David’s Descendants


2 Samuel 7:12-16     When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, and 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.  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 22:51     He is the tower of salvation to His king, and shows mercy to His anointed, to David and his descendants forevermore.

1 Kings 9:4-9em.’”    Now if you walk before Me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statues and My judgments, ten I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying ‘You shall not fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’  But if you or your sons at all turn from following Me, and do not keep My commandments and My statues which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cast out of My sight.  Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples.  And as for this house, which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and will hiss, and say, ‘Why has the LORD done thus to this land and to this house?’  Then they will answer, ‘Because they forsook the LORD their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, and worshiped them and served them; therefore, the Lord has brought all this calamity on them.

1 Kings 11:11-13     Therefore the LORD said to Solomon, “Because you have done this, and have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant.   Nevertheless, I will not do it in your days, for the sake of your father David; I will tear it out of the hand of your son.

2 Kings 2:45    But King Solomon shall be blessed, and the throne of David shall be established before the Lord forever.

2 Chronicles 7:17-18     “As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, and do according to all that I have commanded  you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, ‘You shall not fail to have a man as ruler in Israel.’

2 Chronicles 13:5     Don’t you know that the Lord, the God of Israel, has given the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever by covenant of salt?

Psalm 18:50     He gives his king great victories; he shows unfailing love to his anointed, to David and to his descendants forever.    

Psalm 132:11-12     The LORD swore an oath to David, a sure oath he will not revoke: “One of your own descendants I will place on your throne.  If your sons keep my covenant and the statutes I teach them, then their sons will sit on your throne for ever and ever.

Isaiah 9:6-7      Isaiah lived about 350 years after David reigned.

Isaiah 11:1-10    read this account—if need more proof

Isaiah 16:5     In love a throne will be established; in faithfulness a man will sit on it—one from the house of David—one who in judging seeks justice and speeds the cause of righteousness.

Jeremiah 33:17-46     a lot of verses, but God was clear a descendant of David would rule

Matthew 1     The genealogy of Jesus

Luke 1:32-33     The genealogy of Jesus  

 

I would say God is very serious about wanting us to know He made a covenant with David that IF his sons obeyed His statutes THEN He would ensure there would be a descendant of David on the throne forever.  Jesus is that descendant.   Solomon, the one who was first to succeed his father and after initially wanting to do right, live according to God and the commands—Solomon chose to mess up.  He ended up with multiple wives, not all Israelites or Hebrews, but women who worshiped false gods and idols, and sinned and even after hearing from God Himself, Solomon chose his own selfish choices rather than following God as he initially indicated he would do.

When the Israelites insisted they wanted a king so they could be like the other nations, God, knowing that they were rebuking Him, picked Saul as their first king.  He warned them they would have to serve the king, pay taxes to the king to support the royal family, many would become workers on the royal property, having nothing to little for themselves.  Their sons would be called up to be soldiers, and their daughters would be cleaners, housekeepers, cooks and so forth—not able to easily support and build their own family.

Because Saul was a weak man, and full of low self-esteem, confused when the people demanded he perform a sacrifice (which he had STRICTLY been forbade to do) and he was removed from his position by God.  He knew, Samuel, the last judge of Israel, a man who had long held God’s ear was told the kingship was being wrenched from him and would be given to David, a shepherd.

David was a man who almost always tried to live his life according to God’s plan and wishes for him.  He cared about what God said, rarely did things that displeased God, and if he did, he was immediately and sincerely repentant.  God loved David and favored him.

Because of Saul’s jealousy, he sought to kill David, so for many years David and several men lived in the wilderness protecting neighbors and their flocks of sheep or cattle from thieves.  Two separate times David had an opportunity to end the conflict and fight Saul had started between them, but twice David did not harm Saul at all.  He did make his presence known, letting Saul know he had been close and had the opportunity he could have harmed him, but had chosen not to.

After several years, once Saul and his sons were killed in a battle, the kingship was given to David, and later he became king of Jerusalem and the southern area.  He reigned for forty years, and was considered a good king, reigning in mostly peaceful times, “the golden age.”  He was a very good soldier, apparently a fair man to his men, a good strategist, and mostly tried to please the Lord.  He listened to his advisors most of the time, but occasionally he abused his position.

He spied and called one of his top soldier’s wives, slept with her, said ‘Thank ye, ma’am’ and sent her home.  Then she contacted him saying she was pregnant.  Then he tried to have her husband sleep with her when he called him from the front lines during a battle, but the husband, honorable as he was, did not go home and see his wife, and stumped, David ordered that the husband be killed in battle.  I am not sure where the man who loved and followed God was there—that was several big mistakes.

However, he certainly was not lord and king over his home.  His sons were sneaky and all out to serve themselves to include fighting between them, sneaky behavior, raping a half sister then discarding her once she was conquered, and so forth.  And Daddy David did nothing really to correct any of his sons’ behaviors.  The family was peppered with jealousy, defiance, disrespect, and undermining sneakiness.  They hurt one another caring only for their own wants and needs. 

Solomon was next to ascend the throne, although one of his elder brothers had tried to manipulate it by lying and disparaging his father, David’s advisors discovered the plot and when David was told, he crowned Solomon publicly and it therefore did go to Solomon. 

And Solomon initially sounded like he had much the same desire to do the right thing to take care of the kingdom as his father.  He did not ask for riches, more land, more servants, he asked instead for wisdom to lead and guide.  And because of that, God then granted him also riches and more. 

But Solomon tumbled into his own arrogance and did not follow God’s admonishment to not intermingle with foreign women who honored false gods and idols.  He scurried after all sorts of women, having 700 wives and many concubines.  He started worshiping false gods and because of his father’s sins and mismanagement of the home, the entire kingdom began to slowly dissolve.  First, Israel and Jerusalem split away, each having its own king, and the people paid taxes, slaved for the king and the kingdom, and the land was being swallowed up.  Eventually, Israel was taken over by the Assyrians, many captured and transported and enslaved in Assyria, including the royal family.

There were not a lot of honorable kings in Jerusalem either, but God had promised that one of David’s descendants would always be on the thrown.  Beginning with Solomon then to the last Zedekiah, in approximately 586 BC, so the family had about a 400-425 year rule.  Babylon came in and enslaved and captured and destroyed Jerusalem.  So, although there was no one in the royal line of David on the thrown, their lines and genealogy continued.

God had told David that his seed would be established forever.  He never said through which of his sons it would continue. 

Although, Joseph, Jesus’ legal father, but not biological father, was descended from Solomon, and therefore to the Jewish people, that fulfilled the prophecy of the Messiah coming from the line of David.  But in Luke, the genealogy actually reads from David to his son Nathan.  Both Solomon and Nathan were sons of David and Bathsheba.   Joseph, the human man God chose to raise His Son, Jesus, was a descendant of Solomon.  But when he married Mary, he became the son (in-law and gets equal footing to a biological son,) and Heli, Mary’s father was descended from Nathan.  So certainly, Jesus was a descendant of King David.

And for all of us who believe Jesus is God, His is the only lasting kingdom.  He has won the kingship, and we await only His return and to see His kingdom.  

What a wonderful plan You had all along, Lord.   Thank You for including me and ‘mybellaviews.’

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