2 Samuel 7:18-29--David's Prayer of Gratitude

2 Samuel 7:18-29
English Standard Version
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David's Prayer of Gratitude
18 Then King David went in and sat before the LORD and said, “Who am I, O LORD God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? 19 And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O LORD God. You have spoken also of your servant's house for a great while to come, and this is instruction for mankind, O LORD God! 20 And what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O LORD God! 21 Because of your promise, and according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness, to make your servant know it. 22 Therefore you are great, O LORD God. For there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears. 23 And who is like your people Israel, the one nation on earth whom God went to redeem to be his people, making himself a name and doing for them great and awesome things by driving out before your people, whom you redeemed for yourself from Egypt, a nation and its gods? 24 And you established for yourself your people Israel to be your people forever. And you, O LORD, became their God. 25 And now, O LORD God, confirm forever the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house, and do as you have spoken. 26 And your name will be magnified forever, saying, ‘The LORD of hosts is God over Israel,’ and the house of your servant David will be established before you. 27 For you, O LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, have made this revelation to your servant, saying, ‘I will build you a house.’ Therefore your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you. 28 And now, O LORD God, you are God, and your words are true, and you have promised this good thing to your servant. 29 Now therefore may it please you to bless the house of your servant, so that it may continue forever before you. For you, O LORD God, have spoken, and with your blessing shall the house of your servant be blessed forever.”

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David's response to the LORD's covenant with him is important for us to study too.  David is so overcome by the LORD's words that he has to sit down in a posture of humiliation (not normal for a king in that day whose head was always supposed to be higher than everyone else's in the room).  David is humbled that the LORD has brought him thus far in his life, and while this is a big thing to David, David admits that this is a small thing for the LORD (since He is infinite in all His attributes, then any of our issues are miniscule compared to what He is capable of).

It is great for David to know that he will have generations upon generations of descendants, and that his family will never die off (something every patriarch has wished for).  David knows that it is only by the greatness of the LORD's own heart that any of this can come to pass (David knows he's not good enough and none of his future descendants will be good enough to earn or keep this covenant if it was a covenant of works).

Then David remembered all that the LORD had done for Israel and what had made them special--they are the people that the LORD had redeemed.  That is the same thing that is unique and identifies the people of the LORD today.  All those who are in Christ have been redeemed by Him.  So we too can look back at David's reflection here and say "That's me too" if we are counted among the redeemed.  We may not have been redeemed out of slavery in Egypt, but we were redeemed out of the slavery to sin.  At that point in their history, the LORD took a people who were not a nation, and made them a nation.  He became their God and they became His people and they were foreigners and aliens moving towards a Promised Land that He had prepared for them (that is not that different from our story today).  All this was done by the will of the LORD when He established His people by the mighty works of His own hand (the plagues that He sent upon Egypt and His parting of the Red Sea to let them cross over from slavery to freedom and from death to life).

David asks that the LORD confirm the promise that has been made to him (that it be made obvious to the other people and nations and not just a personal revelation that he received, but no one else would believe) so that the name of the LORD would b magnified and praised among the nations and so it would be known among all the nations that "The LORD of Hosts is the God of Israel."  "The LORD of Hosts" is another way to say "The God of all the stars and angelic beings" and is equivalent to saying "God Almighty."  He is "LORD of Heaven and Earth."  David's interest here is not really in himself, but that the Name of the LORD might be praised and exalted.  It is one thing for David to understand and praise the LORD by himself, but it would be quite another when all Israel would understand and join in worship and celebration, and still yet another thing when all the nations of the world would understand and people from every tribe, tongue and nation would join together to praise the LORD--this is the image we get in the book of Revelation when there are redeemed people from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

David repeats the LORD's words back to them and says that these words are good (he believes they will come true because the LORD has spoken them).  He just prays that his house may continue to be obedient and be a blessing to the LORD (we know that's not going to happen, but the LORD will be faithful to preserve His covenant anyways).  David wants all of his descendants to experience the LORD's blessing--I think it is fair to say that some of them will experience something similar, but I believe that the LORD had a special relationship with David that no other man could expect to have.  However, every person on the earth now has been blessed by the LORD fulfilling this covenant through the person of Jesus Christ.


Luke 2:10-11
English Standard Version
10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ​(emphasis added)