Covenant and God's Purpose for the World by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL067000/REL006000/REL006160
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2017-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

5

The Covenant with David

Adam and Eve were called as priest-kings and as those made in the image of God to rule the world as God’s vice-regents. They were to do so under God’s lordship, but they rebelled against God and brought misery and death instead. God promised to reclaim the world through a child of Abraham. Through Abraham’s offspring there would be worldwide blessing, and God would rule in the land of Canaan. When we come to the covenant with David, Israel was living under the Sinai covenant and hoping in the promises made to Abraham. King David and his sons would represent Israel, and the nation would be blessed through their obedience to Yahweh and their reign over the people. Their righteous rule would display to the world what it meant to live in the land under Yahweh. Hence, the covenant with David would bring about the promised blessings anticipated in the creation covenant, and the blessings promised in the covenants with Israel and Abraham would be realized. We are getting ahead of the story, however, so we need to back up and set the scene.

Inauguration of the Covenant

The covenant with David is established in 2 Samuel 7. Saul was appointed as the first king of Israel, but Saul was rejected as king because of his failure to trust in and obey the Lord. Two incidents in particular stand out. When Saul was commissioned by Samuel to annihilate the Amalekites, he failed to carry out all that the Lord commanded, saving the best of the animals and sparing Agag as king (1 Samuel 15). Second, on the eve of his fateful battle with the Philistines, Saul consulted with a necromancer to try to discern the future (1 Samuel 28). No one can represent Yahweh if he refuses to obey him! David, on the other hand, after being anointed by Samuel as king (1 Samuel 16), stands out for his trust in and obedience to the Lord. The remainder of the narrative in 1 Samuel demonstrates his confidence in God, whether he fought Goliath or the Philistines or fled from Saul.

The words of Hannah’s song are the theme of David’s life (1 Sam. 2:1–10). The Lord exalted the humble David and humiliated proud Saul; “he brings down . . . and raises up” (1 Sam. 2:6). Yahweh “[gives] strength to his king and [exalts] the horn of his anointed” (1 Sam. 2:10). We see the same theme in the song at the close of 2 Samuel (chap. 22). The songs of Hannah and David constitute the framework of 1–2 Samuel, which are really one book. David praised the Lord because he “delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul” (2 Sam. 22:1). The Lord delivered David because he “kept the ways of the Lord and [had] not wickedly departed from my God” (2 Sam. 22:22).

The context and establishment of the covenant with David is set forth in 2 Samuel 7 and 1 Chronicles 17.

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