And king David stood up upon his feet, and said, Hear me, my brethren and my people! I had in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of Jehovah and for the footstool of our God, and I have prepared to build.
David is near the end of his life, and he calls the leaders of Israel together for one last address. He stands to tell them his greatest wish. He had wanted to build a permanent home for the ark — the chest that held the covenant.
The verse opens with a detail that sounds small — the aged king rising to his feet. One writer sees it as the last of three positions in David's life: lying down, sitting, and now standing.
"Then King David rose to his feet" (1 Chr. 28:2). This completes the picture of this lovely character. We have seen him lying on the ground, the arrow of conviction piercing his conscience and God's rod of correction held over him. We have seen him seated in the sanctuary, looking back on the workings of grace in the past and looking forward to the bright rays of glory in the future. And now we see him standing up as a true-hearted servant, to lay himself and all he has at the LORD's feet.
A king with absolute power addresses his officers and troops as equals. The word fits a law given long before about how Israel's king should view his people.
David's attitude to the people, as he urges them to build for God, is very beautiful. "Hear me, my brothers" (1 Chron. 28:2). The LORD wanted Israel's king, when the time came that they would have one, to read the book of the law every day, "that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers" (Deut. 17:20). There is nothing of the tyrant in this.
He could have spoken privately to Solomon. Instead he gathered the whole leadership of the nation.
The king not only desired Solomon to know what was nearest to his heart, but he desired that all in his realm might understand what he really valued.
The phrase "house of rest" stands against everything the ark had known. In the desert, Israel carried it, set it down, and picked it up again.
"A house of rest for the ark." It was not like that in the wilderness. It was either "Arise, O LORD," or "Return." There was always movement — moving now, or about to move. But the blessed mark of the coming day will be rest — rest after hard work, rest after sorrow. And this will be the fruit of the suffering of the true Son of David. We see it beautifully in Psalm 132, where David, who has been through affliction, prays for Solomon. Solomon will bring in the rest, but only as a sign. True rest is still to come. "There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God."
David's own restlessness on this point went back years, and it had a reason behind it — the ark had been captured once already.
David, in all his tribulations had not given himself rest until he had found a place of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord — a place where this covenant, deposited in the ark, could eventually be established for God's people without being exposed to a fresh journey across the desert or to new vicissitudes in the hands of the Philistines.
Calling the ark God's footstool implies a seat above it. That is what it was.
This rest of God was at the same time the rest of "the footstool of His feet," because the ark was the throne of God, who sat between the cherubim — the throne He had set up among His people.
A footstool also says something about who is under those feet. One writer asks why God set His throne among this people at all.
One great purpose for which God took His place among Israel was this: through them He would bring the whole earth into subjection to Himself… He had brought them out of Egypt, redeemed by power. Outwardly they were under His feet, that is, in complete subjection to His authority. He placed His throne among them so that through them He might bring the nations also under His rule.
David says he made ready to build — and then, in the next verse, that God said no. What he did next is the heart of the passage.
David was a man of war and had shed much blood, and for that reason he could not build God's house, the Temple. Yet he showed himself a humble, obedient and godly servant of the Lord. Without arguing or complaining he accepted God's refusal of his sincere wish to build Him a house… His energetic preparations showed that he felt no resentment at having his offer turned down. What a lesson for believers in Christ! Bitterness and bad feeling when our own way is refused show a bad spirit and a poor spiritual state underneath.
Another writer traces where that desire came from.
Faith moved him, and faith recognised the presence of God. Love moved him, and love delighted in the One whose presence he recognised. He proved his love for God's dwelling place by the huge provision he made for his son to build the house — though he himself would not have the glory of building it, and would never even see it.
- Rest desired. David stood before the nation and told them his deepest wish: a settled home for the ark, instead of a tent that kept moving.
- Rest refused. God said no to the builder, not to the desire. David accepted it without complaint. Bitterness when we are refused our own way shows a poor spiritual state.
- Rest prepared. Faith and love moved him to pour his wealth into a house he would never see, and to leave the glory of building it to his son.
- Rest enthroned. The ark was God's footstool because His throne stood above it among His people. He set that throne there to bring the whole earth under His authority.
- Rest still coming. Solomon's temple gave only a sign of rest. The real rest is the fruit of the suffering of the true Son of David, and it still remains for the people of God.
But God said to me, Thou shalt not build a house unto my name, for thou art a man of war, and hast shed blood.
At the end of his life, David gathers Israel's leaders. He tells them what he had longed to do, and what God told him he could not do. The reason God gives is not a sin. It is a description: David was a fighter, and his hands had shed blood.
A house means a settled home, and a settled home does not go with war. One writer traces the whole story: God moved with His people while they moved, and would not settle until they did.
David could not build this house. Peace had to come first (v. 3) before the Lord would make His lasting home among His people. While they wandered in the desert, the Lord joined Himself to them in their pilgrim and traveller condition through the tabernacle. Then came the wars of Canaan under Joshua and the judges. Those wars did not stop until David's reign. God cannot dwell in rest where there is war.
David's plan was not wicked. It came too soon. God's own building work had to come first.
Mistakes of this kind are very old mistakes. David made this mistake when he planned to build a house for the Lord. It was an error, though it came from a right desire of the heart. The time had not come to build the Lord a house, because the Lord had not yet built David a house. The land was still defiled with blood, and until it was cleansed there was no place for the rest and kingdom of the Lord. So David erred greatly — yet not from a divided heart, but from not knowing.
A no did not mean the desire was wrong. Solomon later repeated what God said about his father's plan.
Solomon records a very interesting and suggestive fact about David. "The Lord said to my father, Because it was in your heart to build a house for my name, you did well that it was in your heart. Nevertheless, you shall not build the house, but your son who shall be born to you shall build the house for my name" (2 Chron. 6:8-9)... When it came to carrying it out, God had to put him in his proper place. But what was in his heart was approved. Of which of his deeds is it said, "you did well"? We cannot recall one. If that is so, his case is full of encouragement for others. It places all the saints of God on one footing, however much they differ in ability for service.
God shut one door and opened another. David was kept from the building work, but not from the temple's design. One writer ranks his part above Solomon's.
God had given him a good work. He was not to build the house. But he, above all, prepared the material and set its order, even when it was built — not Solomon, but David. Solomon carried out David's regulations. So whatever the future glory of the kingdom may be, we must remember that the sufferings of Christ take a far higher moral place. David was more important than Solomon.
David's fighting prepared a rest that another man would enter. One writer sees the same pattern, and the same order, in Christ.
Through his sufferings David could prepare the "rest that remains for the people of God." But he could not bring that rest in while the kingdom still carried the warrior stamp of its leader. It will be the same with Christ. At the cross He laid the foundation for eternal rest. He will not set up that final rest until all His enemies have been put under His feet.
What David did with his remaining years showed how he took the no.
David showed himself to be a humble, obedient and godly servant of the Lord. He did not argue or complain. He accepted God's refusal of his sincere desire to build Him a house. Later in life he gathered huge amounts of gold, silver and other materials, so that his son Solomon could build the Temple in Jerusalem. His energetic preparations showed he felt no resentment at having his offer refused. What a lesson for believers in Christ! Resentment and bad feeling when we are refused our own way show a bad spirit and a poor spiritual state underneath.
- Cause. War, not sin, is the stated barrier. God will not settle in a permanent house while His people are still at war.
- Order. David's desire was right but early: God had to build David a house before David could build God one.
- Approval. The no came with praise: "you did well that it was in your heart." God weighs the desire, not only the deed.
- Reassignment. David was kept from the building, but God gave him the materials and the pattern. Solomon built what David planned.
- Result. The warrior prepares a rest he cannot bring in. Christ founded that rest at the cross, and will bring it in when every enemy is under His feet.
And Jehovah the God of Israel chose me out of all the house of my father to be king over Israel for ever; for he has chosen Judah to be the prince; and of the house of Judah, the house of my father; and among the sons of my father he took pleasure in me to make me king over all Israel;
God had just refused David permission to build a house for the ark. David answers that disappointment by pointing to what God did choose: a tribe, then a family, then one man.
One commentator follows the choice down step by step, and names the fact Chronicles keeps pressing.
In verses 4-6 David insists, in front of all the people's representatives, on the main fact that Chronicles always stresses: God carries out His purposes by an election of grace. The Lord had chosen him, David, to be king over Israel forever; He had chosen Judah as prince; in Judah He had chosen the house of Jesse. Among the sons of Jesse He had taken pleasure in David, to make him king. The Lord's free choice and God's good pleasure rested on the least and most humble of them all... a man in whom men saw nothing to desire.
Judah's own record gives no ground for his promotion, which is exactly the point.
God sets up the kingship according to His purposes, and that is the character it always has in Chronicles. Chronicles presents Judah first, the tribe the Lawgiver comes from. But God chooses Judah by pure grace, and Judah's own history teaches us this. His wife, a Canaanite, gives him a first-born son, Er, whom the Lord killed because of his wickedness... Even so, God gives Judah the first place because His purpose was that the Prince should come from him (1 Chron. 5:2), and for no other reason.
Eliab, the first-born, looked the obvious choice. One writer asks what would have happened if the prophet Samuel had trusted his own eyes.
It helps us greatly to have such living examples: dependence and submission, as here in Samuel, and electing grace, as in David. Eliab looked better than his youngest brother, who was left in the quiet, hidden life he no doubt preferred. He held a higher position, and as the first-born he clearly wanted the first place... Where would the nation have sunk if Samuel had acted on his own thoughts and Eliab had followed Saul as king? God must be sovereign, or the ruin would be total and past all remedy. God refuses, and God chooses, and there is no unrighteousness with Him (Rom. 9).
This verse says God took pleasure in David. An older translation read "he liked me," and one commentator pressed that one word home.
Do you know anybody else in the Bible of whom it is said that God liked him? Yes, you may say, there are many. We have just been hearing about love; why, the love of God flows out to all! Ah, but there is a very great difference between God loving and God liking. Of course He loved David, but He liked David. "He liked me." It would be a very fine thing, dear friends, if one great result of our meetings here were this: that His thoughts shape us more, so that we become the sort of people God really likes.
The "yet" of the verse holds two things together: David may not build, and David is still the chosen king. One commentator shows how much work God still gave him.
He had given him a good work. He was not to build the house. But he, above all, prepared the material and arranged the whole plan of it, and that held good even after it stood built — not Solomon, but David. Solomon carried out the regulations of David. So whatever the future glory of the kingdom may be, we must remember that the sufferings of Christ hold a far higher place in moral worth. David was more important than Solomon. Solomon was only the fruit, so to speak, of David.
The choice does not stop with David. One commentator looks at what God calls Solomon's throne, and hears God's purpose for Christ's kingdom in it.
Notice this expression, which we find again in 1 Chronicles 29:23: Solomon's kingdom is "the kingdom of Jehovah", and his throne is Jehovah's throne. Do not these words speak to us of God's purpose for 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."
- Chose — David tells the whole assembly that the kingdom rests on God's purpose and His choice of grace, not on human arrangement.
- Narrowed — the choice runs from tribe to family to one man. It lands on the least and most humble of Jesse's sons — the one God not only loved but liked.
- Undeserved — Judah has the leading place only because the Prince was to come from him, and for no other reason.
- Necessary — if Samuel had gone by looks and taken Eliab, the nation would have been ruined. God must be sovereign, and there is no unrighteousness in His refusing and choosing.
- Enduring — losing the temple work did not cancel David's calling. David prepared the material and set the order, and the choice ran on through Solomon to Christ's kingdom.