Survey of the Old Testament - Lesson 19

Dr. Miles Van Pelt

Survey of the Old Testament

ot501-19

Samuel

I. Introduction (00:13):

We are now moving into our lecture on the book of Samuel. Now, you'll know this book as the books of first and second Samuel. But in the Hebrew arrangement, this is considered a single book. How did we get it as a first and second Samuel book? Well, when we translated it into Greek, about 200 BC, it got so long that we had to put on two different scrolls.

So Hebrew is a very dense, compact language in terms of how it works with prefixes and suffixes. So one word in Hebrew would need to be three or four, even sometimes five words in Greek. So we're really doubling the scroll length. When you think about the book of Samuel, you need to think about first and second Samuel being a whole. You can even see here that in terms of line divisions, we go from 1st Samuel 16 to 2nd Samuel 1.

You would normally think, why do you have a break there? Those breaks aren't original. All right? They're just later developments. You can think of the verses in our English Bibles as just convenient ways to refer to texts, but have really little or no meaningful connection at all to dividing up the book. They're just a way in which we get the text.

So in fact, the Septuagint considered both Samuel and Kings to be a single book. They called it the Book of the Kingdoms. There were four divisions. There was kingdoms Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta, which are the four first words of the Greek alphabet. The Latin Vulgate followed this fourfold division, but changed kingdoms to Kings and used Roman numerals. So they just said first, second, third, and fourth Kings or reigns.

II. Outline and Content (01:49):

We're going to think of this Corpus of literature that we normally think of as two books as one book. Summary and contents. The characters and events recorded in this book of Samuel are many and various. We have a lot of little characters running around these books. A lot of names. But the main three characters here are going to be Samuel, the last judge, but also a prophet and a priest; Saul, Israel's first king; and David, Israel's most famous king.

A. Samuel and Kings Outline (02:19):

This is the king after whom Jesus is called according to the flesh the heir of David in Paul's writings. The climax of the book of Samuel, the high point is 2nd Samuel 7, the Davidic covenant. Another important development in the administration of the covenant of grace that will find its ultimate fulfillment in the consummation of new heavens and earth and in the life of Jesus.

The book of Samuel is the last covenant of the old covenant administrations until we get to the new. We're going to get covenant of grace, covenant of works in Genesis, Noaic covenant in Genesis,  and Abrahamic covenant in Genesis. Then we get Moses running basically access to Deuteronomy, but think of Deuteronomy as the main mosaic covenant. Then we have Joshua, Judges. We get into 2nd Samuel 7, Davidic covenant.

In the Davidic covenant, who is going to be the king of the kingdom? In terms of history and geography, it runs from the birth of Samuel, so in terms of history, in approximately 1100 BC. Saul is anointed in 1050 BC, just by way of reckoning, to the death of David in 971 BC. The focus is the city of Jerusalem, also called the city of David, formally called J-E-B-U-S, Jebus. We see that in Judges a lot. So that's what it used to be called, Jerusalem.

So think about that then. We have a period of just about 130 years covered in this big, long book. When you compare that to something like the book of the Judges where you've got like over 300 years covered or something like that. Or Genesis, hundreds and/or thousands of years. So however you want to reckon that. So it's a very important time in the economy of God's covenants.

In fact, the narratives around David are probably the longest narratives in the ancient world about a single person. So significant, significant focus on this person. In terms of geography, focus on Jerusalem. The book of Samuel provides us with the answer to the crisis of kingship that we encountered in the conclusions to the book of Judges.

We didn't get into this too much, but the book of Judges is structured by a fourfold refrain. In those days, there was no king in the land. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Now, let me just ask you this question, who was Israel's true king? Yeah, the Lord. Yahweh. When they say in the conclusions then that in those days, there was no king in the land. That's not a statement of historical fact that we don't have a monarchy yet. That's the statement of fact that we've already begun to reject Yahweh. That's what's going on there.

When they ask for Saul, and Samuel's mad and says, "Don't worry about it. They're not mad with you. They've rejected me from being their king." So that's what that's about. It's not about the lack monarchy. I mean, part of it is about the lack of a monarchy. But it's about the fact that they've rejected Yahweh as being king because when they try to install Gideon, it said, "I'm not going to be your king. My son won't be your king because Yahweh rules over you."

At the end they say, "No, he doesn't. They've begun to live the life of Ecclesiastes, a life under the sun and they're becoming corrupt like the people around them." So we can see that. The book of Samuel comprises the answer to the crisis of kingship. Now here comes the king. Of course, this was in fact not the truth because Yahweh was king in Israel. I just talked about that.

Here, I'm going to just record for you. 1st Samuel 4 to 8, where we get this statement, "Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. And they said to him, 'Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways." That's a burn. "Now, appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations." See, that's the bad part. A coming king is good, but that prepositional phrase is disastrous.

"But the thing was displeasing in the eyes of Samuel when they said, 'Give us a king to judge us,' and Samuel prayed to the Lord and the Lord said, 'Samuel, listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you," here it comes, "But they have rejected me from being king over them. Like all the deeds, which they have done since the day I brought them up from Egypt to this day and that they have forsaken me and served other gods, so they're doing to you also."

You see the way in which Israel treats the king is the same way in which they treat God. The way in which Israel treats the judges, for example, like with Jephthah. Israel has rejected God and they're also rejecting Jephthah and send him out. When they need help, they go get Jephthah and bring him back. It's a fickle thing. The genre of the book of Samuels, once again, classical Hebrew narrative, theological history, but there's also some songs and some lists and some great things in there that we'll encounter.

B. Two Poems (07:17):

In fact, the life of David is framed by two big poems, which by now you have been taught that those poems are important. They shape and interpret things for you. So you've got Hannah's song in 1st Samuel 2, when a child is miraculously born to her. Then you've got David's song of thanksgiving in 2nd Samuel 22, followed by his last words in 2nd Samuel 23. The whole thing is about the Messiah, the anointed one, and Yahweh exalting the horn of His anointed.

Those expressions appear in both Hannah's song, so she's like a prophetess, and in David's song of thanksgiving. That the Lord has indeed brought his Messiah and exalted the horn of his anointed one. To God, the horn is to bring victory. So there's that in there. Authorship. Samuel, like Joshua and judges, is anonymous. Early Jewish tradition named Samuel as the composer of 1st Samuel 1-24 and then attributes the rest of it to the prophets Nathan and Gad that show up.

But again, we can't verify any of that. But I'm telling you, that's kind of the historical tradition that we're giving over. Most critical scholars would laugh at that. But I think it's certainly possible. We know that they were writing down things. The kings had annals. They kept track of things. The prophets did this stuff. So it's in all likelihood good.

There are many theories about the compositional history of the book of Samuel, but they're highly speculative and not helpful for really understanding the book. What higher critics do is they think, “well, if we can just get behind the text, see how all the pieces came together and where they were and what different theologies were at work and how they slice them, then we can really understand the book”. But no such book have we've ever found and no such book would allow us to do that really, to compare like that.

So it's really a weird kind of thing that's being tried to do. However, I can really see it, again, being shaped by Samuel, Nathan, and Gad, being preserved over time, and then finalized by someone like Ezra or Nehemiah. That's a very likely scenario. There are a number of different ways to get the content in terms of outline. There's all kinds of ways to do it. But given that kingship dominates both Samuel and Kings, and some traditions have held that these books should be all held together, I have kind of one outline here for Samuel and Kings. You get two for one.

You can see it's got a little bit of a chiasm in it and I'll tell you what all those parts are right there. As you can see how it's really about kingship here, where you've got Samuel and Eli up here. You just put after this Samuel and Eli. Samuel and Eli, two people. They're preparing for kingship. Then right here, you have Samuel and Saul, the first anointed king.

Saul is from the tribe of Benjamin from the city of Gibeon. All right? So he is exactly what the people asked for, a king like the other nations. He's a sodomite tribe. At end of the book of Judges, the Benjaminites are sodomites. The Lord wages a holy war on them. There's only a few left. They go steal wives for them. They reinstitute the Benjaminite tribe. Number three right here is Saul and David. So Samuel and Eli, Samuel and Saul, now Saul and David. You can see the progression, the historical progression just by the names.

That's why I like it. It's kind of easy. Then write smack in the middle you get David. This is the life of David right here. That's what we're going to focus on. Oh, don't dare to be David. But then right after that in 1st Kings 1-11, you can see how David's life bleeds into here. So again, kind of crazy divisions. Then 1st Kings 1-11, that's the life of Solomon. A lot of spectacular things in there, the life of Solomon. Then right here, we have the divided kingdom up to the destruction of the north in 2nd Kings 17.

It's great to read this text because it says all of this happened because they failed to obey the Lord and they were all idolaters. So He had to do it. He sent prophets to call them back, Elijah and Elisha to call them back. They didn't come back. The Lord had to be faithful to His covenant and bring the curses. The Lord wouldn't have been faithful to His covenant had He not exiled this tribe.

Then right here, we have the continuation of exile in the south and then their final destruction under Nebuchadnezzar. Here the Assyrians got them, then the Babylonians took over and conquered the Assyrians. Down here, the Babylonians came and got them. There were three deportations here. 586 was the last one and 605 Daniel goes down. Or Daniel goes up to Babylon in this. We'll see a little about that.

The book of Samuel is book ended or set off by two poems that appear within the larger narrative complex. Hannah's song of Thanksgiving. I talked about that. Then David's song of Thanksgiving. Both Psalms are poems and Samuel belongs to the formal category known as Thanksgiving Psalm. So they're the same type of Psalm. When we get to the book of Psalms, I'll tell you about Thanksgiving Psalms and how they work.

C. Two Metaphors (12:30):

They have a specific form, IMART: introduction, misery, appeal, rescue, testimony. So they both follow that one. This type of Psalm is also related to the lament. And so basically you sing a lament when you're in distress. You sing a Thanksgiving Psalm after you're out of distress. There are two primary metaphors in Hannah's song, rock and horn. Now, we have already seen the origin and significance of the rock horn in Exodus 17.

In fact, David's song of Thanksgiving in 2 Samuel 22, which is also Psalm 18, uses the rock metaphor five times. It's the same five times that Moses uses it in the song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32. So the rock metaphor is big and it plays such a major role, it also heads off Psalm 95. Do you remember, why the rock metaphor is so important? It's because they're basically saying the only way I can have any righteousness is if God is substitutionally struck for me and if I'm hidden in Him to be preserved through His wrath.

So the rock of salvation, rock of refuge. So this is a major confession of faith on David's part because certainly David did not deserve kingship or even to keep his kingship. Think of the things he did. In some sense, compared to Saul, David was a much worse king. Saul didn't commit adultery and then kill the wife's husband. Saul didn't take a census and then have 70,000 people killed because of his disobedience. It's an amazing thing that David's kingship is not taken away from him, but Saul's is for doing two things.

Being zealous to sacrifice before he goes to war. Samuel wasn't there. He said, "We've got to sacrifice before we go to war." So he did that and he wasn't supposed to. Then he was supposed to put a group of people to the band, the Amalekites, and he didn't do it. He kept the king alive and some of the staff and he brought them back so he could party and put them in chains. That was the reason. So he is religiously zealous, politically merciful, things that we would commend, but they were both acts of disobedience. So the Lord takes it away from him.

D. Eschatological Typology (14:26):

In fact, Samuel has to finish the deal. It says then Samuel hacked Agag into pieces before the Lord, described as act and worship. It's a different kind of worship, beyond the regulatory principle for today. But back in that day, that's what it was like. One final note in terms of eschatological patterning and typology for this complex. David and Solomon, the man of war, precedes or comes before the man of peace.

Remember we talked about it in some sense. Moses was kind of more the man of peace, Joshua the man of war. Even though Moses engaged in battle, his job was establishing the temple, just like Solomon's was, or the tabernacle temple. In the first and second comings of Jesus, the Pharisees are wanting the man of war to come first, then Joshua, and the man of peace. Even Peter is thinking that. That's why he's taking out a sword and beginning to fight. That's why the Pharisees are confused.

The patterning is sometimes the same, but sometimes in reverse. You can have what's called an ironic reversal. So the man of war, followed by the man of peace, Shlomo. Solomon means peace. His name means peace and reconciliation. Then you've got following the man of war. But in the New Testament, Jesus comes as a suffering servant, but returns as a conquered king. So just note that. Again, the rule of two.

III. Life of David (15:36):

Let me just take you through some of this first. What I want to do is look for you at the life of David real quick. You can see that even in the life of David, which runs from 1st Samuel 16 to 1st King's 1 or 1st Kings 2. You can see there's some pattern there as well. You've got in that complex an A, B, C, B, C, A. It's not a chiasm. But right here, these two things are reversed.

A. David is Anointed (16:03):

So first, David is anointed king by Samuel. Notice that I put that in 1st Samuel 16 and 17. What happens in 16, Samuel goes and anoints David in the first part. In the second part, an evil spirit comes on Saul and David is hired by Saul to exorcize that spirit because he is a good music player. So David's anointed. Saul's unanointed. In 17, we encounter the David and Goliath scene.

B. Goliath (16:30):

What is Goliath in terms of his height? A giant. What is Saul in compared to every other Israelites? Head and shoulders above the crowd. So he's Israel's giant. They've called for a battle of champions and Saul, the king, won't go out. Why? The spirit's been removed from him. He's now got a bad spirit. He lacks the ability to do it. He lacks the faith to do it. So David now comes and does it.

C. David’s the True King (16:57):

What this does is 1st Samuel 16 says David's the true king. Saul's not the true king. 1st Samuel 17 proves the point. Saul can't conquer. David conquers and then he leads the army after him. Then in 1st Samuel 18, Jonathan takes off all of his royal clothes, he's the next in line, and gives them to David. What is he saying by that? Because of the clothing that's inheritance, you're the true king. See, that's what all those things are doing. It's not just weird stuff that's going on. Like, why would he do that? David has his own clothes.

It's also interesting, too, that in terms of watching Hebrew narrative work, some of the stuff in 1st Samuel 16 is out of order from 1st Samuel 17. For at the end of 1st Samuel 16, David is hired as the singer. He's so trusted by Saul that he becomes his armor bearer. An armor bearer is your closest friend who you trust with your life and you can fight like mad.

In 1st Samuel 17, David doesn't know how to use any of the armor. So he has to use a slingshot. So what they're doing is they're saying how it progressed in 16. Then they're backing you up to say, now, how do we get there? Just like in Genesis one and two, where you go all the way, then you back up and you redo it again from a slightly different perspective. So I just want to know that because a lot of people say, "What's going on here. It's out of order. It seems to be wrong." It's not wrong.

They tell you the whole story first, until the armor bearer stage, and then back and say, well, how did he become an armor bearer if he's just hired as a musician? It's this thing right here. David's anointed by Samuel. Then David's kingship is in crisis. Saul's still alive. Saul hates him now and he's always trying to throw spears at him, kill him, and he is running for his life. But David will not touch the Lord's anointed, even when he has the opportunity to.

D. Poetic Climax: David’s Kingdom is Established (18:38):

Then David's kingdom is established after Saul dies at the hand of the Philistines with the poetic climax. David covenants with Israel or Yahweh covenants with David. You see the themes there? Then David's kingdom is in crisis again because of family issues. His whole family falls apart. Dare to be a David, but don't have his family. All right? That kind of thing.

David's kingdom is established again. The Davidic covenant. The climax there, David's testimony and his last words. Then his last act is anoint Solomon as king. You can see here in this next slide. So this is just like a run through of the events like crazy. It's kind of helpful to keep things like this when you're reading, but it doesn't really show you how all the narratives work together. You don't have the A, B, C, C, B, A stuff.

So it's one thing to have a content outline of just like David and Goliath, David's troubles, David with the Philippines. Saul and the necromancer, rejected by the Philippines, and the wives are captured. The real question is, how do all those stories connect and work together to create a message? Just like we did with the whole Bible, how do all those parts work together to create a message? That's why this one up here does a little bit better at putting those individual pieces together.

So these will be posted for the class and you can kind of take a look at what I would call the theological one and then the content one. The same thing we had for the book of Judges. We had the Roman numeral outline one we typically think of. But then we had the eight boxes that showed you really how all that stuff worked and went together. That's the way to think about it.

IV. Theology of Kingship (20:11):

We don’t have time to go over all of these wonderful events, narratives, and stories that are just amazing and remind us of God’s faithfulness and kindness and provoke us to have hope and endurance. I’m going to talk about two of the most important things here, which is the theology of kingship that undergirds all of Samuel and Kings and then the Davidic covenant, which is kind of the climax in the middle.

A. Part of the Patriarchal Covenant with Abraham (20:35):

The first thing we need to understand, is that this is going to be just a section on the theology of kingship that undergirds these things. The first thing that we need to understand is that kingship is a part of the patriarchal promises to Abraham. So land descendants and blessings, but sprinkled throughout these narratives are additional little promises in the patriarchs. It's like may you possess the gates of your enemies, or you will possess the gates of your enemies.

Kingship is also thrown in there. In Genesis 17:6, it says, "I will increase you greatly and I will make you into a nation and kings will come forth from you." So part of the patriarchal promise is royal dominion. Then 10 verses later, in verse 16, it says, "And I will bless her," Sarah, "And also, I will give or make from her a son for you. And I will bless him. And he will become a nation. Kings of people will be from him."

B. Provisions in the Mosaic Covenant (21:34):

Kingship is a part of the patriarchal promise. We are on the administration of the covenant of grace that begins in the patriarchs. Right now we're on that trajectory, fulfilling it in the mosaic economy. We've got to get land to descendants blessings, gates and kings, so we can get done. Does that make sense? After Genesis' patriarchal promise, there is a little adumbration of this in the blessing of the tribe of Judah.

In Genesis 49, when Jacob is blessing each of the tribes, he says in Genesis 49:10, "The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between feet until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations will be his." So there's already this sense before we even get out of the first book of the Bible that the king is going to come from Judah. Does that make sense?

And so when God says, "Samuel, go to Bethlehem in the tribe of Judah." You should be getting excited. When he says go to Saul and give you a Benjamin, you should hear this dun dun dun. Like it says, it'll just be foreboding at that point. In Numbers 24:7, we have Balaam's oracle. Remember Balaam, king of Moab, hired Balaam to curse Israel because they were just doing great things. Then they're like, you might be next. The only way to get them is not to do it with armies, but to get someone to curse them.

Balaam is going to actually usher in this big curse, but he can't. The Lord prevents him. So he does a blessing. In that blessing in Numbers 24:7, it says, and this is a translation from the Septuagint, just so people know. "A man will come out of his seed and he will reign over many nations and his kingdom will be exalted more than God." We know that Ezekiel and the book of Revelation. "And his kingdom shall increase."

C. Kingship in Judges (23:14):

So even this foreign prophet is prophesying royal dominion from God's people there. The mosaic economy, picking up on this from Genesis and numbers, stipulates the rules for kingship. It says, hey, one day they're going to be a king there. The Lord provides for kingship, just like He provides for prophets and judges in the book of Deuteronomy.

So this is in Deuteronomy 17:14-20. Now, here, let me just back up and explain why I'm doing this. We don't have time in a survey like this to cover all the different aspects of kingship. So what I want to do is give you the theology that kind of runs through the book. That way, when you go back and for yourselves read all the different narratives, you've got the kind of the freight to know what's going on. Then we'll talk about a couple of instances.

(24:08):

I would really love to talk about David and Goliath more. I'd really love to talk about the David and Bathsheba thing more. I'd really like to talk more about Solomon, but we have to limit ourselves. So in Deuteronomy 17:14-20, it lays out the rules for kingship. I can even put it right here for you. There are qualifications, restrictions, and duties. Qualifications are two-fold. He must be chosen by the Lord and he must be in Israelite.

D. Israel asks for a king (24:46):

Right now we're really focused on the seed promise. But the seed is going to be a blessing to all the other nations. So it's focus with a bigger view in mind. That's the chosen by Yahweh, an Israelite. What are the restrictions? There are three. When I read these restrictions, I want you to think about Solomon. A, not too many horses, especially from Egypt. Solomon had armies of horses. Where did he buy them from? Yes, Egypt.

Not too many wives so that their heart won't be led astray. What does Solomon have? Many. Yeah. A thousand. 700 wives by royal descent, which means marriage alliances, and 300 combines. Then not too much silver and gold. Solomon was the richest dude in the world. They said silver was like nothing in his day. It's like finding a penny on the floor today. We just kind of kick it to the side or throw it in the trash. That's what it was like with silver.

Now, I want you to think about in terms of restrictions, why those restrictions are there. Was the Lord anti-horse, anti-wife, anti-money? No. Horses equal military power. The Lord wanted His kings to be weak militarily so that He could fight for them. So weak in politics, weak in armies. No executive branch of the military here. Now, too many wives. Those 700 wives of royal descent, that's how you entered into covenants with other lands.

So covenant with Moab, covenant with Eden, covenant with Egypt. Solomon's first wife was from Egypt. They're not really your favorites and you may not even see them very much, but you may just consummate the marriage and be done. But now you're in covenant with them. The covenant of marriage symbolizes the covenant with the nation. The Lord didn't want them do that because the Lord didn't need this: He didn't need them to be politically savvy or have political strength because the Lord could take care of all that.

So weak in military might, weak in foreign affairs. Then here, not too rich, so not economically strong. So weak in the economy. So they would have to depend on the Lord. All of these are restrictions are meant to provoke dependence on the Lord. Two qualifications, three restrictions, and two duties. Well, you can say three. When he became king, he had to copy the Torah before the priests.

So the king had to be literate and he had to be able to write, which means he had to have scribble skills. So you've got this scribble king. Then he would have to read and study the Torah every day. That's why if you read and study your Bible every day, you're doing a kingly thing. That's what I've told my kids before, even though they don't believe it or do it. I say, when you do this, this is a royal activity. Then finally he's got to obey the Torah and provoke obedience in his subjects. David did that. Solomon did not. He went down the wrong path. So that's what we can see there.

Kingship in Judges. We know that one of the problems in Judges was the fact that when the judge died, the people turned their back on the Lord and hoarded after the nations again. So what you need is not charismatic judges that are raised up randomly, you need a dynasty to secure the rest of the land and the continuity of leadership. So it's like almost manipulating the Lord that way in the request.

So the men of Israel in the days of Gideon said, "Hey, we need this for a long period of time. So rule over us, you and your son and your grandson, for you have saved us from the hand of Midian." Gideon says, "I will not rule over you. My son will not rule over you. The Lord will rule over you." If you want true continuity, you need true kingship. This is almost a prophetic statement here.

E. Saul as Israel’s first king (28:40):

Yes, indeed. The Lord will one day rule over them when the seed of David comes. That's great stuff when you think about it in its bigger picture. Of course, the next part comes in Judges 17 to 21, where we say in those days there was no king in the land. We've done that. I can skip that. We've already talked about that. Then we get 1st Samuel 8 where Israel asked for a king.

Here are three is about the nature of the request. They want him to judge Israel. Of course, Jephthah said Yahweh is your judge. They want to be like all the other nations. They want that guy to go out before us and fight our wars. Now, here's a very interesting thing. It was always the Lord who went out and fought for Israel in the exodus, in the wilderness, in the days of Joshua and judges.

So it was always the Lord who went out first. Now they're saying we want a human king, like all the other nations, to go out for us. What a weak substitute. So that's a really big rejection there. Then they reject Yahweh as king and Samuel makes comment of that in 1st Samuel 10:19, "The Lord said to Samuel, 'Listen to the voice of the people to all that they have said to you. For they have not rejected you, but they've rejected Me from being king over them."

Saul represents that reality. Saul is a living embodiment of Israel's rejection of Yahweh walking around. Saul as Israel's first king is very interesting because his name in Hebrew is Shaul. It means what is asked for. We often don't think about that. It's never, ever brought out in scripture. But when you just say, what does Shaul mean? It's a past participle to ask and it just means what is asked for.

So it's very interesting. He's an Israelite, a Benjaminite, and a Canaanite. Saul is anointed by Samuel in 1st Samuel 10. He gets the spirit of Yahweh, the sign of prophecy, divine presence, another heart. He's taken by Lot and they go to Gibeon. So he does get another heart. The Lord gives him a heart to rule, but it doesn't work for him. Then we get Saul's rejection in 1st Samuel 13.

F. Saul’s Rejection (30:52):

Of course, I told you he's rejected because he's done those two things. He has been religiously zealous and politically merciful. It says here in 1st Samuel 13:14, beginning in verse 13, "And Samuel said to Saul, 'You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of Lord your God with which He commanded you. For then the Lord would've established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after His own heart. The Lord has commanded him to be a prince over his people because you have not kept what the Lord has commanded you.' and Samuel rose and went."

Now, we know this famous text, “the Lord sought out for a man after His own heart”. I'm just going to tell you briefly that the way in which we normally understand that is slightly incorrect. I can point you some really good resources. A friend, former student of Bills, as well as a colleague of mine, Jason Drew, she's written a big, long article on this and has locked it down.

What it says here in Hebrew is Yahweh has sought out for himself a man according to his heart. That phrase at the end, “according to His heart”, can be either adjectival or adverbial. It can either modify the man, adjectival, or the choosing or the seeking, adverbial. In every other instance that we have in the Old Testament, it's always adverbial, modifying the verb. Even David uses this to describe Yahweh's choice of him according to his own will some of the translations to it. So that's what it means, according to his will.

G. David is Anointed as King(32:23):

So Yahweh sought out for Himself a man according to His own will. I'm going to tell you the contrast here. It's important because it's going to explain something I mentioned earlier. Saul is the people's choice. David is Yahweh's choice. Does that make sense? He said, you asked for it. I gave it to you. It didn't work. Now I'm going to give you something that will work. In a very weird way, because it's going to be broken and he's going to have to fix it.

But one of the reasons David's kingship isn't removed from him because of the David and Bathsheba affair or the census affair is because of this irrevocable pledge right here, that David is the Lord's man, no matter what, which is kind of an assurance of faith thing. Once we become His man or His woman, we can never be rejected, even in the midst of our sin. He atones for that somehow. All right. So it's very important.

So in 2nd Samuel 7:21, this is where the Davidic covenant comes into play. It says, "For the sake of your word and according to your will." It's the exact same prepositional phrase. You have done this great thing and made it known to your servant. So he is hyperlinking back to 1st Samuel 13 and 2nd Samuel 7, saying, this is what's happened now. It's an amazing thing. What you've done is you've taken away the crushing weight of trying being a man after God's own heart, which you can't be.

The whole problem here is we need circumcised hearts and that's not happening until Jesus. That's the thing. Actually the heart plays a big role in the Samuel narratives. Saul gets a new heart, then it's taken away. David is a man according to Yahweh's heart or will. When David has chosen in 1st Samuel 16, they say, "Oh, here's this big, tall brother." The Lord says, "Hey, don't look at him. Man looks with the eyes, but God looks with the heart."

But they translate as man looks at the outer appearance, God looks at the inner person. But that's not what it means. Man looks with his eyes. That's all he can see. But God looks with His mind, or will, or heart. So He is making that choice. So that's an important thing. But what's also interesting in light of that is that the next king and the building of the temple come from David's greatest two tragedies, David and Bathsheba, like the hallmark sin right there.

But the result of that union is Solomon. The census that's taken, the angel of the Lord stopped, and they have to buy that field and offer sacrifice. That's the field in which the temple's built or the mountain in which that temple's built. So we're watching these things happen where the Lord is taking catastrophe and turn it into eucatastrophe. It's the ironic reversal of humanity's sin. He's taking it and making it right somehow.

Then we get Saul rejected as kingship. We can skip that. In 1st Samuel 16, David is anointed as king and the whole thing of seeing and appearing. Again, it's great in Hebrew. I just mentioned this. It said Yahweh said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance," which is the same verbal root as see, or his height or his stature for I have rejected him. For I'm not looking at what the man is," The word there is see, "For man sees with the eyes and God sees with the heart." It's very interesting that word.

H. Davidic Covenant (35:43):

You get the verbal root for seeing there four times in that one verse. So again, we're just playing off that. That gets us then finally to the Davidic covenant. I want to read the opening lines of it to you. I mean, it's so programmatic. We could spend 45 minutes on the Davidic covenant. This has to do with the house and house building because when a king conquers, he builds a house.

So king conquers, he gets rest from his enemy. He builds a house. Yahweh conquers Egypt out in the wilderness. Next thing to do is they build a house called the tabernacle. Interestingly, the Hebrew word for palace and temple is the exact same. It just depends who lives there. If a king lives there, it's called a palace in English. If God lives there, it's called a temple. God is both king and God. So he has this one big house.

Once you get the monarchy, there's the king's house and the temple. But until that time, there's only one house. Now, when the king lived in his house and Lord had given him rest from all of his surrounding enemies, the king said to Nathan the prophet, "See, now, I dwell on a house of Cedar, but the arc of God dwells in that tent." Nathan said to the king, "God dwells in your heart. The Lord is with you."

But that same night, the word of the Lord came to Nathan, "Go and tell my servant, David, thus says the Lord, 'Would you build a house for me to dwell in?" This is all of our human instincts, like we're going to do something to benefit God. "I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving about and in a tent for my dwelling. In all the places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel saying, why have you not built a house for me?"

"Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant, David, thus says the Lord of hosts, 'I took you from the pasture." Notice this historical prologue. We're getting the covenant language right there. Rehearse I took you out of Egypt or I took you out of Ur. "I took you from the pasture to be prince over my people, Israel, and I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all of your enemies before you and I will make for you a great name."

Remember that promise in Genesis 12? I'll make your name great. Following on the tower of Babel, which they want to make themselves the name great. "Like the name of the great ones of the earth, and I will appoint a place for my people, Israel, and I will plant them so they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more and violent men shall afflict them no more as formally from the time I appointed judges over my people, Israel. And I will give you rest from all of your enemies. More over the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house."

Now, the same word for house and dynasty is the same in Hebrew. They're not talking about physical house, but a dynasty. "When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring over you and who shall come from your body and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish his throne of his kingdom forever. And I will be to him, a father. And he shall be to me, a son. When he commits in inequity, I'll discipline him with the rot of men and the stripes of the sons of men."

"But with my steadfast love, I will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from me before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever in accordance with all these words, in accordance with all the vision Nathan spoke to David." So it meant a lot to go there. So you can imagine when they're in exile, they're trying to figure out this text. What happened? But here are the contents. We've got the historical prologue.

You were a shepherd. I brought you out of the pasture to make you king. So from nothing to everything. You've got the covenant grant and that covenant of grant means it's unilateral. That David doesn't have to do anything to hold up his end of the terms. It's already sure and secure. We'll talk about the covenants again. He's going to get a great name. He's going to get a permanent place, rest from enemies, and a royal house. This house is what? He's already got a house. Remember?

The whole thing started because David said, "I've got a house and now I want to build the Lord a house." So the Lord's playing off this and says, "Now I'm going to give you an eternal house or dynasty." Then in a house, a throne, an eternal kingdom, and adoption come out of that. That's the Davidic covenant. This is the number one designation that Jesus goes by, son of David. That's what Paul calls him in Romans 1. So this is very programmatic. So we've gone from in Genesis the Savior is going to come from the seed of the woman. Which seed? Abraham's seed.

Well, Abraham has lots of seeds now, the patriarchs, Judah. Which Judah? David. Does that make sense? We've laser beamed our focus. Then how's that going to look for this king? He's going to have a great name, an eternal place, rest from enemies, and a royal house. Now, we know that David's kingdom gets sacked in 722. Then in 586 and there's no king anymore, which means, it's slapping us in the face back and forth saying, “look, I'm not talking about this earthly kingdom. Look, these things are only to point beyond themselves”.

“I'm crushing this temple like a sand castle. It's nothing to me. Look, I'm wiping out this seed right now because it's not what we really need. We need something not made with human hands that can never be taken away”. So the Lord is kind to show us these things, but I don't want to go back and have sacrifices and offerings. I don't want to go back and have temple. I don't want to go back and have a human king who can make mistakes.

I. Solomon (41:02):

I don't want to reinstitute Israel's theocracy and have to live under it at all. If you do that, you miss the point, pattern, type,  and shadow, over and over again. But good patterns, types, and shadows, they're showing us, the author of Hebrew says, of the good things to come. So we've got to see those things as the good things to come. I wanted to say a few things about Solomon. But I think I've mentioned enough to know that Solomon is the first stage of the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant.

Because it says here, "I will give you a house and that next king will build the temple. Not you." Solomon comes and builds the earthly temple. So Solomon is the first stage in the fulfillment of a lot of that. All the way up until chapter eight, Solomon is rock solid. It's 9, 10, and 11, where it hits the fan. It is because of foreign alliances due to his wives that causes his heart to be led astray where he becomes an idolater and turns from the Lord.

And it says there in 1st King's 11, "Solomon did that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord," repeating the refrain from the book of judges. It says, "Therefore, I'm going to tear the kingdom for you." It says, "But for the sake of my servant, David, I'll give you one tribe." That's an amazing thing. It's a very similar kind of thing that Moses did at the golden calf episode. He appealed to the Abrahamic covenant. So Yahweh said, "If I were just doing this according to the mosaic covenant, you'd be dead meat. But I'm going to say because if David and the irrevocable covenant, I'm going to give you a tribe for a while."

I told you in the book of Acts, that there are three major sermons that punctuate and explain redemptive historical significance of the new covenant. Here's one. I'm just going to read one. I've got a bunch, but one. According to the apostle Peter in Acts 2:29-35, he's trying to explain the coming of the spirit. And he says, "Brothers and sisters, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried and his tomb is with us to this day."

"Being therefore a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with him an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne for he foreknew and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ. That he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh seek corruption. This Jesus God raised up and of that we are all witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God and having received from the father the promise of the holy spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing." The spirit. "For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, 'The Lord said to my Lord, sit in my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool."

This is Psalm 110. Even David knew that he was not the king that was the true Solomon, but he knew that the heavenly Lord was going to come and do it. Paul makes the same reference down here in Acts 13, where he says, "For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation and fell asleep and was laid with his fathers, and saw corruption, but he whom God raised up did not see corruption." Jesus. See the connection there?

V. Conclusion (44:09):

Jesus is true and better than David. “Let it be known, therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins comes and is proclaimed to you”. That's what it says there. So all of these kings are pointing to the king of kings. We've got to think of that. The Davidic covenant undergirds that all. You know that that is rooted all the way back in the patriarchs, right? It's plan A.

In fact, it's rooted all the way back in creation when Adam and Eve were installed in Eden as vice-regent priest kings. We see David being that as well, Melchizedek being that as well, and Jesus being that ultimately. So it is the gospel promise beforehand, or you could say foreshadowed beforehand.