The Promises Made to David in the Davidic Covenant

King David and the Covenant The covenant that God makes with David, also known as the Davidic Covenant, contains a series of promises to David and Israel, the most important being that the Messiah (of the New Testament) will come through the House of David. This is the promise of a Redeemer that the Jews were to look forward to and recognize by the signs, as given through the various prophets, such as Isaiah.

God promises that the Messiah will establish a kingdom that will have no end, thus making a connection between the rule of David who is after God's own heart to the reign of Christ the King who will rule over men's hearts. God also describes how Solomon will come and build a House for the Lord while simultaneously conveying a deeper message about the Son of God: "I will be his Father, and he shall be My son," says God to Nathan, who receives this message for David (2 Sam 7:14).

The covenant takes place in Jerusalem, where David wishes to build a temple for the ark. When God says that David's son will be King, he is making a two-fold reference, to both Solomon and to Christ. The dwelling place of the Holy of Holies is to be both the tabernacle of the church of Christ, where Christ becomes bread and wine, and the temple that Solomon builds, which prefigures the Christian temple.

David's house has a spiritual significance that is matched in the physical by the temple that houses the ark. David's house is Christ's kingdom, a spiritual kingdom. Essentially and most importantly, however, the covenant is about the Messiah, though it addresses other key points as well, and it is unconditional in the sense that it is a display of God's faithfulness and does not depend upon any action of His people. The Messiah will come because He has been promised and only He can redeem the people.

Some of the key points of the covenant as received by Nathan the prophet are that God wants to reaffirm that He has a special place in mind for His people, which He stated originally in the Abraham and Moses covenants, when He says, "I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed" (2 Sam 7:10).

Another key point is that God assures Nathan that David will have a son who rules after him who will build the temple: "I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name" (2 Sam 7:12-13).

This key point transitions into a third, and most important key point, namely that the House of David will live forever because through it will come the Messiah, (2 Sam 7:13-14) who is called the Son of David in Matthew 21:9. David was not a direct, bloodline descendent of the kings -- but, rather, a spiritual descendent of Abraham, and in this sense he is a good prefiguring of Christ, who is a spiritual father to all (Johnson).

And as Fulton Sheen notes, it is in this manner that Christ represents David, who was an obscure shepherd who rose to be King: Sheen observes that Joseph, the foster-father of Christ, was the "obscure descendant of the great King David" (15), so the literal connection between Christ and David is more importantly expressed in terms of humble origins and spiritual purity.

This connection is equally important in laying the foundation for the signs for the Messiah's coming because while the temple that Solomon builds is grand and magnificent, the Son of God is a Galilean -- an outsider according to the Jews. Yet Solomon himself is also a kind of outsider, the son of David and Bathsheba who was married to a Hittite.

God appears to be indicating through these historical trends that He is merciful to outsiders and prefers them in a way when His favored people turn away from the path of righteousness. Walter Kaiser observes that the Old Testament uses the Hebrew word for "Messiah" thirty-nine times in various instances, though the term is not found in the Davidic covenant, only implied and made implicit in connection with other revelations.

In the Greek translation of the Septuagint, the "messiah" term appears as "Kristos," from which the words Christ and Christian are derived (Kaiser 15). While the literal translation of the word is "anointed," its deeper meaning is evident in the significance that the term takes upon David's being "anointed" because, unlike Saul, David was a "man after [the Lord's] own heart" (1 Sam 13:14). David's anointing is also a prefiguring of Christ's anointing.

This Messianic image had developed over time, first as part of the many covenants made between God and his people (the Adamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, and so on) in which appears the theme of redemption/salvation. The prophecy of Nathan in 2 Samuel 7 helped to further deepen the implication of the term "Messiah," as it told of a kingdom in the lineage of David that would last forever.

The Psalms of David also reflect this relationship between God and the "anointed one," speaking as they do of a "covenant" with God's "chosen one" who would be the Lord's servant (Ps 89:3-5, 132:10). David's Psalms are like poems/commemorations of his history with the Lord and his intimate connection with God, which is rooted in David's devout nature and spiritual humility. David represents or prefigures Christ, Who is the new Adam and Adam is in a sense every man. Therefore this connection can be drawn.

But as McKenzie states, there is more to David's appeal than just this: the Old Testament contains several books "devoted to David," (McKenzie 26). Just as the Psalm begins with the theme of shelter, the Biblical story of David begins with the Book of Samuel, with David becoming the anointed one, the new shelter for the spirit or heart of God in man. In 1 Samuel 15, God shows his displeasure with King Saul and tells Samuel the prophet that He has rejected Saul as the king over Israel.

Where the covenant takes place is also important.