For thus saith Jehovah There shall never fail to David a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel;
Jeremiah sits in prison. Nebuchadnezzar's army surrounds the walls. The royal house of Judah is days from collapse. At that exact moment God promises David an unbroken line on the throne. Two questions follow: who is this man, and why is God's word surer than what everyone could see?
Israel's blessings hung on obedience, and those were being swept away. This one promise did not depend on obedience at all.
There is one promise that their sin and judgment do not touch. Every blessing that depended on their obedience is lost. This one, you might say, becomes more necessary because of their unfaithfulness... The promise shines all the brighter when everything seems lost. The armies of Nebuchadnezzar were surrounding the city. Jeremiah was in prison for his testimony. Their sin had reached its full measure, and the Gentile was about to rule over them. Then the word of the Lord came to the imprisoned prophet with this promise.
God attached a condition to this promise — obedience. Judged by that condition the line failed. Judged by God's chosen Heir it holds.
He promised David that he would never lack a man to sit on his throne. But He added, "if your children take heed to their ways." Judged by human responsibility, all is lost. David's throne has long disappeared; his family also. Even so, David does not lack a man to sit upon his throne. Matthew 1 gives the genealogy of his true Heir. Before His birth the angel said to His mother: "And the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end" (Luke 1:32-33). On the Day of Pentecost Peter spoke to the crowd in Jerusalem. He said that God's promise to David centres in the One they had crucified (Acts 2:30-31).
Enemies tried to wipe out the royal line, and failed.
Prompted by Satan, Athaliah might try to destroy the royal family (2 Kings 11:1). Rezin and Pekah might plot to replace David's line with the son of Tabeal (Isa. 7:6). But God's purpose still stands.
The verse names a specific seat: the throne of the house of Israel. Commentators keep that throne distinct from the place where Christ sits today.
It is Messiah present, but not in humiliation, not a sufferer, but in power and glory. He is reigning. It is not a question of an earth-rejected King, sitting at God's right hand on His Father's throne. It is the great King reigning on His own throne, the throne of His father David... His relation to us is never that of a King reigning over the Christian or over the Church. God has given Him as Head to the body, and one day He will reign as King over His people in their land.
The wording also reaches past Jeremiah's own kingdom. One writer notes that this throne is over "the house of Israel" — "not merely Judah" (The Bible Treasury) — the whole nation.
The next verse makes a matching promise about the priests. Both promises rest on the same Man.
Verses 17 and 18 tell us that David should never lack a man for the throne. Nor should the Levites lack a man to approach God and offer sacrifice. Why?... The Man spoken of in these verses is altogether righteous. He died to secure an eternal redemption. Now, raised from the dead, He establishes kingship and priesthood in Himself according to God. In the day of the coming glory "He shall be a priest upon His Throne" (Zech. 6:13), uniting in Himself both kingship and priesthood. Today the nations cry, "Wanted: a man!" That cry will stop: the Man has been found!
God ties this promise to the fixed order of creation itself.
Christ, raised from the dead as David's seed, will come again to take guilty Jerusalem for Himself. The city that stoned the prophets, that gave Jeremiah a dungeon, that refused the Lord, will yet be His centre of government on earth. It will bear His Name and His character. This is as sure as the fixed order of the heavens and the earth. God must keep His covenant with David His servant (v. 21), for it is impossible for the ever blessed God to lie.
- Spoken in ruin. God gave this promise while the army surrounded the city and the prophet sat in a cell. The darkness around it makes it shine.
- Rescued from ruin. Israel lost everything that hung on obedience. This promise rested on God alone, so human failure could not cancel it.
- Filled by one Man. David's line ended. But Matthew 1 names his true Heir, Luke 1:32-33 announces His endless reign, and Peter preached Him as the crucified One.
- Crown and altar together. Verses 17 and 18 promise a king and a priest, and Christ risen holds both offices in Himself.
- Sure as creation. God's covenant stands as firm as the heavens and the earth, so Jerusalem — the city that rejected Him — becomes the seat of His rule.
neither shall there fail to the priests the Levites a man before me to offer up burnt-offerings, and to burn oblations, and to do sacrifice continually.
God gives this promise while Jeremiah sits in prison. Babylon's army is around the city. The throne of David is about to fall, and the temple is about to burn. Against that ruin God pledges a line of priests that never breaks, always before Him with offerings. When, and how, could such a line ever come back?
A wider promise stands a few verses earlier. It names both parts of the divided nation, and that scope rules out the small return from exile. One writer presses the point:
"Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah." They are thus both included — a conclusive proof that no past return, or revival of quiet under Gentile rule, meets the terms of Scripture. The prophecy awaits its fulfilment.
Verse 17 secures the king. Verse 18 secures the priest — the Levites, who serve at the altar. One writer sees both offices restored together:
This prophecy plainly foretells the full restoration of the religious system as well as the civil rule under the Messiah. The nation will have royalty in the line of David, and priesthood in the line of Aaron the Levite. Then Jehovah gives them the pledge that He will no more break this covenant with Israel than His covenant of day and night.
Another writer lists what this chapter promises, in order. The priesthood comes last:
Notice how complete this revelation of deliverance is in what it covers. First Judah, who was the question of the moment. Then all Israel, then the land, then Messiah and the priesthood.
Why can neither line ever run dry? One writer finds the answer two verses earlier, in the Man promised there:
Verses 17 and 18 tell us that David should never lack a man for the throne, nor the Levites a man for approach and sacrifice to God. Why? Verses 15 and 16 answer this and other questions too. The Man spoken of in these verses is altogether righteous. He died to secure an eternal redemption. Then, in resurrection, He establishes kingship and priesthood in Himself according to God. In the day of the coming glory "He shall be a priest on His throne" (Zech. 6:13), uniting in Himself both kingship and priesthood.
But there is an obvious objection. For many centuries there has been no altar and no offering. One writer takes the nation's survival through that gap as proof that God keeps His promise:
If ever a people passed through difficulties and dangers, distresses and destructions designed to defeat the promise of God, it was the Jews. That holds even on the smaller question of their numbers... For a long, long time they have lived without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. Yet scattered as they are in this strange way, they are perhaps as numerous as ever... But the day is hurrying on. Cleansed from their pollution of blood, they will look on Him whom they pierced. They will be planted in the land that Jehovah gave their fathers. For He is faithful who promised.
If the burnt offerings return, what do they mean after the cross? One writer answers that they now point back to the same sacrifice, seen from the other side:
Some have felt a difficulty about the return of sacrifices. The difficulty vanishes when we remember two things. These sacrifices belong to an earthly people and an earthly temple, and they will be commemorative in character... in the millennium they will look back to that one sacrifice for sin, offered on the cross. Those under the law of Moses looked forward to it.
Another writer answers the urge to explain such verses away:
If this is not according to our thoughts, we must always be ready to correct our thoughts by Scripture. The millennial state has not the perfection of the eternal condition... nothing confuses our thinking faster than judging what suits one age by the patterns of another.
This promise is not about church life. It belongs with a temple standing on earth:
Where a temple is on earth, a priesthood goes with it; and if there is a priesthood, it is hard to see the use of it without sacrifices. With us spiritual priesthood and spiritual sacrifices go together. (Compare Heb. 10 – 13; and 1 Peter 2:5.)
- Unfulfilled — the promise names both Israel and Judah. The small return from Babylon does not meet it. It still waits.
- Paired — verse 17 guarantees the throne, verse 18 the altar. Messiah brings back rule and worship together.
- Personal — the line never fails. The risen Man holds kingship and priesthood in Himself: a priest upon His throne.
- Guaranteed — God stakes it on His covenant of day and night. Centuries without king, sacrifice or ephod have not cancelled it.
- Commemorative — the offerings come back as a memorial that looks back to the cross, for an earthly people. Our own priesthood and sacrifices are spiritual.