A House Forever

Read it: 2 Samuel 7; 2 Samuel 11–12; Psalm 51

For years David was on the run from a jealous Saul, hiding in caves and deserts. Then Saul died in battle, and David became king, first of his own tribe of Judah and then of all Israel. He captured Jerusalem, made it his capital and brought the ark of the covenant there with dancing and music. Now, the Bible says, the LORD “had given him rest from all his enemies around him” (2 Samuel 7:1).

David’s plan, God’s promise

Sitting in his new palace, David had an idea. “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent” (2 Samuel 7:2). He wanted to build God a proper house: a temple. The prophet Nathan said, go ahead. But that night God gave Nathan a different message: “Are you the one to build for Me a house to dwell in?” (2 Samuel 7:5).

Then God turned the idea upside down, with a play on the word “house”. David wouldn’t build God a house. God would build David one, not a building, but a family line, a dynasty: “The LORD declares to you that He Himself will establish a house for you” (2 Samuel 7:11). One of David’s sons would build the temple, and God promised, “I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (2 Samuel 7:13). And to David: “Your house and kingdom will endure forever before Me, and your throne will be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16).

This is one of the hinges of the whole Bible. Follow the promise so far. To Eve: an offspring who would crush the serpent. To Abraham: a family through whom all nations would be blessed. Now to David: a king from his family whose reign would never end. The promise is narrowing to one line, and one Person.

David was overwhelmed: “Who am I, O Lord GOD, and what is my house, that You have brought me this far?” (2 Samuel 7:18).

The worst chapter of his life

Four chapters later, the man who received that promise did something terrible.

“In the spring, at the time when kings march out to war,” the story begins, David sent his army out to fight, “but David remained in Jerusalem” (2 Samuel 11:1). He was where he shouldn’t have been, doing nothing. From his palace roof he saw a woman bathing. Her name was Bathsheba, and she was married to Uriah, one of David’s most loyal soldiers, who was away at the front. David sent for her and slept with her. She was not in a position to refuse a king. It was adultery, and it was a powerful man using his power to take what he wanted.

She became pregnant. David tried to cover it up. He called Uriah home from the war, hoping he would spend the night with his wife and think the baby was his. But Uriah, out of loyalty to his fellow soldiers, refused to go home while they were camped in the open. So David sent him back to the army with a sealed letter to his general, Joab. It told Joab to put Uriah in the fiercest fighting and then pull back from him. Uriah carried his own death sentence, and he died. When the mourning was over, David married Bathsheba. “But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the LORD” (2 Samuel 11:27).

Lust, abuse of power, lies and murder, from the man God had called “a man after His own heart”. The Bible doesn’t hide its heroes’ sins. That is one reason you can trust it.

God sent Nathan back to the palace, this time with a story. A rich man with huge flocks had a guest to feed. Instead of using one of his own sheep, he took a poor man’s only lamb, a pet the poor man’s family loved like a daughter, and served it up. David was furious: “As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die!” (2 Samuel 12:5).

Nathan looked at him. “You are that man!” (2 Samuel 12:7). Then he gave God’s verdict: “You put Uriah the Hittite to the sword and took his wife as your own” (2 Samuel 12:9).

David could have had Nathan killed. Instead he broke. “I have sinned against the LORD” (2 Samuel 12:13), he said. And Nathan answered with astonishing news: God had taken away his sin, and he would not die. Forgiven, but, as with Israel in the wilderness, not spared every consequence. The baby died, and violence and grief tore through David’s family for the rest of his life.

A prayer from the wreckage

Psalm 51 is the prayer David wrote afterwards. Its heading says it was written “When Nathan the prophet came to him after his adultery with Bathsheba.” It begins, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your loving devotion; according to Your great compassion, blot out my transgressions” (Psalm 51:1). When he says, “Against You, You only, have I sinned” (Psalm 51:4), he isn’t pretending Bathsheba and Uriah weren’t wronged. He is admitting that every wrong against people made in God’s image is, in the end, a wrong against God.

Then he asks for more than a clean record: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). He remembers what happened to Saul and pleads, “take not Your Holy Spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11). And he knows what God wants from him now. Not a show of religion, but honesty: “a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise” (Psalm 51:17).

Where Jesus is in this

When the angel Gabriel came to Mary, he spoke in the language of 2 Samuel 7: “The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end!” (Luke 1:32–33). Paul preached that “From the descendants of this man, God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as He promised” (Acts 13:23). David’s sons all failed in some way. Even David failed. The forever King had to be someone different: David’s descendant, but without David’s sin.

And David’s forgiveness points to ours. Paul quotes another of David’s psalms to show how God forgives sinners who trust Him rather than their own record: “Blessed are they whose lawless acts are forgiven, whose sins are covered” (Romans 4:7). David could be forgiven, though he deserved to die, because one day his greater Son would die in the place of sinners like him, and like us.

Think about it: Psalm 51 shows a person being completely honest with God about the worst thing he ever did. Is there anything you have been hiding from God, or covering up, that you need to bring to Him the way David finally did?

Go deeper: The Holy Spirit, or Power from on High by A. B. Simpson — starting from David’s prayer in Psalm 51, “Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me”, Simpson sets Saul and David side by side, two men who both received God’s Spirit, and shows how David rose from the dark valley after Uriah and Bathsheba by honest repentance and trust in God’s love. Start with chapter 13, “The Holy Spirit in the Lives of Saul and David”.