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2 Samuel 7 of 24

2 Samuel 7

David proposes to build God a house; God proposes to build David one — and the word that turns on that pun carries the weight of two religions.

Summary

David is in his house of cedar and rests from his enemies round about. He says to Nathan the prophet that he is living in cedar while the ark of God dwells within curtains. Nathan, without consulting God, tells David to do all that is in his heart. But that night the word of the Lord comes to Nathan and tells him to correct his earlier answer. The Lord has not dwelt in a house since the day Israel came out of Egypt, has moved from tent to tent, and has never spoken a word to any of the judges he appointed asking why they had not built him a cedar house. He has taken David from the sheepfold, from following the sheep, to be ruler over his people Israel; has been with him wherever he went; has cut off all his enemies; has made him a great name. He will appoint a place for his people Israel and plant them so they are disturbed no more; neither will the wicked afflict them any more as they have done from the time of the judges.

The oracle turns: God tells David that he will make David a house. When David's days are fulfilled and he sleeps with his fathers, God will set up his seed after him, who will come from David's own bowels, and will establish his kingdom. That son shall build a house for God's name, and God will establish 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 away from him.' David's house, kingdom, and throne will be established forever before God. Nathan tells David all these words. David goes in, sits before the Lord, and prays: who is he, and what is his house, that God has brought him here? And yet, as if this were a small thing, God has also spoken of his servant's house for a great while to come. He asks God to do as he has promised, so that his name may be magnified forever.

Appears
David Nathan
Themes
The Dynastic Promise Messianic Hope Covenant
All 24 chapters — click to jump
  1. 2 Samuel 1Chapter 1 is the hinge between 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel.
  2. 2 Samuel 2Chapter 2 opens the period of civil war that will occupy much of the first half of the book.
  3. 2 Samuel 3Chapter 3 is one of the most politically complex chapters in the book.
  4. 2 Samuel 4Chapter 4 closes the civil war with a brief, ugly episode.
  5. 2 Samuel 5Chapter 5 is the pivotal chapter of the book's first half.
  6. 2 Samuel 6Chapter 6 is one of the most dramatically charged chapters in 2 Samuel, covering two episodes that frame the ark's arrival in Jerusalem.
  7. 2 Samuel 7Chapter 7 is the theological centre of the entire David narrative and one of the most consequential passages in the Hebrew Bible for later Jewish and Christian thought.
  8. 2 Samuel 8Chapter 8 reads differently from everything around it.
  9. 2 Samuel 9Chapter 9 is the chapter the Court History uses to establish one key dimension of David's character before the crisis arrives.
  10. 2 Samuel 10Chapter 10 establishes the military context of the Bathsheba episode.
  11. 2 Samuel 11Chapter 11 is the turning point of 2 Samuel and one of the most consequential chapters in biblical narrative.
  12. 2 Samuel 12Chapter 12 contains the most famous confrontation in the book.
  13. 2 Samuel 13Chapter 13 is the first fulfilment of Nathan's sentence in chapter 12.
  14. 2 Samuel 14Chapter 14 covers the three years in which David longs for Absalom but will not recall him, and Joab's intervention to change that.
  15. 2 Samuel 15Chapter 15 is the emotional nadir of the first movement of the Absalom crisis.
  16. 2 Samuel 16Chapter 16 covers three encounters as David makes his way out of Jerusalem.
  17. 2 Samuel 17Chapter 17 is the intelligence chapter of the Absalom revolt and turns on a moment of competitive counsel.
  18. 2 Samuel 18Chapter 18 is the emotional climax of 2 Samuel.
  19. 2 Samuel 19Chapter 19 covers David's return to Jerusalem and the political settlements it requires.
  20. 2 Samuel 20Chapter 20 is the coda to the Absalom crisis.
  21. 2 Samuel 21Chapter 21 opens the appendix section of 2 Samuel — chapters 21-24 are not chronological narrative but supplementary materials: two episodes of famine and plague bracketing two poems and two hero lists.
  22. 2 Samuel 22Chapter 22 is an extended psalm, found also as Psalm 18 in the Psalter, which the editors of 2 Samuel have placed near the end of the book as David's retrospective meditation on his life.
  23. 2 Samuel 23Chapter 23 contains two distinct sections.
  24. 2 Samuel 24Chapter 24 is the second appendix episode bracketing the poems of chapters 22-23, and it closes the book on an unexpected note.
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2 Samuel 6
Next · Chapter 8 →
2 Samuel 8
The book itself
Summary & story
What 2 Samuel is, why it matters.
Analysis
Themes
Power, consequence, grief, the dynastic promise, and the realism of the prose.
Who's who
David's court
The household of a king who has everything and gives most of it away.

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