What is the Davidic covenant, and why is it crucial to our view of the end times? The following is a biblical review of the promise of David’s everlasting dynasty.
It is a great experience to hear Mary praising God in Johann Sebastian Bach’s musical language. The angel Gabriel is sent by God to a virgin in Nazareth, and a jubilant orchestra expresses the joy of the angel’s message. “You shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and He will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of David his father. He will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will be without end.” Mary accepts the angel’s greeting with humility and hurries to her relative Elisabeth in a city in the highlands of Judah. The choir joins in the first words of her hymn of praise as rendered in Latin: “Magnificat anima mea Dominum – My soul exalts the Lord.”
Mary’s powerful hymn of praise (Luke 1:46-55) has become part of the Christian tradition of Daily prayer and is quoted when gathering to Vesper. Her praise is a tribute to God, who extends His mercy to those who fear Him from generation to generation, who has cast down the mighty, and exalted the small, and who fed the hungry, and sent away the rich empty-handed. Mary concludes the hymn of praise with the words: “He took care of his servant Israel, to remember his mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his family forever.”
And with the words of the angel Gabriel and Mary’s praise, Jesus’ birth is linked to two of God’s covenants to Israel. The Abrahamic Covenant promise a land (Genesis 15:18) and a seed that will bless all nations (Galatians 3:14-16), and the Davidic Covenant promises a king with an everlasting kingdom. It is the Davidic Covenant that we will study here.
The Foundation of The Davidic Covenant.
The foundation of the Davidic covenant can be found in several places in Scripture. It promises David an everlasting kingdom. We will look at two of these.
The first is 2 Sam. 7.11b-16:
Also, the Lord tells you that He will make you a house. “When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. But My mercy shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.”
Here David is promised to become the head of a dynasty that will be inherited by his descendants. After his death, the throne will pass to one of his sons (Solomon), ” who will come from your body.” He will build the temple, and God will establish the throne of the kingdom (not Solomon’s own throne) forever. Solomon will sin and God will punish him for it, but God’s mercy will not depart from him. In this first scripture, David is promised that his son Solomon will be king. But it also contains promises that go far beyond Solomon’s own reign. God promises David an everlasting kingdom.
The second scripture is 1 Chronicles 17:10b-14, and it has a slightly different wording:
Furthermore, I tell you that the Lord will build you a house. And it shall be, when your days are fulfilled, when you must go to be with your fathers, that I will set up your seed after you, who will be of your sons; and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build Me a house, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be his Father, and he shall be My son; and I will not take My mercy away from him, as I took it from him who was before you. And I will establish him in My house and in My kingdom forever; and his throne shall be established forever.”
This scripture does not point to Solomon, but to Jesus – “who will be of your sons “. According to the genealogy of Luke (3:31), Jesus is a descendant of David’s son Nathan. This descendant of David will also build God a temple. This cannot point to those who, through faith in Jesus Christ, become a temple of the Holy Spirit. Then the text is interpreted figuratively, and the Christian congregation is included in the interpretation. The Davidic covenant is between God and Israel. From this context, “He shall build Me a house ” must be the temple of the Millennium. His (Messiah’s) throne will be established forever and God’s faithfulness will never depart from Him.
Since 2. Samuel 7 points to Solomon, the possibility of sin was present. The text of 1. Chronicles 17 refers to the Messiah and therefore there is no mention of sin.
In Old Testament times, there were three offices to which one was anointed, prophet, priest and king. Jesus Christ holds all these offices, but not at the same time. When He was on earth, He was in the ministry of a Prophet (Deuteronomy 18:15-18). Today He is our High Priest before the Father, (Heb. 8:1-2). When He comes again, He will show Himself as King, establish the kingdom for Israel, and sit on David’s throne in Jerusalem, (Rev. 19:16). Dan 7:13-14. Luke 1:32-33). For the latter to happen, there must be a re-establishment of David’s throne for the Messiah to sit on and rule as King of Israel and King of all the world.
The Covenant of David is Foretold by the Prophets
Several of the Old Testament prophets and the book of Psalms tell that there will be a king from the seed of David and they describe this. The prophet Jeremiah emphasizes his righteousness:
Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “That I will raise to David a Branch of Righteousness; A King shall reign and prosper, and execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. 6In His days Judah will be saved, And Israel will dwell safely; Now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. (Jer. 23:5-6).
After Isaiah has prophesied about the Child who is born and the Son who is given, there is no doubt that this is the King of Israel and all the world:
Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. (Isaiah 9:7).
The book of Psalms describes the Davidic covenant as follows:
‘Your seed I will establish forever and build up your throne to all generations.” And the heavens will praise Your wonders, O Lord; Your faithfulness also in the assembly of the saints. (Psalm 89:4-5).
In Jeremiah 33:14-17, something is repeated from chapter 23 and links this to the fulfilment of the Davidic covenant:
‘Behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘that I will perform that good thing which I have promised to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah: ‘In those days and at that time I will cause to grow up to David A Branch of righteousness; He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. In those days Judah will be saved, And Jerusalem will dwell safely. And this is the name by which she will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.’ “For thus says the Lord: ‘David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel; nor shall the priests, the Levites, lack a man to offer burnt offerings before Me, to kindle grain offerings, and to sacrifice continually.’”
In the same chapter, God confirms the Davidic covenant with an oath:
Thus says the Lord: ‘If you can break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night, so that there will not be day and night in their season, then My covenant may also be broken with David My servant, so that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne, and with the Levites, the priests, My ministers. (Jer. 33:20-21).
In Amos we find the prophecy that James quotes when he concludes the Apostles’ meeting in Jerusalem. After the nations have accepted the gospel, Jesus’ return will take place. Then God’s covenant with David will be fulfilled and David’s fallen tabernacle will be restored. David’s fallen tabernacle points, as I understand it, to the Davidic covenant that have been paused for a time, but which will be restored when the Messiah comes.
On that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down, and repair its damages; I will raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old, (Amos 9:11).
When the angel Gabriel came with his greeting to Mary, he followed up on what a long prophetic tradition had preached, and which was surely not unknown to her: The Lord God will give Him the throne of David his father. He will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will be without end.
What Characterizes the Davidic Covenant
The Davidic Covenant is Eternal and Unconditional.
The covenants God makes with Israel are either time-limited and conditioned on Israel’s obedience, or eternal and unconditional. That the covenant of David is eternal is repeated several times when God establishes it. The only condition is that David’s descendants still sit on David’s throne. It does not depend on the obedience of the people. It is based on God’s faithfulness. Disobedience will cause God to chastise the people, but He will never annul the covenant.
The Davidic Covenant Must be Interpreted Literally.
Those who do not believe in any millennial kingdom (a-millennialism) interpret the Davidic covenant figuratively to mean that the throne of the Davidic covenant is the throne Jesus sits on today at the right hand of the Father. God’s household is the house/temple that was to be built and the church is the kingdom of the Davidic covenant. The covenant, according to their understanding, is no longer between God and Israel represented by King David, but between God and the Church. This is replacement theology’s understanding of the Davidic covenant. But it is not our view.
There are several reasons why the Davidic covenant must be interpreted literally.
1) The parts of the covenant that have already been fulfilled were fulfilled literally: David had a son and David’s throne was established, Solomon built a temple and his throne was established, and Solomon was punished for his disobedience. Therefore it follows that the rest of the covenant will also be fulfilled literally.
2) David himself understood the covenant literally. This is evident from his own words in Psalm 72, which describe a Son much greater than Solomon. His last words in 2 Samuel 23:5 show that David interpreted the covenant literally: For is not my house so with God? For an everlasting covenant He has made with me, which in everything is orderly and secure, for here is all my salvation and everything that pleases Him. Will He not let it sprout?
3) References in the New Testament to the Davidic covenant require a literal interpretation. The New Testament mentions King David many times, and there are many times references to Jesus’ ministry after his resurrection. But nowhere does it say that the Father’s throne in heaven is David’s throne. Jesus today sits at the right hand of the Father, but this is by no means the same as sitting on David’s throne.
The Significance of the Davidic Covenant for the View of the End Times
The Davidic covenant has an eternal perspective that will be fulfilled when Jesus Christ comes again and establishes the kingdom for Israel. This provides clear guidelines for our interpretation of the end times.
1) Israel must be a nation when Jesus comes again. If Israel disappears as a nation, one of the most important prerequisites in the Davidic covenant will be missing. Against this background, I see the hatred of Israel that is spreading in the world today. It is the forces of evil that will bring to naught God’s plan for His people. They will not succeed!
2) Israel must have a national existence in the land they have been given by God. Since David’s kingdom had clear geographical boundaries, and these boundaries were part of David’s promise for the future kingdom, Israel must live in its historic homeland for the final fulfilment of the Davidic covenant. Against this background, I see all attempts that are being made today, both politically and militarily, to deprive Israel of the land or parts of it.
3) David’s son, Jesus Christ, must come to earth literally and bodily to rule over David’s covenant kingdom. Jesus’ ministry today at the Father’s throne where He rules over a spiritual kingdom cannot be a fulfilment of the promises of the Davidic covenant.
(4) A physical, earthly kingdom must be established over which the Messiah will rule. This will happen when Jesus Christ returns and establishes the Millennium.
Thus, a correct understanding of the Bible’s description of the Davidic covenant will be crucial to our view of the end times.