2 Samuel 7:14, commentary and pictures

The verse belongs to God's promise of favor to David, to his descendants, and to Israel's kingdom. The promised son is Solomon, who would build the temple. God would relate to David's promised son as a father relates to a son.

If that son committed iniquity, God would discipline him through human punishment, with the rod of men and with the stripes of the children of men. Yet God's mercy would not depart from the son as it had departed from Saul. Out of pity and compassion for human weakness, God punishes transgression but forgives the sinner who repents.

In its wider context, the promise foretells the Messiah as David's promised heir and speaks of his coming kingdom. The promised royal power and glory were wrongly expected at Christ's first advent as an overthrow of Rome and a temporal kingdom, whereas those prophecies of power and glory refer to His second coming, while His first advent was to be in humility. The verse declares Christ as God's Son, showing a personal Father-Son relationship that distinguishes the Son from the angels. That Father-Son relationship shows them as separate persons, with Christ equal with the Father, inheriting a more excellent name than the angels and having access to all the Father's counsels.

The verse also expresses God's fatherly reception of His people as His sons and daughters. That reception belongs to those who come out from among unbelievers, separate from what is unclean, and belong to God as His people. That reception applies to believers who separate from unbelief and idolatry, whom God will receive as His own.