2 Samuel 7 - The Davidic Covenant

This may be the only single chapter that is going to receive an entire post, but I felt like it needed one. I picked up the page and let the rest of the Bible fall to either side, and I said to my husband, "You have no idea how much depends on this one page.....", and I just kind of played with the page in my hand for a moment and to be honest, it kind of intimidated me.
   I became rather frustrated with this chapter because...well, I guess I figured that if I studied & researched it enough, I would eventually get my "Aha!" moment. Some kind of revelation, some deep and abiding inspiration, as though I had solved one of God's great mysteries.
    I realized eventually that the Davidic Covenant, like all other major points in the Bible, have some specifics that are interpreted differently. What seems to make a huge difference is the way people interpret the words "house", "throne" and "kingdom." What I really wanted to understand from the Davidic Covenant is if God was specifically telling David that the Messiah would come from his lineage, and if He was, if David understood it. If anyone at all reads this, please take my humble interpretation with an entire shaker of salt. I have absolutely no authority whatsoever to try to make sense of something this important. Nonetheless, Lord forgive me, I'm going to try.
    This is how I understand chapter seven----
So David is looking around at his beautiful house and is so very happy and probably thinking about all that God has done for him. He realizes that the Ark of the Covenant has been kept in a tent, and feels badly about that. He tells Nathan, the prophet, "See, now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the Ark of God dwells in a tent."   The Ark of the Covenant, however you choose to understand this, is something like the literal embodiement of God amongst Israel. So David seems to get this vision that he's going to *do something for God.* Something nice. Make a lovely house for God. What's interesting about this to me is that this isn't David responding in obedience to God. None of the hugely faithful servants of God which I've read about thus far have ever come up with an idea of *something to do for God* for no reason other than to make God happy.
   So anyway, God speaks to David through Nathan, and His response is like, "Oh? You're going to make ME a  house? I've been living in a tent all this time, did I ever say anything about requiring a house?" Then God reminds David that He took him from a pasture, and made him a king, and crushed all his enemies, etc, etc.... And then God says this: "Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men:But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever."
    OK, this is the really important part, God's response to David. And here is my understanding... God is first speaking about Solomon, when he talks about David's seed which shall build a house for God's name. Verse 14, where God is saying, "If he commit iniquity", I feel that God is still speaking about Solomon - not Christ yet, because we know that Christ is without sin. So what this is basically telling me is that God is telling David about how Solomon is going to build the temple, and that God will have a close relationship with Solomon. But something else, THE something else, is that God tells David "thine house and thy kingdom" and "thy throne" shall be established forever. What it seems that Christians agree upon is that the reason God says this is because Christ comes from David's line. There is a whole different kind of "kingdom" coming from David than what David understands at this time. It isn't because there will be king after king after king (forever) sitting on a throne in a cedar house in Israel. It's because the King of Kings is coming through David, and His reign, and His kingdom is eternal.  But hey, maybe he did understand. David's response to this seems as though he's beside himself. At one point, he's even lost for words and says, "What more can David say to You?" So, at the end of all this study, I am supposing that how specifically David understood this prophecy may not be for me to fully know. Maybe it isn't that important for me to know. God and David know. What's important for me to know is that God revealed what He revealed of this dialogue between the two of them (er, three of them, if you include Nathan) so that I, and all mankind, could understand that God purposely brought Christ through David's lineage. Sometimes, I imagine, God looks down on me and sees me figuratively running on my hamster wheel, and I bet He's thinking, "Mary, c'mon, it's not that complicated....."

   Here's a picture of the famous "David" statue by Michaelangelo. I added shorts to keep things family friendly, and also because I don't imagine that David was naked when he picked up that stone for his sling. You'd never guess from this picture, but the statue actually weighs over six tons. Two Honda Civics on top of each other weigh less.