Transcript
From 2 Samuel 7, “You tell David this for me: Did I ask you to build me a house? I’ve always lived in a tent, ever since I brought Israel out of Egypt. In all this time, hundreds of years, have I ever said, ‘Why haven’t you built me a house of cedar?’” May I speak in the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Jesus being the exception, the Bible tells us more about David than it tells us about anyone else. He’s such a larger than life person that we can see so much of ourselves in him.
Our text begins, “Now when the king sat in his house, and YHWH had given him rest all around from all his enemies...” Rest is ‘a thing’ in the Bible, from the sabbath rest of the Creator to Jesus saying, “Come to me . . . and I will give you rest.” God wants to give us rest and indeed gives it to David, and David doesn’t seem to know what to do with it. In this chapter—one of the most important chapters in the Bible, especially for the way it ends—David keeps trying to secure the very thing God is giving him “on the house.” All the heartache and tragedy that marks David’s life is bound up in just this one thing: David’s inability to let himself rest in God.
Like all religious people who want to get things done, David has a plan to make himself more secure and he includes God in his plan. And God says to Nathan his prophet, “Have I ever said, Why haven’t you built me a house of cedar?” (I love it when God talks this way!)
As one of my teachers, Ellen Davis, writes, “A house of cedar—that is the key term in this exchange between David and God. They’re talking giant timbers. Great cedar trees suitable for building a house for a god were found not in the hills immediately around Jerusalem but rather 100 miles to the north, in the mountains of Lebanon. Ancient Near Eastern kings imported cedars of Lebanon as routinely as national leaders in our age import Middle Eastern oil, and for the same reason: access to power. In David’s world, if you could get cedar, you could be a player. You could build tall-masted ships and engage in international trade on a grand scale. Cedar was the luxury building material for public buildings, elegant palaces and temples redolent with the fragrance of the great north woods. According to the ancient pagan mythology of Canaan, the gods themselves lived in the cedar forests of Lebanon. In that world, the aroma of cedar was the smell of power.”
It seemed to David the right time to build a temple because of cultural conventions. All throughout the ancient near east when kings would decide to build a temple it would typically be on the other side of major victories when at last they defeated their enemies. Cyrus, for example, builds temples once he takes Babylon and destroys the Babylonian empire that was before him.
The kind of house or temple (it’s the same word, hekal, in Hebrew) that David wants to build is a permanent or immoveable one. And if the ark of the covenant is going to be placed in a permanent house that implies that we’re not going to be needing it to fight our battles for us. A tabernacle or tent moves around. The ark was taken typically into the battle to make clear that God was going to fight it, not simply the rest of us in our own strength without him. David at this point has had some remarkable victories, and he thought it was pretty well over. Abner, the enemy general of Saul originally, has died; that’s in 2 Samuel chapter 3. David’s main rival Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, has died; that’s in chapter 4. Jerusalem’s taken in chapter 5. Later in chapter 5 David has major victories over the Philistines, and in chapter 6 he presides over a worship service and brings the ark up to Jerusalem to celebrate. It seems like all of the enemies have been pacified.
What David doesn’t know is what’s going to happen in chapter 8. There are going to be five major wars or battles that David is going to be called upon to fight. It’s not peace in our time. It was a little intermission, and David thought this was time to build the temple, we don’t need the ark going out to battle.
No, you’re going to have to use the ark to go out to battle. You’re going to have to use it in chapter 10 where the Ammonite battle is going on and Uriah the Hittite, who knows his Bible, says Well the ark is out of the tabernacle, the Lord is tenting with his people. He knows what the rules about the ark are. He’s read what we call the Book of Numbers. He knows what Jesus would later teach, that there’s no marriage in heaven, which is why conjugal relations are not permitted when the ark is out among the people, so I’m not going to go home to be with my wife Bathsheba. When the ark is out of the tabernacle and amidst the people, the people become the holy of holies.
So there are battles to be fought. There will be a civil war raised by his son Absalom. So it’s not the right time, that’s for sure. But in addition, God says No to this plan not just as a matter of timing but as a matter of grace. In the ancient near east all around, kings building temples was like nowadays where politicians buy votes. Kings build temples to buy the support of their various gods. We have examples of using religion to buy support. They go back all the way to the 3rd millennium BC.
In the late 3rd millennium BC there’s Gudea, the king of Lagash, who builds a temple for Ningursu and after building it he then expects Ningursu is going to take care of the problems they’ve been having with the crops. You build a temple for a god and now you’ve won the god’s favor, you’ve ingratiated yourself to the god.
Cyrus likewise sent all the refugees back to their homelands, to displaced people, and then gave them money to build temples and repair the temples of all of his subject people hoping that that would then win the support of all of these other gods for him. Caesar Augustus in the days of Jesus, boasts how he repaired 82 temples in Rome alone, and he did that not because he believed in all those gods or needed 82 temples to attend for church services. He did it in order to win all those various religions, to win the gods’ support for him.
David needs to learn what he already should have understood, that God prepares our good works to walk in, that the grace of God our good works, before we do anything. “Tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty said, I took you from the pasture.” You didn’t have to win my blessing. Look at what I’ve done for you from the getgo. “I took you from the pasture and from following the flock to be ruler over my people Israel. I’ve been with you wherever you’ve gone.” You don’t have to win my favor. Your life is a response to my favor. I’ve been with you wherever you’ve gone. I’ve cut off all your enemies before you. Now I’m going to make your name great.
That’s the past. Now we’re going to deal with the present and the future. You’re going to be like the greatest men on earth. I’ll provide a place for my people. I’ll take care of them. I’ll plant them so they will no longer be disturbed, wicked people will no longer oppress them as they’ve done since the beginning. As for you, I know you want to build me a house because you have a house. But now God is saying—here’s the ironic reversal—“I’m going to build you a house.”
You don’t do for me, I do for you. You respond to what you cannot possibly repay. What you never deserved, I did it from the beginning. Your life then is a response of gratitude. It’s a wonderful thing that in our text there are virtually as many words in the promises that God proclaims as in the prayer that David utters. That’s how it should be. His response of prayer, and then what he does with Mephibosheth in response to God’s grace is exactly how we ought to respond to God’s grace in our lives.
I don’t suppose that David was thinking at this point about how God had actually done all of this. Taking you from the pasture and following the flock. He’s the youngest of eight children, and his father, who I’m sure loved him, didn’t think he was even worth bringing before Samuel when Samuel was having a sacrifice. Someone had to take care of the sheep. God stopped the whole party to get David there so Samuel could anoint him as king. Was he applying for that job? He hadn’t applied for it. It never occurred to him. It’s an interesting thing to have on your résumé, that you’re a farmer; now you’re qualified to rule over a kingdom.
Well, that’s what God did. I’ve been with you wherever you’ve gone, even when you went off to the Philistines, hiding from Saul, even at your worst moments! O bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. You don’t need to win God’s favor, you’ve had nothing but his favor from the beginning.
You don’t have to buy God’s love. He is the one who’s bought you. “What do you have that you did not receive,” Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 4. “And if you received it, why do you boast as if you did not. Why do you panic as if you somehow or other need to win God’s favor? I’m going to make your name great like the greatest men.” No wonder David responds, in verse 18. “Who am I, O sovereign Lord? And what is my family that you have brought me this far. And as if this were not enough, in your sight O sovereign Lord you’ve also spoken about the future.”
He’s spoken about your future. He’s told you what your future is. You’ve been given new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That’s the new future that you now have, charted out, won for you, that you didn’t deserve, and I don’t deserve, into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade, kept in heaven for you who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. And in this you greatly rejoice, though for a little while you may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.” In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Note: Chapter 7 of 2 Samuel is one of the most important or influential chapters in the biblical corpus, for from this point on in the life and scriptural imagination of God’s chosen people a servant from the house of David will be longed for. For here’s how David ends his prayer in response to the Lord’s promise: “And now, O Lord God, confirm for ever the word which thou hast spoken concerning thy servant and concerning his house, and do as thou hast spoken; and thy name will be magnified for ever, saying, ‘The Lord of hosts is God over Israel,’ and the house of thy servant David will be established before thee. For thou, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, hast made this revelation to thy servant, saying, ‘I will build you a house’; therefore thy servant has found courage to pray this prayer to thee. And now, O Lord God, thou art God, and thy words are true, and thou hast promised this good thing to thy servant; now therefore may 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, and with thy blessing shall the house of thy servant be blessed for ever.”
