He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever.
The promise was given as God's answer when David, dwelling in a magnificent palace of cedar and seeing the costly dwellings around him, contrasted his own living with the ark that symbolized the mighty God, Maker of heaven and earth, still resting in the curtained tabernacle where the Shekinah dwelt between the cherubim. Feeling remorse that he lived so well while God was so poorly housed, he desired a more honorable place for the worship of God. He made his purpose to build a temple for the Lord to dwell in known to Nathan the prophet, who encouraged him to carry it out. David himself, however, was not to build the house, because he had shed blood and fought many wars, and God had a special other work for him to perform. By divine appointment God selected David's son Solomon, whose name means peaceable, to accomplish the great work of building a house for God's name in Jerusalem.
Solomon built the house, fulfilling the promise, while David made extensive preparations for it according to a pattern and directions God gave through an angel. Solomon's plan to build the temple carries that fulfillment forward. Along with the building of the house, God promised to establish the throne of David's kingdom forever and assured His favor toward his descendants and kingdom. That assurance included enduring mercy toward David's son, yet such mercy did not excuse wrongdoing, for God would punish transgression and forgive the repentant.
The promise of an enduring kingdom from David's line points to Jesus as the promised descendant raised up as Christ to sit on David's throne. Peter applies the promise in this way, connecting God's oath that a descendant of David would be raised up as the Christ to Jesus' resurrection from the dead and exaltation. David foresaw this prophetically, that Christ would rise from the dead and ascend to heaven. There He sits at God's right hand as Lord and Christ, which fulfills the promise of the established throne.
The promise was also taken to mean a temporal kingdom in which the Messiah would take David's throne by force as a great earthly king and conqueror. In that expectation He would come with pomp and ceremony, overthrow Roman rule and the Roman yoke, deliver Israel, raise the nation to worldly power, and be acclaimed as the King reigning on David's throne. That earthly expectation came from desire for national glory and confused the prophecies of Christ's second coming in power with those of His first coming in humility. So people stumbled because He came instead in humble walks of life as the son of Joseph and Mary. The refusal of David's own plan to build shows that God may refuse even a sincere, well-meant human plan when His purposes are better served otherwise, for David would not carry out that plan though his son would build the house and his kingdom's throne would be established forever.
The promise was given as God's answer when David, dwelling in a magnificent palace of cedar and seeing the costly dwellings around him, contrasted his own living with the ark that symbolized the mighty God, Maker of heaven and earth, still resting in the curtained tabernacle where the Shekinah dwelt between the cherubim. Feeling remorse that he lived so well while God was so poorly housed, he desired a more honorable place for the worship of God. He made his purpose to build a temple for the Lord to dwell in known to Nathan the prophet, who encouraged him to carry it out. David himself, however, was not to build the house, because he had shed blood and fought many wars, and God had a special other work for him to perform. By divine appointment God selected David's son Solomon, whose name means peaceable, to accomplish the great work of building a house for God's name in Jerusalem.
Solomon built the house, fulfilling the promise, while David made extensive preparations for it according to a pattern and directions God gave through an angel. Solomon's plan to build the temple carries that fulfillment forward. Along with the building of the house, God promised to establish the throne of David's kingdom forever and assured His favor toward his descendants and kingdom. That assurance included enduring mercy toward David's son, yet such mercy did not excuse wrongdoing, for God would punish transgression and forgive the repentant.
The promise of an enduring kingdom from David's line points to Jesus as the promised descendant raised up as Christ to sit on David's throne. Peter applies the promise in this way, connecting God's oath that a descendant of David would be raised up as the Christ to Jesus' resurrection from the dead and exaltation. David foresaw this prophetically, that Christ would rise from the dead and ascend to heaven. There He sits at God's right hand as Lord and Christ, which fulfills the promise of the established throne.
The promise was also taken to mean a temporal kingdom in which the Messiah would take David's throne by force as a great earthly king and conqueror. In that expectation He would come with pomp and ceremony, overthrow Roman rule and the Roman yoke, deliver Israel, raise the nation to worldly power, and be acclaimed as the King reigning on David's throne. That earthly expectation came from desire for national glory and confused the prophecies of Christ's second coming in power with those of His first coming in humility. So people stumbled because He came instead in humble walks of life as the son of Joseph and Mary. The refusal of David's own plan to build shows that God may refuse even a sincere, well-meant human plan when His purposes are better served otherwise, for David would not carry out that plan though his son would build the house and his kingdom's throne would be established forever.