Dedicated to the Lord

2 Samuel 7:18-8:16

Good morning! Today we continue our series on King David. I want to start by reviewing a bit of last week’s message and passage, delivered powerfully by Fred. Last week’s message focused on the first half of 2 Samuel 7. The passage begins by describing King David as at last able to rest, as the neighboring lands are not attacking Israel at present. He is resting comfortably in his palace and realizes that, meanwhile, the ark of God remains in a tent. He realizes that this is not right, and so he mentions this to Nathan the prophet. Nathan tells him to go do as he sees fit about the problem, but that night God came to Nathan to tell him that no, this was not to be a task for David. Instead, it would be a task for one to come after him.

I believe David’s heart was absolutely in the right place. But God had a different plan for David. Here is what He told David through Nathan:

Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth. And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies. – 2 Samuel 7:9-11a

God told David, you want to build a house for Me, but no, I am going to build a house for your people, for the people I have set you to lead.

I think it is helpful to look at this exchange through an honor-shame perspective. It is especially helpful here because it is a type of situation where our culture makes the exact same error that David makes. 

You may recall that we have talked about patronage as a critical component of an honor-shame culture. A patron is someone of power and influence who provides tangible benefits to those “under” him (called his clients) and in exchange only expects his clients to spread far and wide the praise of his name, to tell of his deeds of kindness and generosity, to increase his honor through raising his reputation.

In a patron-client relationship the roles of patron and client are clearly defined. It is not a relationship between equals. It would be highly inappropriate for a client to try to repay a patron, because providing tangible benefits is solely the role of the patron, never the client. In fact, trying to repay a patron would be viewed as an attempt by the client to take over and become the patron by “knocking down” the honor status of the patron.

Now, in our culture, we do this all the time. Someone treats us to dinner, so we make sure to treat them to dinner next time. We insist on it! That’s fine if everyone involved has the same cultural values you do. But if you do this to someone in an honor-shame culture, they would describe what you are doing as insulting them, dishonoring them, and even attacking them.

So let’s look again at what David is doing. He is looking at God, the highest patron of all, and rather than simply praising Him, decides that, now that he is king, he will be patron to God. After all, God needs a palace of his own, so David will be the one to make it for Him.

So how does God respond? As we see in this passage, God is very gracious and kind. He does not confront David angrily. Instead God explains to David that as to His being a patron, He is just getting started!  God tells Him, I am not just making you a home, David. Rather, I am making a home for all your people! He goes on:

The Lord declares to you that the Lord Himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be My son. – 2 Samuel 7:11b-14a

From an honor-shame perspective, this presents a problem, one which, no doubt, David himself wondered about. Why would David’s offspring be permitted to build a house for God when David himself would not?

Let’s first get out of the way the idea that Solomon alone fulfills this promise. There is a sense in which Solomon partially fulfills this promise, as Solomon builds the Temple, and God’s Shekinah presence does in fact reside there after it is built. But neither Solomon nor his throne nor even the Temple itself remained established forever.

The deeper fulfillment of this passage is Christ, God’s eternal Son. From an honor-shame perspective, this then makes sense. Only Christ, one of the Persons of God, eternal, without sin, has an honor status appropriate to build a house for God the Father. Neither David nor Solomon nor anyone else could have even a tiny fraction of the honor appropriate to do this.

Yet there is another aspect of honor and shame that is relevant here, and this aspect does apply to David: familial honor. One’s honor status is a combination of the honor you build for yourself based on your actions over a lifetime and on the honor of your family, your parents, grandparents, and so on. Again, this is foreign to us, at least we like to think so. I’m going to come back to this at the end of the message.

When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before Me; your throne will be established forever.’” – 2 Samuel 7:14b-16. 

Now, Fred did a great job discussing the apparent conflict with viewing the fulfillment of this passage as Christ and with the idea of punishment for doing wrong. As Fred explained, we are the fulfillment in a way of this passage as well, as Christ lives in us. We bear His name and thus, His reputation. And God promises to discipline us because He loves us. And His love will never be taken away from us.

I believe this is one correct interpretation of the passage. But there are often multiple correct interpretations of passages, especially prophetic ones, and I have a slightly different take on this. The “when” in the beginning of this passage is not really there in the Hebrew. Or to be more precise, the Hebrew isn’t precise. It’s more like, “For any wrongdoing, I will punish him…” It doesn’t mean that wrongdoing has to occur. It is simply stating what will happen if any wrongdoing does occur. And in fact, the King James Version uses “if” rather than when.

As we know, Jesus was punished in exactly this fashion. Does this mean that Jesus did wrong, that He sinned? No!!! What it means is that the actions taken against Jesus were more inappropriate than they could have been for any person who ever lived. Everyone who has ever lived (other than Jesus) has sinned, and so, one could say that, if they ended up in a situation like that, that maybe the actions taken were God’s way of bringing justice to that person. Or as Fred explained, it could be a form of loving correction to people He loves.   

So maybe for someone else back then these actions might have been appropriately interpreted as God’s justice. But not for Christ! The actions taken against him were completely and totally inappropriate. Christ committed no crime; He never sinned at all. There was never even a hint of iniquity in anything He ever did. And so the act of flogging Him was the greatest miscarriage of justice in the history of the entire universe.

But God used this miscarriage of justice to do something utterly amazing:

Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered Him punished by God, stricken by Him, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. – Isaiah 53:4-6

Here we have the very heart of the gospel. Indeed, because the actions taken against Christ were the greatest miscarriage of justice in the history of the universe, God took the results of that punishment and transferred it to us. Christ took our punishment upon Himself, and in so doing, reconciled us with God. How amazing!

God prepared a home for David’s people, but even more, through Christ He has prepared an eternal home for us, a home in Him. And, coming back to that honor-shame perspective, it would be utterly inappropriate for us to want to “pay Him back” in any way. Not only is it ludicrous to think that we could do so in even a tiny proportion of what He has done for us, it is also inappropriate. He is our Patron, our Lord, our Savior, and our God, and in response, we praise Him, tell everyone of His goodness and greatness, and we make His name great. We magnify His name. 

Let’s turn back to David. God tells him, “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before Me; your throne will be established forever.”  This is an incredible gift! How does David respond? Does he continue to try to give to God? No, certainly not. Instead, he responds, appropriately, with praise and worship. Let us look at his entire response:

Then King David went in and sat before the Lord, and he said: “Who am I, Sovereign Lord, and what is my family, that You have brought me this far? And as if this were not enough in Your sight, Sovereign Lord, You have also spoken about the future of the house of Your servant—and this decree, Sovereign Lord, is for a mere human! – 2 Samuel 7:18-19

“What more can David say to You? For You know Your servant, Sovereign Lord. For the sake of Your word and according to Your will, You have done this great thing and made it known to Your servant. – 2 Samuel 7:20-21

“How great You are, Sovereign Lord! There is no one like You, and there is no God but You, as we have heard with our own ears. And who is like Your people Israel—the one nation on earth that God went out to redeem as a people for Himself, and to make a name for Himself, and to perform great and awesome wonders by driving out nations and their gods from before Your people, whom You redeemed from Egypt? You have established Your people Israel as Your very own forever, and You, Lord, have become their God. – 2 Samuel 7:22-24

“And now, Lord God, keep forever the promise You have made concerning Your servant and his house. Do as You promised, so that Your name will be great forever. Then people will say, ‘The Lord Almighty is God over Israel!’ And the house of Your servant David will be established in Your sight. – 2 Samuel 7:25-26

“Lord Almighty, God of Israel, You have revealed this to Your servant, saying, ‘I will build a house for you.’ So Your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to You. Sovereign Lord, You are God! Your covenant is trustworthy, and You have promised these good things to Your servant. Now be pleased to bless the house of Your servant, that it may continue forever in Your sight; for You, Sovereign Lord, have spoken, and with Your blessing the house of Your servant will be blessed forever.” – 2 Samuel 7:27-29

It is hard to think of a more beautiful, more perfect prayer anywhere in the Bible than this prayer. It perfectly embodies a humble, grateful, worshipful spirit. It focuses on God more than on self. And it perfectly captures the essence of the role of the client in a patron-client relationship – to make the patron’s name great!

I would love to give you a homework assignment (even though it is summer break)! Take this prayer as a template and write your own that expresses your own thanks to God. It actually needs very little modification. Just like with Israel, God went out again to redeem a people for Himself, this time sacrificing not innocent lambs but the Lamb of God, the Son of God, Christ Himself. And we are the utterly undeserving but amazingly blessed results of that action. We too have promises about eternity. And so we too should want to proclaim His name to the world, to make His name great.

The essential difference between the redemption of Israel and our redemption is that Israel’s redemption was only available to the Israelites in Egypt at that time, whereas the redemption bought through the blood of Christ is available now to anyone and everyone who repents and submits to Christ. And so our goal is not to hear people say “Look at what a great God the Israelites have!” but instead “Look at what a great God we all have!”

Continuing on into Chapter 8:

In the course of time, David defeated the Philistines and subdued them, and he took Metheg Ammah from the control of the Philistines. – 2 Samuel 8:1

Let’s stop there for a second. This is just one sentence, but let it sink in. The Israelites have been fighting the Philistines for centuries, and they have been mostly losing to them! Here we see God’s fulfilling His promise to David. Metheg Ammah, by the way is another name for Gath. (we know this by comparing with I Chron. 18:1.) Literally, it means the “bridle of the mother” or “bridle of the mother city” meaning the most powerful, or capitol, city.

David also defeated the Moabites. He made them lie down on the ground and measured them off with a length of cord. Every two lengths of them were put to death, and the third length was allowed to live. So the Moabites became subject to David and brought him tribute. – 2 Samuel 8:2

We do not know for certain, but presumably this means the Moabite soldiers. There is little information here, but we know that relations with the Moabites seemed to be better earlier in David’s life, as David had even entrusted his mother and father to the king of Moab when he was being pursued by Saul (I Samuel 22:3-4). Bringing tribute was a common way to end hostilities and it also avoided requiring David to have an army stay behind to control the people. The idea is that David would leave the people alone to govern themselves as long as they didn’t start up hostilities and again and came on a specified schedule to provide tribute to the king.

Moreover, David defeated Hadadezer son of Rehob, king of Zobah, when he went to restore his monument at the Euphrates River. David captured a thousand of his chariots, seven thousand charioteers and twenty thousand foot soldiers. He hamstrung all but a hundred of the chariot horses. – 2 Samuel 8:3-4

Hamstringing horses sounds cruel, but it allows the horses to live. It was probably a military necessity for David because his army could not handle that many horses and could not just let them go free because they would go back to their owners.

Note that this victory means that David’s kingdom now went all the way to the Euphrates River, a fulfillment of prophecy all the way back to Abraham (Genesis 15:18).

When the Arameans of Damascus came to help Hadadezer king of Zobah, David struck down twenty-two thousand of them. He put garrisons in the Aramean kingdom of Damascus, and the Arameans became subject to him and brought tribute. The Lord gave David victory wherever he went. – 2 Samuel 8:5-6

Another ancient enemy was defeated. David’s territory now includes Syria.

David took the gold shields that belonged to the officers of Hadadezer and brought them to Jerusalem. From Tebah and Berothai, towns that belonged to Hadadezer, King David took a great quantity of bronze. – 2 Samuel 8:7-8

Was this about making David look great? Only indirectly. God had promised David that he would bless and expand his kingdom, and David had responded that he would proclaim the greatness of God. We have no reason to think that anything different happened, but we also need to acknowledge that David was human and fame, wealth, and power are very difficult temptations, as they tempt those with these things to boast in themselves rather than in God. Ultimately we will see David fall from temptation, but not yet.

When Tou king of Hamath heard that David had defeated the entire army of Hadadezer, he sent his son Joram to King David to greet him and congratulate him on his victory in battle over Hadadezer, who had been at war with Tou. Joram brought with him articles of silver, of gold and of bronze. King David dedicated these articles to the Lord, as he had done with the silver and gold from all the nations he had subdued: Edom and Moab, the Ammonites and the Philistines, and Amalek. He also dedicated the plunder taken from Hadadezer son of Rehob, king of Zobah. – 2 Samuel 8:9-12

This is such a dramatic change from the series of defeats in the time of Saul that concluded with the death of Saul and his family. In contrast to Saul, David had submitted to God, and now God had made the nations around David that were hostile to Israel fall and submit to Israel. Furthermore, He had caused those who were not hostile to Israel to recognize Israel as the lone “superpower” in the region and to make peace treaties with them.

What does it mean to dedicate precious items to the Lord? This is not normally something we do. Most importantly, it meant that David did not refer to these things as “mine.” David was the caretaker of them (or perhaps he gave them to the priests for safe keeping), but he did not see himself as the owner of them.

This is a healthy view of possessions even for us today. Ultimately, we own nothing. We are only stewards of our stuff, and we are expected to be wise and generous stewards. Rather than continually acquiring stuff to make us happy, we should ask how our possessions can be used to make God’s name great.

And David became famous after he returned from striking down eighteen thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt. He put garrisons throughout Edom, and all the Edomites became subject to David. The Lord gave David victory wherever he went. – 2 Samuel 8:13-14

Again, David is blessed by God and the Israelites’ territory expands. The Valley of Salt is believed to be on the south of the Dead Sea, a very barren place. In the case of Edom, the people seem to have been unwilling to fully yield and simply bring tribute, so David created little military bases throughout the Edomite land to ensure that the people not rise up against them again.

David reigned over all Israel, doing what was just and right for all his people. Joab son of Zeruiah was over the army; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was recorder; Zadok son of Ahitub and Ahimelek son of Abiathar were priests; Seraiah was secretary; Benaiah son of Jehoiada was over the Kerethites and Pelethites; and David’s sons were priests. – 2 Samuel 8:15-18

What a contrast between the kingdom of David son of Jesse and the kingdom of Saul son of Kish! What is the difference? David’s heart. He was truly a man after God’s own heart, at least during this period of his life. The Lord’s name indeed became great, as the world around David saw the blessing of God on David and his people.

I want to spend my remaining time coming back to the theme of honor and shame. Recall that there are two main types of honor that combine to give your honor status, the honor you build for yourself based on your own actions and your familial honor, the honor that is based on your family.

I have been thinking about the events throughout the country this week and even beyond that were precipitated by what the world views as the most dishonoring thing imaginable, to put your knee to the neck of another person. As people of color have risen up to protest the behavior of the police officers involved in the event that caused the death of George Floyd, I was struck by how people have such radically different views of Mr. Floyd from an honor-shame perspective. On the one hand you have people who look at the event that led to his being apprehended, the alleged use of a counterfeit bill. Although it doesn’t seem that George resisted arrest exactly, he did struggle against being put in a squad car because he said he was claustrophobic. People might look at this critically and say you always do whatever the police say to do. These people might also look critically at the results of George’s drug tests which showed that he had used a variety of recreational drugs in his past.

But when you listen to his family you hear a very different picture of George. At the funeral service, his youngest brother said, “He was teaching us how to be a man because he was in this world before us.” He also said, “I want you guys to know that he would stand up against any injustice anywhere.” Another brother described him as “like a general.” He also said, “Every day, he walks outside, there would be a line of people ... wanting to greet him, wanting to have fun with him.” This brother also talked about the fun of making banana mayonnaise sandwiches together; it was something George invented and it became a family thing. And Floyd’s nephew said Floyd was “loving and caring, and someone I could count on no matter what.” Again, what strikes me is the contrast: kind of a washed-up loser from one perspective, but a loving family man and a leader from another.

Coming back to King David, I guess what strikes me here is that God chose to bless him in this amazing manner despite knowing the future, knowing about Bathsheba and what David would try to do to get rid of her husband. (And David’s issues weren’t limited to Bathsheba; as we have gone through the life of David in this series and the previous one about David and Saul, we have seen multiple times where David’s behavior was, at best, questionable.) But God chose to bless him anyway. We see this throughout Scripture, from people like the prostitute Rahab having the honor of being in the family tree of Christ, to how Jesus Himself graciously treated prostitutes and tax collectors and others that society deemed as the lowest of the low.

We can argue about what the proper role should be, if anything, of government to try to deal with racism, but if you talk with people of color, it is hard to come to the conclusion that racism doesn’t still exist. It does. I have seen it firsthand. I have talked with racists, and I have personally witnessed racism against people of color.  

What can we do? We can go out of our way to treat people of color with respect, with honor. These protests are really about honor as much as they are about anything else. That picture of a knee to the neck is a powerful symbol of shame. Honor is something we can give to people even when they are a mixed bag, as George certainly was (and as David also was).

And there is nothing more honoring than respectfully and lovingly presenting the true story of the amazing love of Christ to those who have not yet given their lives to Him. I have no idea if George Floyd was a Christ follower, but I do know that George was made in the image of God and that God wanted him to repent and turn over his life to Him, as He wants everyone to do. He wants none to perish apart from Him. I know it is much harder in the age of Covid, but I encourage you, as you find opportunity, to reach out to a person of color, and first, treat them with honor, and then, as the Spirit leads, to tell them about the One whose honor is far above every man, even far above every king, even far above King David.