and short-lived deliverers. The promise of an established throne breaks that pattern:
No longer would God raise up rescuers now and then to save a people from the misery their own unfaithfulness had brought on them. Instead, God would carry out His purposes for them, and blessing would stand forever in the house and family of the king.
The earlier account of this promise carries a warning about discipline. Here that warning is gone:
Something striking is left out of this chapter compared with what we have already seen in Kings… In Kings, the LORD tells David through the prophet that if his sons disobeyed, He would discipline them. But He would never take His mercy away from them. It was not to be judgment that wipes out, but mercy that corrects. Here that drops away.
The same writer explains the omission by the character of each book:
Kings is the book of responsibility; Chronicles is the book of God's providence… The great point of Chronicles is no longer to show how God governs morally… but to show this — that God's plan, God's intention, God's mind alone stands. So Chronicles leaves out all the conditional circumstances of the house of David and gives only God's final thought.
Another writer reads the difference the same way. In 1 Chronicles 17, "it applies directly to Christ, which is not quite so clear in 2 Samuel 7" (J. N. Darby).
- God's building. David offered to build a house for God. God insisted on being the builder Himself, because man's building ends in ruin.
- God's timing. The house waits for rest. A kingdom still at war gets no settled temple.
- God's son. The builder is a son, not a servant. Solomon fills the role partly; the promise only reaches its full size in Christ.
- God's throne. A settled throne ends the cycle of emergency rescuers. In its place comes blessing that lasts forever.
- God's plan alone. Chronicles drops the warnings that Kings keeps. Nothing stands in the promise but what God means to do.
I will be his father, and he shall be my son; and I will not take away my mercy from him, as I took it from him that was before thee;
David wanted to build a house for God. God answered with a promise to build David a house, and here that promise reaches its high point: a father, a son, and a favour that will never be taken back. Is this son Solomon, or someone greater? And why does this account drop the warning about chastening that stands in the parallel passage?
The New Testament takes these words about David's heir and applies them to Christ. One writer sets the two Old Testament records side by side:
Verse 13 is very remarkable. God says: "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son." Hebrews 1:5 quotes this about Christ and about God's counsels concerning His Anointed. The same words in 2 Samuel 7:14 apply to a king who could fail and was responsible: "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. If he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men and with the stripes of the sons of men." That is what happened to David himself in the book of Samuel. Chronicles mentions neither his failure nor the long chastening, the "rod of men," that followed it.
In the ESV that clause reads, "When he commits iniquity"; the writers quote an older translation with "if."
The omission is not an accident of copying. It fits the person this book is looking toward:
David's faithfulness, or that of his children, does not appear in the book of Chronicles as a condition. Turn to 2 Samuel 7 and everything there seems to hang on man's behaviour: "If he commits iniquity," and so on. Why does Chronicles 17 leave this out? Because a greater than Solomon is before the mind of God. It is Messiah's kingdom that God will establish for ever, and there is no room in it for words like "If he commits iniquity." There was every reason to say them with Solomon in view. It has its right place in Samuel where man's responsibility runs side by side with the promises.
The difference runs through both books, not just this one verse. One traces what people deserve; the other traces what God intends:
Kings is the book of responsibility, Chronicles of God's providence. This explains the omission here of what matters so much in the book of Kings. The great point of Chronicles is no longer to show the moral government of God, and how kings as well as people reap what they sow. It is to show this — that God's plan, God's intention, God's mind alone stands. So Chronicles leaves out all the uncertain circumstances of the house of David; it gives only the ultimate thought of God.
The verse looks back to the king before David, the one from whom God took His steadfast love. One writer explains what makes David's house different:
With David, God made another covenant, in part conditional, and in part unconditional (2 Samuel 7:10-16). For the sons who came next to the throne, keeping that throne, and the nation's blessing under their rule, depended on their obedience. If they disobeyed, God would chasten them. But the covenant was unconditional in this much: God would never remove His mercy from David's house for good. There was to be one coming from him who was, without fail, to sit upon his throne.
The title Son carries a weight no created being could bear:
And God says, "He shall be to Me for Son." Of no creature could this be said. How could any creature, however blessed, be to God all that is expressed in the name of SON? He alone surpasses every creature beyond measure. In manhood He could present to God what called forth all the affections of God's heart, and what He presented was a fitting object for those affections. He alone could give God a response suited to those affections, and He Himself was their blessed and worthy object.
Writers are careful, though, about which relationship these words describe:
The Person is the same. The title Son of God tells us, just as surely as the title Son of the Father does, that He is a Divine Person. Yet as born into this world He enters the relationship in a new way, in Manhood. So God can say, "I will be to Him a Father, and he shall be to Me a Son." The point in this verse is the relationship He is in with God, rather than His eternal relationship with the Father, for these words are also applied to Solomon.
- Purpose — Chronicles tells David's story from the side of God's plan, not human performance; "God's mind alone stands."
- Omission — The parallel account warns, "If he commits iniquity." Chronicles drops it, because a greater than Solomon is in view.
- Mercy — God took His mercy from the king before David. From this son He will never take it, so the promise to David's house is unconditional at its core.
- Son — In Samuel the father-and-son words fit a king who could fail. Hebrews applies them to Christ, and commentators say the point is His relationship with God as Man.
- Forever — The kingdom God establishes for ever is Messiah's, and no "if" hangs over it.
and I will settle him in my house and in my kingdom for ever; and his throne shall be established for ever.
David asked to build a house for God; God answered by promising to build a house for David. The closing words of that answer look far past David's lifetime. They point to a son whom God sets in His own house and His own kingdom, on a throne that never ends.
David is not the one who will build the house. One writer explains the timing.
Even though God had gone with His people in their wanderings, and had borne with their unfaithfulness … it was still true that a rest remained for the people of God. The victory that won that rest was not the rest itself, and the grace that gave the victory was not the rest either. The house where He would live among them would be built only when God gave His people full and complete rest. For God comes among His people according to their condition and their need.
Chronicles describes the promised son differently from 2 Samuel. One writer compares the two wordings.
In verse 11 the words "I will set up your seed after you, who will be one of your sons" direct our thoughts to Christ, the king according to God's counsels. But 2 Samuel 7:12, "Your seed … who will come out of your body," points to Solomon, David's son.
Another writer weighs the same two passages and finds the Chronicles wording clearer.
So it is still the Messiah, the King of Zion, the Son of David. These words apply in the first place to Solomon, as the son of David (2 Samuel 7:14 and 1 Chronicles 17:13). In this second passage they point more clearly to the true Son of David.
God calls the house and the kingdom His own, not David's. The same language returns later in Chronicles, where the king's reign is God's reign.
Notice this wording, which we find again in 1 Chronicles 29:23: Solomon's kingdom is "the kingdom of Jehovah"; his throne is Jehovah's throne. Do these words not speak to us of God's counsels about Christ's future kingdom? It is all the more striking here because God says of Solomon: "I have chosen him to be My son, and I will be his father."
Something is missing here that the book of Kings contains: a warning that God would discipline the king's sons if they disobeyed.
In Kings, Jehovah tells David through the prophet that if his sons disobeyed, He would discipline them. But He would not take His mercy from them for ever. It was not to be judgment that wipes them out, but mercy that corrects. Here that disappears. He only says, "He will build Me a house, and I will establish his throne for ever."
The two books have different aims.
The great point of Chronicles is no longer to show the moral government of God, and how truly kings as well as people reap what they sow. Its point is rather this — that God's plan, God's intention, God's mind alone stands. So all the conditional circumstances of the house of David are left out of Chronicles. Only the final thought of God is given.
Israel's story until this point had been a series of emergencies and rescues. The promise ends that pattern.
No longer would God raise up rescuers now and then to deliver a people from the misery their own unfaithfulness had brought on them. Instead God's counsels for them would be carried out, and blessing settled for ever in the house and family of the king.
Some apply this promise straight to Christians today. One writer warns what that costs.
First, it stops us seeing the deeper glory of the Lord and our own higher relationship. We are not mere subjects in a kingdom, as the Jews will be even in that promised time of blessing. No doubt we are in the kingdom of God's dear Son — but how? We are kings; we are kings with Christ even now.
- Refused — David does not build. God's house waits for God's rest, for He comes to His people according to their condition and need.
- Reversed — David wanted to build a house for God. God builds a house for David instead. The son He promises is the true Son of David.
- Reassigned — God calls the house and the kingdom His own, and Chronicles later names the king's throne Jehovah's throne.
- Unconditional — Chronicles drops the warning about discipline. It records God's settled purpose, not the king's record.
- Permanent — the days of rescuers raised up now and then are over. God settles blessing for ever in the house and family of the king.