All kings have their ministers and officers by whom they exercise their government, and God had His. But He Himself was King. And hence, when the people desired to have a king like the nations round about them, God said to Samuel, “They have not rejected thee” —he was but a minister, a subordinate ruler— “but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.” And yet He acceded to their wishes. First, He let them have a king after their own choice, a great man after the flesh, “higher than any of the people from his shoulders and upwards” (1 Sam. 10:23, 2423And they ran and fetched him thence: and when he stood among the people, he was higher than any of the people from his shoulders and upward. 24And Samuel said to all the people, See ye him whom the Lord hath chosen, that there is none like him among all the people? And all the people shouted, and said, God save the king. (1 Samuel 10:23‑24)). Of him God says, “I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath” (Hos. 13:1111I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath. (Hosea 13:11)). His reign terminated in death and disaster, and defeat both to himself and to the nation. Such is ever the fruit to self-willed man of his own perverse ways; and to teach Israel this lesson their first king was given them. But God had a deeper purpose in permitting them to have a king. In His eternal counsels He had determined that all things should be subjected to the sway of Christ, the faithful and unfailing heir of all those dignities and glories committed for a while to one and to another, but forfeited by all through unfaithfulness and sin. Just as Christ is to inherit in the millennial earth the lost and forfeited dominion of the first Adam over all this lower creation, so it is the purpose of God that He should inherit the throne of Israel. As the first unfolding of this purpose, we find that when Saul by disobedience had forfeited the kingdom, God sent Samuel to anoint one to be his successor, who was a man after God's own heart.
He had not the attractions which were possessed by Saul; even the prophet supposed that his elder brother had been the one to whom he was sent. But David was the man of God's choice. Although rejected for a time and driven out by the willful one who actually occupied the throne, he was kept from avenging his own quarrel or lifting his hand against Jehovah's anointed; and in due time, when Saul and his family were set aside, he was exalted by the hand of God Himself to the throne of Israel. One need not say how in all this David was the type of a greater than himself, rejected for a while, and meekly submitting to be so, but in the end receiving from the Ancient of days a kingdom and dominion and greatness under the whole heaven, so that all peoples, nations and languages, are to serve Him. Still less need I remark, that this inheritor of a greater glory than David's was David's Son according to the flesh. David had many sons, and a long line of descendants. But there is one called David's Son, in distinction from all the rest, He who is “the root” as well as “the offspring of David, the bright and morning star.” God's eye was upon Him when He made choice of David to sit upon the throne of Israel. And the covenant God made with David can only be understood in the light of this fact. It was when David had built Jerusalem, the place which Jehovah had chosen to put His name there, and had brought up the ark of Jehovah to Jerusalem; then when he had it in his heart to build a house for Jehovah, the prophet was sent to forbid this, but at the same time to assure David of the faithful mercies of his God.
Not to him only were these mercies pledged, but to his seed after him. “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 a house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom forever. 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 from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. And thy house and thy kingdom shall be established forever” (2 Sam. 7:12-1612And 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. 13He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever. 14I 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: 15But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. 16And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever. (2 Samuel 7:12‑16)). There are evidently two things contemplated in this prophecy: the mere natural seed of David, Solomon and his successors on the throne; and also that blessed One, Who, besides being the seed of David, is God over all blessed forever. If the mere natural seed of David, Solomon and others, were not regarded here, there could have been nothing said of their committing iniquity and being visited with stripes. And if David's seed had not included the Messiah, David's Lord, there could not have been this unqualified promise that His house, His throne, His kingdom, “should be established forever.” Solomon was doubtless regarded, and that very prominently, in this prediction. He was the immediate successor of his father, and he did build a house for Jehovah in Jerusalem. Under his reign Israel for a little season enjoyed the extent of the dominion secured to them in the covenant with Abraham. Compare Gen. 15:18-2118In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: 19The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, 20And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, 21And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites. (Genesis 15:18‑21) with 2 Chron. 9:26.
In his reign Israel attained a pitch of glory, as well as an extent of dominion, unknown in any other period of the history. Read the whole of 1 Kings 10 and 2 Chron. 9; and if you compare these with Isa. 60, which is a prediction of the future reign of Christ, you will not wonder that the one is so interwoven with the other, the type with antitype, both in the passage we are considering, which is God's covenant with David, and in the seventy-second Psalm, which is such a magnificent prophecy of millennial times, as typified by the peaceful reign of Solomon. But Solomon committed iniquity, and he and his successors were chastened with the rod of men. And even before Solomon succeeded to the throne, the failure and disorders of David's house were such that he was quite sensible that there was to be no immediate fulfillment of the highest promises made to his seed.
The last words of David show again clearly enough that he looked forward to a greater than Solomon, to One Whose coming (after the manner therein described) is even yet future. “David, the son of Jesse, said; and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet Psalmist of Israel, said, The Spirit of Jehovah spake by me, and his word was on my tongue. The God of Israel said, The Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God; and he shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. Although my house be not so with God” (here is the distinct confession that there was no present fitness in his house for the introduction of blessing like this; that He of whom the Rock of Israel spoke had yet to be looked for in the distance. But His coming was no less sure because it was not immediate), “yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure. For this is all my salvation and all my desire, although he make it not to grow. But the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands. But the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron, and the staff of a spear; and they shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place.” How evident that the dying monarch and Psalmist of Israel here looks forward to the day in which “the Son of man shall send forth His angels to gather out of His kingdom all things which offend and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”
It is only thus that we can understand such a psalm as the eighty-ninth. There we have the faithfulness of Jehovah pledged to David and his house. “My faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him; and in my name shall his horn be exalted... Also I will make him my first-born, higher than the kings of the earth.. Once have I sworn by my holiness, that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be established forever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven.” Such are Jehovah's words.
But immediately after we have a strain of affecting lamentation... “But thou hast cast off and abhorred, thou hast been wroth with thine anointed. Thou hast made void the covenant of thy servant; thou hast profaned his crown, by casting it to the ground. Thou hast broken down all his hedges; thou hast brought his strong holds to ruin. All that pass by the way spoil him; he is a reproach to his neighbors. Thou hast set up the right hand of his adversaries; thou hast made all his enemies to rejoice. Thou hast also turned the edge of his sword, and hast not made him to stand in the battle. Thou hast made his glory to cease, and cast his throne down to the ground. The days of his youth hast thou shortened: thou hast covered him with shame.” Nor is this a mere passing stroke of the rod immediately followed by the sunshine of God's favor. It is of such continuance that the prophet asks, “How long, Jehovah? Wilt thou hide thyself forever? Shall thy wrath burn like fire?” Yea, so long delayed is the fulfillment of this covenant of mercy with David's seed, that the Psalmist goes on, “Lord, where are thy former loving-kindnesses, which thou swearest unto David in thy truth? Remember, Lord, the reproach of thy servants; how I do bear in my bosom [the reproach of] all the mighty peoples; wherewith thine enemies have reproached, O Jehovah; wherewith they have reproached the footsteps of thine anointed.”
How this reminds one of the scoffers of the last days, saying (in 2 Pet. iii. 4), “Where is the promise of His coming?” And how the context of this latter passage lets us into the blessed secret of the delay, which is such a trial of faith to the poor persecuted remnant, whose cry we hear in the psalm from which we have so largely quoted! Blessed God, Thy long-suffering, Thine unwillingness that any should perish, is what affords occasion to the enemies to reproach, while waters of a full cup are wrung out to those who wait for Thee. But Thou shalt appear to the joy of these; and all Thine enemies shall be ashamed.
(To be continued, D.V.) (continued from p. 350).