2 Samuel 7:12-19

7:12 When the time comes for you to die, ¹  I will raise up your descendant, one of your own sons, to succeed you, ²  and I will establish his kingdom. 7:13 He will build a house for my name, and I will make his dynasty permanent. ³  7:14 I will become his father and he will become my son. When he sins, I will correct him with the rod of men and with wounds inflicted by human beings. 7:15 But my loyal love will not be removed from him as I removed it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. 7:16 Your house and your kingdom will stand before me ⁴  permanently; your dynasty ⁵  will be permanent.’” 7:17 Nathan told David all these words that were revealed to him. ⁶ 

David Offers a Prayer to God

7:18 King David went in, sat before the Lord, and said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my family, ⁷  that you should have brought me to this point? 7:19 And you didn’t stop there, O Lord God! You have also spoken about the future of your servant’s family. ⁸  Is this your usual way of dealing with men, ⁹  O Lord God?

Yeremia 23:5

23:5 “I, the Lord, promise ¹⁰  that a new time will certainly come ¹¹ 

when I will raise up for them a righteous branch, ¹²  a descendant of David.

He will rule over them with wisdom and understanding ¹³ 

and will do what is just and right in the land. ¹⁴ 

[7:12]  ¹ tn Heb, “when your days are full and you lie down with your ancestors.”

[7:12]  ² tn Heb “your seed after you who comes out from your insides.”

[7:13]  ³ tn Heb “and I will establish the throne of his kingdom permanently.”

[7:16]  ⁴ tc Heb “before you.” A few medieval Hebrew mss read instead “before me,” which makes better sense contextually. (See also the LXX and the Syriac Peshitta.) The MT reading is probably the result of dittography (note the כ [kaf] at the beginning of the next form), with the extra כ then being interpreted as a pronominal suffix.

[7:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “throne.”

[7:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “according to all these words and according to all this revelation, so Nathan said to David.”

[7:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “house.”

[7:19]  ⁸ tn Heb “and this was small in your eyes, O Lord God, so you spoke concerning the house of your servant for a distance.”

[7:19]  ⁹ tn Heb “and this [is] the law of man”; KJV “is this the manner of man, O Lord God?”; NAB “this too you have shown to man”; NRSV “May this be instruction for the people, O Lord God!” This part of the verse is very enigmatic; no completely satisfying solution has yet been suggested. The present translation tries to make sense of the MT by understanding the phrase as a question that underscores the uniqueness of God’s dealings with David as described here. The parallel passage in 1 Chr 17:17 reads differently (see the note there).

[23:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[23:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Behold the days are coming.”

[23:5]  ¹² tn Heb “a righteous sprig to David” or “a righteous shoot” (NAB).

[23:5]  sn This passage and the parallel in Jer 33:15 are part of a growing number of prayers and prophecies regarding an ideal ruler to come forth from the Davidic line who will bring the justice, security, and well-being that the continuing line of Davidic rulers did not. Though there were periodic kings like Josiah who did fulfill the ideals set forth in Jer 22:3 (see Jer 22:15), by and large they were more like Jehoiakim who did not (see Jer 22:13). Hence the Lord brought to an end the Davidic rule. The potential for the ideal, however, remained because of God’s promise to David (2 Sam 7:16). The Davidic line became like a tree which was cut down, leaving only a stump. But from that stump God would bring forth a “shoot,” a “sprig” which would fulfill the ideals of kingship. See Isa 11:1-6 and Zech 3:8, 6:12 for this metaphor and compare Dan 4:14-15, 23, 26 for a different but related use of the metaphor.

[23:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “he will reign as king and act wisely.” This is another example of the use of two verbs joined by “and” where one becomes the adverbial modifier of the other (hendiadys). For the nuance of the verb “act wisely” rather than “prosper” see Amos 5:13; Ps 2:10 (cf. BDB 968 s.v. שָׂכַל Hiph.5).

[23:5]  ¹⁴ sn This has been the constant emphasis in this section. See 22:3 for the demand, 22:15 for its fulfillment, and 22:13 for its abuse. The ideal king would follow in the footsteps of his illustrious ancestor David (2 Sam 8:15) who set this forth as an ideal for his dynasty (2 Sam 23:3) and prayed for it to be true of his son Solomon (Ps 72:1-2).