2 Samuel 7:12-16

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.’”

2 Samuel 7:25-29

7:25 So now, O Lord God, make this promise you have made about your servant and his family a permanent reality. ⁶  Do as you promised, ⁷  7:26 so you may gain lasting fame, ⁸  as people say, ⁹  ‘The Lord of hosts is God over Israel!’ The dynasty ¹⁰  of your servant David will be established before you, 7:27 for you, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have told ¹¹  your servant, ‘I will build you a dynastic house.’ ¹²  That is why your servant has had the courage ¹³  to pray this prayer to you. 7:28 Now, O sovereign Lord, you are the true God! ¹⁴  May your words prove to be true! ¹⁵  You have made this good promise to your servant! ¹⁶  7:29 Now be willing to bless your servant’s dynasty ¹⁷  so that it may stand permanently before you, for you, O sovereign Lord, have spoken. By your blessing may your servant’s dynasty be blessed on into the future!” ¹⁸ 

2 Samuel 7:1

The Lord Establishes a Covenant with David

7:1 The king settled into his palace, ¹⁹  for the Lord gave him relief ²⁰  from all his enemies on all sides. ²¹ 

2 Samuel 17:11-14

17:11 My advice therefore is this: Let all Israel from Dan to Beer Sheba – in number like the sand by the sea! – be mustered to you, and you lead them personally into battle. 17:12 We will come against him wherever he happens to be found. We will descend on him like the dew falls on the ground. Neither he nor any of the men who are with him will be spared alive – not one of them! 17:13 If he regroups in a city, all Israel will take up ropes to that city and drag it down to the valley, so that not a single pebble will be left there!”

17:14 Then Absalom and all the men of Israel said, “The advice of Hushai the Arkite sounds better than the advice of Ahithophel.” Now the Lord had decided ²²  to frustrate the sound advice of Ahithophel, so that the Lord could bring disaster on Absalom.

2 Samuel 17:23-27

17:23 When Ahithophel realized that his advice had not been followed, he saddled his donkey and returned to his house in his hometown. After setting his household in order, he hanged himself. So he died and was buried in the grave ²³  of his father.

17:24 Meanwhile David had gone to Mahanaim, while Absalom and all the men of Israel had crossed the Jordan River. 17:25 Absalom had made Amasa general in command of the army in place of Joab. (Now Amasa was the son of an Israelite man named Jether, who had married ²⁴  Abigail the daughter of Nahash and sister of Zeruiah, Joab’s mother.) 17:26 The army of Israel ²⁵  and Absalom camped in the land of Gilead.

17:27 When David came to Mahanaim, Shobi the son of Nahash from Rabbah of the Ammonites, Makir the son of Ammiel from Lo Debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite from Rogelim

2 Samuel 1:6-7

1:6 The young man who was telling him this ²⁶  said, “I just happened to be on Mount Gilboa and came across Saul leaning on his spear for support. The chariots and leaders of the horsemen were in hot pursuit of him. 1:7 When he turned around and saw me, he called out to me. I answered, ‘Here I am!’

Mazmur 89:35-37

89:35 Once and for all I have vowed by my own holiness,

I will never deceive ²⁷  David.

89:36 His dynasty will last forever. ²⁸ 

His throne will endure before me, like the sun, ²⁹ 

89:37 it will remain stable, like the moon, ³⁰ 

his throne will endure like the skies.” ³¹  (Selah)

Mazmur 132:11-12

132:11 The Lord made a reliable promise to David; ³² 

he will not go back on his word. ³³ 

He said, ³⁴  “I will place one of your descendants ³⁵  on your throne.

132:12 If your sons keep my covenant

and the rules I teach them,

their sons will also sit on your throne forever.”

[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.”

[7:25]  ⁶ tn Heb “and now, O Lord God, the word which you spoke concerning your servant and concerning his house, establish permanently.”

[7:25]  ⁷ tn Heb “as you have spoken.”

[7:26]  ⁸ tn Heb “and your name might be great permanently.” Following the imperative in v. 23b, the prefixed verbal form with vav conjunctive indicates purpose/result.

[7:26]  ⁹ tn Heb “saying.” The words “as people” are supplied in the translation for clarification and stylistic reasons.

[7:26]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the house.” See the note on “dynastic house” in the following verse.

[7:27]  ¹¹ tn Heb “have uncovered the ear of.”

[7:27]  ¹² tn Heb “a house.” This maintains the wordplay from v. 11 (see the note on the word “house” there) and is continued in v. 29.

[7:27]  ¹³ tn Heb “has found his heart.”

[7:28]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the God.” The article indicates uniqueness here.

[7:28]  ¹⁵ tn The translation understands the prefixed verb form as a jussive, indicating David’s wish/prayer. Another option is to take the form as an imperfect and translate “your words are true.”

[7:28]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and you have spoken to your servant this good thing.”

[7:29]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “house” (again later in this verse). See the note on “dynastic house” in v. 27.

[7:29]  ¹⁸ tn Or “permanently”; cf. NLT “it is an eternal blessing.”

[7:1]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “house” (also in the following verse).

[7:1]  ²⁰ tn Or “rest.”

[7:1]  ²¹ tn The translation understands the disjunctive clause in v. 1b as circumstantial-causal.

[17:14]  ²² tn Heb “commanded.”

[17:23]  ²³ tc The Greek recensions of Origen and Lucian have here “house” for “grave.”

[17:25]  ²⁴ tn Heb “come to.”

[17:26]  ²⁵ tn Heb “and Israel.”

[1:6]  ²⁶ tc The Syriac Peshitta and one ms of the LXX lack the words “who was telling him this” of the MT.

[89:35]  ²⁷ tn Or “lie to.”

[89:36]  ²⁸ tn Heb “his offspring forever will be.”

[89:36]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and his throne like the sun before me.”

[89:37]  ³⁰ tn Heb “like the moon it will be established forever.”

[89:37]  ³¹ tn Heb “and a witness in the sky, secure.” Scholars have offered a variety of opinions as to the identity of the “witness” referred to here, none of which is very convincing. It is preferable to join וְעֵד (vÿ’ed) to עוֹלָם (’olam) in the preceding line and translate the commonly attested phrase עוֹלָם וְעֵד (“forever”). In this case one may translate the second line, “[it] will be secure like the skies.” Another option (the one reflected in the present translation) is to take עד as a rare noun meaning “throne” or “dais.” This noun is attested in Ugaritic; see, for example, CTA 16 vi 22-23, where ksi (= כִּסֵּא, kisse’, “throne”) and ’d (= עד, “dais”) appear as synonyms in the poetic parallelism (see G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 91). Emending בַּשַּׁחַק (bashakhaq, “in the heavens”) to כַּשַׁחַק (kashakhaq, “like the heavens”) – bet/kaf (כ/ב) confusion is widely attested – one can then read “[his] throne like the heavens [is] firm/stable.” Verse 29 refers to the enduring nature of the heavens, while Job 37:18 speaks of God spreading out the heavens (שְׁחָקִים, shÿkhaqim) and compares their strength to a bronze mirror. Ps 89:29 uses the term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim, “skies”) which frequently appears in parallelism to שְׁחָקִים.

[132:11]  ³² tn Heb “the Lord swore an oath to David [in] truth.”

[132:11]  ³³ tn Heb “he will not turn back from it.”

[132:11]  ³⁴ tn The words “he said” are supplied in the translation to clarify that what follows are the Lord’s words.

[132:11]  ³⁵ tn Heb “the fruit of your body.”