2 Samuel 7:15

But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15) As I took it from Saul.—He and his house were utterly and permanently set aside; David’s descendants will be punished for their sins, yet shall never be forgotten, and shall, ultimately issue in one who shall conquer sin and death for ever.

Benson Commentary

2 Samuel 7:15-16. My mercy shall not depart from him — Or, my kindness, as the Hebrew word חסדי, chasdi, rather means. That is, the kingdom which I have mercifully and kindly promised to thee and thine. As I took it from Saul — In regard of his posterity, for the kingdom was continued to Saul himself during his life. Thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee — Thine eyes, in some sort, beholding it; for he lived to see his wise son Solomon actually placed on the throne with reputation and general applause, which was in itself a good presage of the continuance of the kingdom in his family; and, when considered in connection with God’s infallible promises made to him and his descendants, must have given him assurance thereof. David, however, had his eyes and thoughts on the Messiah, Psalm 110:1; whose day he saw by faith, as Abraham had done; whom he knew God would raise up of the fruit of his loins to sit on his throne, Acts 2:30, and the eternity of whose kingdom might well be said to be before him. Thy throne shall be established for ever — The kingdom shall be continued for a long time, even for many ages, in thy family, and in the Messiah, who is to be thy seed, to all eternity. Thus the angel, applying this promise to Jesus, says to Mary, The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of HIS FATHER DAVID. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob FOR EVER, and of HIS KINGDOM there shall be NO END.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:4-17 Blessings are promised to the family and posterity of David. These promises relate to Solomon, David's immediate successor, and the royal line of Judah. But they also relate to Christ, who is often called David and the Son of David. To him God gave all power in heaven and earth, with authority to execute judgment. He was to build the gospel temple, a house for God's name; the spiritual temple of true believers, to be a habitation of God through the Spirit. The establishing of his house, his throne, and his kingdom for ever, can be applied to no other than to Christ and his kingdom: David's house and kingdom long since came to an end. The committing iniquity cannot be applied to the Messiah himself, but to his spiritual seed; true believers have infirmities, for which they must expect to be corrected, though they are not cast off.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

My mercy shall not depart ... - Hence, Isaiah's saying, the sure mercies of David Isaiah 55:3, i. e. unfailing, lasting mercies: mercies which are like streams of water that never dry up Isaiah 33:16; Jeremiah 15:18. This is explained in 2 Samuel 7:16, where the word established is the same word as is rendered sure in Isaiah.

Before thee - Before Me is probably the true reading in 2 Samuel 7:15-16 (if the rest of the text be sound), according to the analogy of Jeremiah 35:19; 1 Samuel 2:30, 1 Samuel 2:35; and many other places; whereas the idea contained in the reading, before thee, is unparalleled. But the reading in 1 Chronicles 17:13 is quite different: "As I took it from him that was before thee," meaning Saul, which gives a very good sense, and suggests that the text here may have been corrupted.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13. He shall build an house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever—This declaration referred, in its primary application, to Solomon, and to the temporal kingdom of David's family. But in a larger and sublimer sense, it was meant of David's Son of another nature (Heb 1:8). [See on [270]1Ch 17:14.]

Matthew Poole's Commentary

My mercy, or my kindness, i. e. the kingdom which l have mercifully an kindly promised to thee and thine.

As I took it from Saul; in regard of his posterity, for the kingdom was continued to his person during life.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But my mercy shall not depart away from him,.... Which is not to be understood of special mercy and grace, though it is true of these with respect to Solomon, and so to all the adopted children of God, see Psalm 89:32; but then this here designs such mercy as may be taken away from another, and as it was from Saul, as it follows:

as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee; and therefore must be understood of his mercy and kindness, in giving him a kingdom, and setting him on the throne; this should not be taken away from him, as it was from Saul, whom God rejected from being king; not him personally, but his posterity; but so the Lord would not do, nor did he, to Solomon, in whose posterity the kingdom of Judah continued to the Babylonish captivity.

Geneva Study Bible

But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. shall not depart, &c.] Lit, shall not be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I took away from before thee. The three verbs belong to the same root. But there is perhaps some error in the text. 1 Chronicles 17:13 reads, “my mercy will I not take away from him, as I took it away from him who was before thee;” and the Sept. here has, “My mercy will I not take away from him, as I took it away from them that I took away from before me.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 15, 16. - Before thee. This does not refer to time, but means "in thy presence," or "before thy face," that is, "as thou hast thyself been witness." There is a strong contrast between the fate of Saul's house and this eternal endurance promised to that of David. The lineage of Saul might have made a new start in Jonathan, and even when he died at Gilboa, he left a son behind him. Still, no one ever locked upon Mephibosheth as having any title to the throne; and though Shimei (2 Samuel 16:5) may have conceived the hope that, if David were overthrown, the kingdom might return to Saul's family, yet, as a matter of fact, among the many vicissitudes of the ten tribes, the attempt never was made to search for a descendant of Saul to be Israel's king. Saul's was a royalty for one generation; David's throne was to be established forever. Not because David was sinless. His character is sullied by crimes of the darkest hue. But he never sank into a mere tyrant, such as Saul was towards David and towards the priests at Nob. Nor did David ever become an irreligious man (1 Samuel 22:18, 19; 1 Samuel 28:15), though there is in him a strange and painful mixture of great good and great evil. The salt that preserves his character is his genuine sincerity and earnestness both towards God and man; and these qualities make him not unworthy of the high place he holds among God s people. Still, the premise was not because of David's deserts, but because from him was to come the Christ, who is blessed. forevermore. 2 Samuel 7:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me; so that if he go astray, I shall chastise him with rods of men, and with strokes of the children of men (i.e., not 'with moderate punishment, such as parents are accustomed to inflict,' as Clericus explains it, but with such punishments as are inflicted upon all men who go astray, and from which even the seed of David is not to be excepted). But my mercy shall not depart from him, as I caused it to depart from Saul, whom I put away before thee. And thy house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee; thy throne shall be established for ever." It is very obvious, from all the separate details of this promise, that it related primarily to Solomon, and had a certain fulfilment in him and his reign. On the death of David, his son Solomon ascended the throne, and God defended his kingdom against the machinations of Adonijah (1 Kings 2:12); so that Solomon was able to say, "The Lord hath fulfilled His word that He spoke; for I have risen up in the stead of my father David," etc. (1 Kings 8:20). Solomon built the temple, as the Lord said to David (1 Kings 6:1; 1 Kings 8:15.). But in his old age Solomon sinned against the Lord by falling into idolatry; and as a punishment for this, after his death his kingdom was rent from his son, not indeed entirely, as one portion was still preserved to the family for David's sake (1 Kings 11:9.). Thus the Lord punished him with rods of men, but did not withdraw from him His grace. At the same time, however unmistakeable the allusions to Solomon are, the substance of the promise is not fully exhausted in him. The threefold repetition of the expression "for ever," the establishment of the kingdom and throne of David for ever, points incontrovertibly beyond the time of Solomon, and to the eternal continuance of the seed of David. The word seed denotes the posterity of a person, which may consist either in one son or in several children, or in a long line of successive generations. The idea of a number of persons living at the same time, is here precluded by the context of the promise, as only one of David's successors could sit upon the throne at a time. On the other hand, the idea of a number of descendants following one another, is evidently contained in the promise, that God would not withdraw His favour from the seed, even if it went astray, as He had done from Saul, since this implies that even in that case the throne should be transmitted from father to son. There is still more, however, involved in the expression "for ever." When the promise was given that the throne of the kingdom of David should continue "to eternity," an eternal duration was also promised to the seed that should occupy this throne, just as in 2 Samuel 7:16 the house and kingdom of David are spoken of as existing for ever, side by side. We must not reduce the idea of eternity to the popular notion of a long incalculable period, but must take it in an absolute sense, as the promise is evidently understood in Psalm 89:30 : "I set his seed for ever, and this throne as the days of heaven." No earthly kingdom, and no posterity of any single man, has eternal duration like the heaven and the earth; but the different families of men become extinct, as the different earthly kingdoms perish, and other families and kingdoms take their place. The posterity of David, therefore, could only last for ever by running out in a person who lives for ever, i.e., by culminating in the Messiah, who lives for ever, and of whose kingdom there is no end. The promise consequently refers to the posterity of David, commencing with Solomon and closing with Christ: so that by the "seed" we are not to understand Solomon alone, with the kings who succeeded him, nor Christ alone, to the exclusion of Solomon and the earthly kings of the family of David; nor is the allusion to Solomon and Christ to be regarded as a double allusion to two different objects.

But if this is established, - namely, that the promise given to the seed of David that his kingdom should endure for ever only attained its ultimate fulfilment in Christ, - we must not restrict the building of the house of God to the erection of Solomon's temple. "The building of the house of the Lord goes hand in hand with the eternity of the kingdom" (Hengstenberg). As the kingdom endures for ever, so the house built for the dwelling-place of the Lord must also endure for ever, as Solomon said at the dedication of the temple (1 Kings 8:13): "I have surely built Thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for Thee to abide in for ever." The everlasting continuance of Solomon's temple must not be reduced, however, to the simple fact, that even if the temple of Solomon should be destroyed, a new building would be erected in its place by the earthly descendants of Solomon, although this is also implied in the words, and the temple of Zerubbabel is included as the restoration of that of Solomon. For it is not merely in its earthly form, as a building of wood and stone, that the temple is referred to, but also and chiefly in its essential characteristic, as the place of the manifestation and presence of God in the midst of His people. The earthly form is perishable, the essence eternal. This essence was the dwelling of God in the midst of His people, which did not cease with the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem, but culminated in the appearance of Jesus Christ, in whom Jehovah came to His people, and, as God the Word, made human nature His dwelling-place (ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν, John 1:14) in the glory of the only-begotten Son of the Father; so that Christ could say to the Jews, "Destroy this temple (i.e., the temple of His body), and in three days I will build it up again" (John 2:19). It is with this building up of the temple destroyed by the Jews, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, that the complete and essential fulfilment of our promise begins. It is perpetuated with the Christian church in the indwelling of the Father and Son through the Holy Ghost in the hearts of believers (John 14:23; 1 Corinthians 6:19), by which the church of Jesus Christ is built up a spiritual house of God, composed of living stones (1 Timothy 3:15; 1 Peter 2:5; compare 2 Corinthians 6:16; Hebrews 3:6); and it will be perfected in the completion of the kingdom of God at the end of time in the new Jerusalem, which shall come down upon the new earth out of heaven from God, as the true tabernacle of God with men (Revelation 21:1-3).

As the building of the house of God receives its fulfilment first of all through Christ, so the promise, "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son," is first fully realized in Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of the heavenly Father (vid., Hebrews 1:5). In the Old Testament the relation between father and son denotes the deepest intimacy of love; and love is perfected in unity of nature, in the communication to the son of all that the father hath. The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand (John 3:35). Sonship therefore includes the government of the world. This not only applied to Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, but also to the seed of David generally, so far as they truly attained to the relation of children of God. So long as Solomon walked in the ways of the Lord, he ruled over all the kingdoms from the river (Euphrates) to the border of Egypt (1 Kings 5:1); but when his heart turned away from the Lord in his old age, adversaries rose up against him (1 Kings 11:14., 1 Kings 11:23.), and after his death the greater part of the kingdom was rent from his son. The seed of David was chastised for its sins; and as its apostasy continued, it was humbled yet more and more, until the earthly throne of David became extinct. Nevertheless the Lord did not cause His mercy to depart from him. When the house of David had fallen into decay, Jesus Christ was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, to raise up the throne of His father David again, and to reign for ever as King over the house of Jacob (Luke 1:32-33), and to establish the house and kingdom of David for ever. - In 2 Samuel 7:16, where the promise returns to David again with the words, "thy house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever," the expression לפניך (before thee), which the lxx and Syriac have arbitrarily changed into לפני (before me), should be particularly observed. David, as the tribe-father and founder of the line of kings, is regarded either "as seeing all his descendants pass before him in a vision," as O. v. Gerlach supposes, or as continuing to exist in his descendants.