'Then went king David in, and sat before the Lord, and he said, Who am
I, O Lord God? and what is my house, that Thou hast brought me
hitherto? 19. And this was yet a small thing in Thy sight, O Lord God;
but Thou hast spoken also of Thy servant's house for a great while to
come. And is this the manner of man, O Lord God? 20. And what can David
say more unto Thee? for Thou, Lord God, knowest Thy servant. 21. For
Thy word's sake, and according to Thine own heart, hast Thou done all
these great things, to make Thy servant know them. 22. Wherefore Thou
art great, O Lord God: for there is none like Thee, neither is there
any God besides Thee, according to all that we have heard with our
ears. 23. And what one nation in the earth is like Thy people, even
like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to Himself, and to
make Him a name, and to do for you great things and terrible, for Thy
land, before Thy people, which Thou redeemedst to Thee from Egypt, from
the nations and their gods? 24. For Thou hast confirmed to Thyself Thy
people Israel to be a people unto Thee for ever: and Thou, Lord, art
become their God. 25. And now, O Lord God, the word that Thou hast
spoken concerning Thy servant, and concerning his house, establish it
for ever, and do as Thou hast said. 26. And let Thy name be magnified
for ever, saying, The Lord of hosts is the God over Israel; and let the
house of Thy servant David be established before Thee. 27. For Thou, O
Lord of hosts, God of Israel, hast revealed to Thy servant, saying, I
will build thee an house: therefore hath Thy servant found in his heart
to pray this prayer unto Thee. 28. And now, O Lord God, Thou art that
God, and Thy words be true, and Thou hast promised this goodness unto
Thy servant: 29. Therefore now let it please Thee to bless the house of
Thy servant, that it may continue for ever before Thee: for Thou, O
Lord God, hast spoken it: and with Thy blessing let the house of Thy
servant be blessed for ever.'--2 SAMUEL vii. 18-29.
God's promise by Nathan of the perpetuity of the kingdom in David's
house made an era in the progress of revelation. A new element was
thereby added to devout hope, and a new object presented to faith. The
prophecy of the Messiah entered upon a new stage, bearing a relation,
as its successive stages always did, to the history which supplies a
framework for it. Now, for the first time, He can be set forth as the
king of Israel; now the width of the promise, which at first embraced
the seed of the woman, and then was limited to the seed of Abraham, and
thereafter to the tribe of Judah, is still further limited to the house
of David. The beam is narrowed as it is focussed into greater
brilliance, and the personal Messiah begins to be faintly discerned in
words which are to have a partial, preparatory fulfilment, in itself
prophetic, in the collective Davidic monarchs whose office is itself a
prophecy. This passage is the wonderful burst of praise which sprang
from David's heart in answer to Nathan's words. In many of the Psalms
later than this prophecy we find clear traces of that expectation of
the personal Messiah, which gradually shaped itself, under divine
inspiration, in David, as contained in Nathan's message But this
thanksgiving prayer, which was the immediate reflection of the
astounding new message, has not yet penetrated its depth nor discovered
its rich contents, but sees in it only the promise of the continuance
of kingship in his descendants. We do not learn the fulness of God's
gracious promises on first hearing them. Life and experience and the
teaching of His Spirit are needed to enable us to count our treasure,
and we are richer than we know.
This prayer is a prose psalm outside the Psalter. It consists of two
parts,--a burst of astonished thanksgiving and a stream of earnest
petition, grasping the divine promise and turning it into a prayer.
I. Note the burst of thanksgiving (vs. 18-24). The ark dwelt 'in
curtains,' and into the temporary sanctuary went the king with his full
heart. The somewhat peculiar attitude of sitting, while he poured it
out to God, has offended some punctilious commentators, who will have
it that we should translate 'remained,' and not 'sat'; but there is no
need for the change. The decencies of public worship may require a
posture which expresses devotion; but individual communion is free from
such externals, and absorbed contemplation naturally disposes of the
body so as least to hinder the spirit. The tone of almost bewildered
surprise at the greatness of the gift is strong all through the prayer.
The man's breath is almost taken away, and his words are sometimes
broken, and throughout palpitating with emotion. Yet there is a plain
progress of feeling and thought in them, and they may serve as a
pattern of thanksgiving. Note the abrupt beginning, as if pent-up
feeling forced its way, regardless of forms of devotion. The first
emotion excited by God's great goodness is the sense of unworthiness.
'I do not deserve it,' is the instinctive answer of the heart to any
lavish human kindness, and how much more to God's! 'I am not worthy of
the least of all the mercies,' springs to the devout lips most swiftly,
when gazing on His miracles of bestowing love. He must know little of
himself, and less of God, who is not most surely melted down to
contrition, which has no bitterness or pain in it, by the coals of
loving fire heaped by God on his head.
The consciousness of unworthiness passes, in verse 19, to adoring
contemplation of God's astounding mercy, and especially of the new
element in Nathan's prophecy,--the perpetuity of the Davidic
sovereignty in the dim, far-off future. Thankfulness delights to praise
the Giver for the greatness of His gift. Faith strengthens its hold of
its blessings by telling them over, as a miser does his treasure. To
recount them to God is the way to possess them more fully.
The difficult close of the verse cannot be discussed here. 'The law for
man' is nearer the literal meaning of the words than 'the manner of
men' (Rev. Ver.); and, unfortunately, man's manner is not the same as
man's law. But the usual explanations are unsatisfactory. We would
hazard the suggestion that 'this' means that which God has spoken 'of
thy servant's house,' and that to call it 'the law for man' is
equivalent to an expression of absolute confidence in the authority,
universality, and certain fulfilment of the promise. The speech of God
is ever the law for man, and this new utterance stands on a level with
the older law, and shall rule all mankind. The king's faith not only
gazes on the great words of promise, but sees them triumphant on earth.
Then in verse 20 comes another bend of the stream of praise. The more
full the heart, the more is it conscious of the weakness of all words.
The deepest praise, like the truest love, speaks best in silence. It is
blessed when, in earthly relations, we can trust our dear ones'
knowledge of us to interpret our poor words. It is more blessed when,
in our speech to God, we can feel that our love and faith are deeper
than our word, and that He does not judge them by it, but it by them.
'Silence is His least injurious praise.'
Here, too, we may note the two instances, in this verse, of what runs
through the whole prayer,--David's avoidance of using 'I.' Except in
the lowly 'What am I?' at the beginning, it never occurs; but he calls
himself 'David' twice and 'Thy servant' ten times,--a striking, because
unconscious, proof of his lowly sense of unworthiness.
But he can say more; and what he does further say goes yet deeper than
his former words. The personal aspect of the promise retreats into the
background, and the ground of all God's mercy in His 'own heart' fills
the thoughts. Some previous promise, perhaps that through Samuel, is
referred to; but the great truth that God is His own motive, and that
His love is not drawn forth by our deserts, but wells up by its own
energy, like a perennial fountain, is the main thought of the verse.
God is self-moved to bless, and He blesses that we may know Him through
His gifts. The one thought is the central truth, level to our
apprehension, concerning His nature; the other is the key to the
meaning of all His workings. All comes to pass because He loves with a
self-originated love, and in order that we may know the motive and
principle of His acts. We can get no farther into the secret of God
than that. We need nothing more for peaceful acceptance of His
providences for ourselves and our brethren. All is from love; all is
for the manifestation of love. He who has learned these truths sits at
the centre and lives in light.
Verse 22 strikes a new note. The effect of God's dealing with David is
to magnify His name, to teach His incomparable greatness, and to
confirm by experience ancient words which celebrate it. The thankful
heart rejoices in hearsay being changed into personal knowledge. 'As we
have heard, so have we seen.' Old truths flash up into new meaning, and
only he who tastes and sees that God is good to him to-day really
enters into the sweetness of His recorded past goodness.
Note the widening of David's horizon in verses 23 and 24 to embrace all
Israel. His blessings are theirs. He feels his own relation to them as
the culmination of the long series of past deliverances, and at the
same time loses self in joy over Israel's confirmation as God's people
by his kingship. True thankfulness regards personal blessings in their
bearing on others, and shrinks from selfish use of them. Note, too, the
parallel, if we may call it so, between Israel and Israel's God, in
that 'there is none like Thee,' and by reason of its choice by this
incomparable Jehovah, no nation on earth is like 'Thy people, even like
Israel.'
Thus steadily does this model of thanksgiving climb up from a sense of
unworthiness, through adoration and gazing on its treasures, to God's
unmotived love as His impulse, and men's knowledge of that love as His
aim, and pauses at last, rapt and hushed, before the solitary loftiness
of the incomparable God, and the mystery of the love, which has
intertwined the personal blessings which it celebrates, with its great
designs for the welfare of the people, whose unique position
corresponds to the unapproachable elevation of its God.
II. Verses 25 to 29 are prayer built on promise and winged by
thankfulness. The whole of these verses are but the expansion of 'do as
Thou hast said.' But they are not vain repetitions. Rather they are the
outpourings of wondering thankfulness and faith, that cannot turn away
from dwelling on the miracle of mercy revealed to it unworthy. God
delights in the sweet monotony and persistence of such reiterated
prayers, each of which represents a fresh throb of desire and a renewed
bliss in thinking of His goodness. Observe the frequency and variety of
the divine names in these verses,--in each, one, at least: Jehovah God
(v. 25); Jehovah of hosts (v. 26); Jehovah of hosts, God of Israel (v.
27); Lord Jehovah (vs. 28, 29). Strong love delights to speak the
beloved name. Each fresh utterance of it is a fresh appeal to His
revealed nature, and betokens another wave of blessedness passing over
David's spirit as he thinks of God. Observe, also, the other repetition
of 'Thy servant,' which occurs in every verse, and twice in two of
them. The king is never tired of realising his absolute subjection, and
feels that it is dignity, and a blessed bond with God, that he should
be His servant. The true purpose of honour and office bestowed by God
is the service of God, and the name of 'servant' is a plea with Him
which He cannot but regard. Observe, too, how echoes of the promise
ring all through these verses, especially the phrases 'establish the
house' and 'for ever.' They show how profoundly David had been moved,
and how he is labouring, as it were, to make himself familiar with the
astonishing vista that has begun to open before his believing eyes.
Well is it for us if we, in like manner, seek to fix our thoughts on
the yet grander 'for ever' disclosed to us, and if it colours all our
look ahead, and makes the refrain of all our hopes and prayers.
But the main lesson of the prayer is that God's promise should ever be
the basis and measure of prayer. The mould into which our petitions
should run is, 'Do as Thou hast said.' Because God's promise had come
to David, 'therefore hath Thy servant found in his heart to pray this
prayer unto Thee.' There is no presumption in taking God at His word.
True prayer catches up the promises that have fallen from heaven, and
sends them back again, as feathers to the arrows of its petitions. Nor
does the promise make the prayer needless. We know that 'if we ask
anything according to His will, He heareth us'; and we know that we
shall not receive the promised blessings, which are according to His
will, unless we do ask. Let us seek to stretch our desires to the width
of God's promises, and to confine our wishes within their bounds.