2Sa 7:16 | KD | STEP | After thus declining his proposal, the Lord made known His gracious purpose to David: “Thus saith Jehovah of hosts” (not only Jehovah , as in , but J ehovah Sebaoth , because He manifests himself in the following revelation as the God of the universe): “I have taken thee from the pasturage (grass-plat), behind the flock, to be prince over my people Israel; and was with thee whithersoever thou wentest, and exterminated all thine enemies before thee, and so made thee, ועשׂיתי (perfect with vav consec.), a great name, ... and created a place for my people Israel, and planted them, so that they dwell in their place, and do not tremble any more (before their oppressors); and the sons of wickedness do not oppress them any further, as at the beginning, and from the day when I appointed judges over my people Israel: and I create thee rest from all thine enemies. And Jehovah proclaims to thee, that Jehovah will make thee a house.” The words ישׂ עמּי ... היּום למן are to be joined to בּראשׁונה, “as in the beginning,” i.e., in Egypt, and from the time of the judges; that is to say, during the rule of the judges, when the surrounding nations constantly oppressed and subjugated Israel. The plan usually adopted, of connecting the words with והניחתי, does not yield any suitable thought at all, as God had not given David rest from the very beginning of the times of the judges; but the period of the judges was long antecedent to the time of David, and was not a period of rest for the Israelites. Again, והניחתי does not resume what is stated in , and is not to be rendered as a preterite in the sense of “I have procured thee rest,” but as a perfect with vav consec. , “and I procure thee rest” from what is now about to come to pass. And והגּיד is to be taken in the same way: the Lord shows thee, first of all through His promise (which follows), and then through the fact itself, the realization of His word. והניחתי refers to the future, as well as the building of David’s house, and therefore not to the rest from all his enemies, which God had already secured for David, but to that which He would still further secure for him, that is to say, to the maintenance and establishment of that rest. The commentary upon this is to be found in -24. In the Chronicles ( ) there is a somewhat different turn given to the last clauses: “and I bend down all thine enemies, and make it (the bending-down) known to thee (by the fact), and a house will Jehovah build for thee.” The thought is not essentially changed by this; consequently there is no ground for any emendation of the text, which is not even apparently necessary, unless, like Bertheau, we misinterpret the words, and connect והכנעתּי erroneously with the previous clause. The connection between and has been correctly indicated by Thenius as follows: Thou shalt not build a house for Me; but I, who have from the very beginning glorified myself in thee and my people ( ), will build a house for thee; and thy son shall erect a house for me ( ). This thought is not merely “a play upon words entirely in the spirit of prophecy,” but contains the deep general truth that God must first of all build a man’s house, before the man can build God’s house, and applies it especially to the kingdom of God in Israel. As long as the quiet and full possession of the land of Canaan, which had been promised by the Lord to the people of God for their inheritance, was disputed by their enemies round about, even the dwelling-place of their God could not assume any other form than that of a wanderer’s tent. The kingdom of God in Israel first acquired its rest and consolation through the efforts of David, when God had made all his foes subject to him and established his throne firmly, i.e., had assured to his descendants the possession of the kingdom for all future time. And it was this which ushered in the time for the building of a stationary house as a dwelling for the name of the Lord, i.e., for the visible manifestation of the presence of God in the midst of His people. The conquest of the citadel of Zion and the elevation of this fortress into the palace of the king, whom the Lord had given to His people, formed the commencement of the establishment of the kingdom of God. But this commencement received its first pledge of perpetuity from the divine assurance that the throne of David should be established for all future time. And this the Lord was about to accomplish: He would build David a house, and then his seed should build the house of the Lord. No definite reason is assigned why David himself was not to build the temple. We learn this first of all from David’s last words ( ), in which he says to the assembled heads of the nation, “God said to me, Thou shalt not build a house for my name, because thou art a man of wars, and hast shed blood.” Compare with this the similar words of David to Solomon in , and Solomon’s statement in his message to Hiram, that David had been prevented from building the temple in consequence of his many wars. It was probably not till afterwards that David was informed by Nathan what the true reason was. As Hengstenberg has correctly observed, the fact that David was not permitted to build the temple on account of his own personal unworthiness, did not involve any blame for what he had done; for David stood in a closer relation to the Lord than Solomon did, and the wars which he waged were wars of the Lord ( ) for the maintenance and defence of the kingdom of God. But inasmuch as these wars were necessary and inevitable, they were practical proofs that David’s kingdom and government were not yet established, and therefore that the time for the building of the temple had not yet come, and the rest of peace was not yet secured. The temple, as the symbolical representation of the kingdom of God, as also to correspond to the nature of that kingdom, and shadow forth the peace of the kingdom of God. For this reason, David, the man of war, was not to build the temple; but that was to be reserved for Solomon, the man of peace, the type of the Prince of Peace ( ).

‏ 2 Samuel 7:16

After thus declining his proposal, the Lord made known His gracious purpose to David: “Thus saith Jehovah of hosts” (not only Jehovah, as in 2Sa 7:5, but Jehovah Sebaoth, because He manifests himself in the following revelation as the God of the universe): “I have taken thee from the pasturage (grass-plat), behind the flock, to be prince over my people Israel; and was with thee whithersoever thou wentest, and exterminated all thine enemies before thee, and so made thee, ועשׂיתי (perfect with vav consec.), a great name, ... and created a place for my people Israel, and planted them, so that they dwell in their place, and do not tremble any more (before their oppressors); and the sons of wickedness do not oppress them any further, as at the beginning, and from the day when I appointed judges over my people Israel: and I create thee rest from all thine enemies. And Jehovah proclaims to thee, that Jehovah will make thee a house.” The words ישׂ עמּי ... היּום למן are to be joined to בּראשׁונה, “as in the beginning,” i.e., in Egypt, and from the time of the judges; that is to say, during the rule of the judges, when the surrounding nations constantly oppressed and subjugated Israel. The plan usually adopted, of connecting the words with והניחתי, does not yield any suitable thought at all, as God had not given David rest from the very beginning of the times of the judges; but the period of the judges was long antecedent to the time of David, and was not a period of rest for the Israelites. Again, והניחתי does not resume what is stated in 2Sa 7:9, and is not to be rendered as a preterite in the sense of “I have procured thee rest,” but as a perfect with vav consec., “and I procure thee rest” from what is now about to come to pass. And והגּיד is to be taken in the same way: the Lord shows thee, first of all through His promise (which follows), and then through the fact itself, the realization of His word. והניחתי refers to the future, as well as the building of David’s house, and therefore not to the rest from all his enemies, which God had already secured for David, but to that which He would still further secure for him, that is to say, to the maintenance and establishment of that rest. The commentary upon this is to be found in Psa 89:22-24. In the Chronicles (1Ch 17:10) there is a somewhat different turn given to the last clauses: “and I bend down all thine enemies, and make it (the bending-down) known to thee (by the fact), and a house will Jehovah build for thee.” The thought is not essentially changed by this; consequently there is no ground for any emendation of the text, which is not even apparently necessary, unless, like Bertheau, we misinterpret the words, and connect והכנעתּי erroneously with the previous clause. 2Sa 7:8-11

The connection between 2Sa 7:5-7 and 2Sa 7:8-16 has been correctly indicated by Thenius as follows: Thou shalt not build a house for Me; but I, who have from the very beginning glorified myself in thee and my people (2Sa 7:8-11), will build a house for thee; and thy son shall erect a house for me (2Sa 7:13). This thought is not merely “a play upon words entirely in the spirit of prophecy,” but contains the deep general truth that God must first of all build a man’s house, before the man can build God’s house, and applies it especially to the kingdom of God in Israel. As long as the quiet and full possession of the land of Canaan, which had been promised by the Lord to the people of God for their inheritance, was disputed by their enemies round about, even the dwelling-place of their God could not assume any other form than that of a wanderer’s tent. The kingdom of God in Israel first acquired its rest and consolation through the efforts of David, when God had made all his foes subject to him and established his throne firmly, i.e., had assured to his descendants the possession of the kingdom for all future time. And it was this which ushered in the time for the building of a stationary house as a dwelling for the name of the Lord, i.e., for the visible manifestation of the presence of God in the midst of His people. The conquest of the citadel of Zion and the elevation of this fortress into the palace of the king, whom the Lord had given to His people, formed the commencement of the establishment of the kingdom of God. But this commencement received its first pledge of perpetuity from the divine assurance that the throne of David should be established for all future time. And this the Lord was about to accomplish: He would build David a house, and then his seed should build the house of the Lord. No definite reason is assigned why David himself was not to build the temple. We learn this first of all from David’s last words (1Ch 28:3), in which he says to the assembled heads of the nation, “God said to me, Thou shalt not build a house for my name, because thou art a man of wars, and hast shed blood.” Compare with this the similar words of David to Solomon in 1Ch 22:8, and Solomon’s statement in his message to Hiram, that David had been prevented from building the temple in consequence of his many wars. It was probably not till afterwards that David was informed by Nathan what the true reason was. As Hengstenberg has correctly observed, the fact that David was not permitted to build the temple on account of his own personal unworthiness, did not involve any blame for what he had done; for David stood in a closer relation to the Lord than Solomon did, and the wars which he waged were wars of the Lord (1Sa 25:28) for the maintenance and defence of the kingdom of God. But inasmuch as these wars were necessary and inevitable, they were practical proofs that David’s kingdom and government were not yet established, and therefore that the time for the building of the temple had not yet come, and the rest of peace was not yet secured. The temple, as the symbolical representation of the kingdom of God, as also to correspond to the nature of that kingdom, and shadow forth the peace of the kingdom of God. For this reason, David, the man of war, was not to build the temple; but that was to be reserved for Solomon, the man of peace, the type of the Prince of Peace (Isa 9:5).