Godmindfamily, Chapter 13
- May 6
- 7 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Chapter 13: The Davidic Covenant, the Son of David and the Prince of Israel
The Bible states that David will rule God’s kingdom. ‘I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David’ (Ezekiel 34:23). ‘I, Yahweh, will be their God and my servant David prince among them.’ (Ezekiel 34:24). Jesus is also called the king in Revelation 19:16.
David was anointed as king by Samuel (1 Samuel 16), making him the anointed one, and the Hebrew word Mashiach, from which we get Messiah, literally means the anointed one. Christ means the same thing. When he was anointed, God’s Spirit came to David (1 Samuel 16:13). This prefigured Jesus, who was later anointed by the Spirit of God following his baptism by John the Baptist. Micah (5:4) foretold that a Messianic ruler will come from Bethlehem, and be great to the ends of the earth. Both David and Jesus were born in Bethlehem, a relatively small town, which is not a coincidence.
When David defeated Goliath, it was with a stone hurled from his sling (1 Samuel 17:49). Jesus, the Messiah, is symbolised by the stone in Scripture (e.g. Daniel 2:32; Matthew 21:42; Psalm 118) and he was a craftsman (Mark 6:3), that is, a carpenter-stonemason. David’s harp playing had a soothing, healing effect on King Saul (1 Samuel 16), which foreshadowed the healing miracles performed by Jesus. Moreover, David was the archetypal underdog, underestimated by everyone, as demonstrated by his ability to kill Goliath, and Jesus was the stone the builder’s rejected (Matthew 21:42), the most terribly underestimated person ever to walk the earth.
The Davidic Covenant was a series of unconditional promises God made to King David. It was revealed to the prophet Nathan and passed on to David. The text runs as follows (2 Samuel 7:4–17):‘It happened the same night, that the word of Yahweh came to Nathan, saying, "Go and tell my servant David, 'Thus says Yahweh, "Shall you build me a house for me to dwell in? For I have not lived in a house since the day that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day, but have moved around in a tent and in a tabernacle. In all places in which I have walked with all the children of Israel, did I say a word to any of the tribes of Israel, whom I commanded to be shepherd of my people Israel, saying, 'Why have you not built me a house of cedar?'"' Now therefore you shall tell my servant David this, 'Thus says Yahweh of Armies, "I took you from the sheep pen, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people, over Israel. I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you. I will make you a great name, like the name of the great ones who are in the earth. I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in their own place, and be moved no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more, as at the first, and as from the day that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel. I will cause you to rest from all your enemies. Moreover Yahweh tells you that Yahweh will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled, and you shall sleep with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who shall proceed out of your bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men; but my loving kindness shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before you. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever."'" According to all these words, and according to all this vision, so Nathan spoke to David.’
The main takeaways from this covenant are that God promised King David that ‘Yahweh will build you a house’ (2 Samuel 7:11), that David’s ‘offspring’ would build a house for God, be God’s ‘son’ and receive the eternal throne of a kingdom (2 Samuel 7:12–16). God also said to David, ‘your house and your kingdom will be made sure forever before you. Your throne will be established forever.”’ (2 Samuel 7:16). The Hebrew bayit, correctly translated as ‘house’, can mean the family household or a physical home, like the English word.The Hebrew word ben used in 2 Samuel 7:14, the Davidic Covenant, can mean someone’s biological son or a descendant. So David and his Son have this eternal throne promised to them, because David in a sense was his own offspring, Jesus, due to David’s reincarnation as Jesus. Solomon was David’s biological son and heir. He built the First Temple and sat on his father’s throne (1 Chronicles 29:23), but the United Kingdom of Israel clearly was not eternal. Jesus was called ‘the Son of David’ (Luke 18:38), a title of the Messiah, with son in this sense meaning descendant. The angel announced to Mary that her son will be given the throne of David (Luke 1:32), because Jesus was David in a past life, which is why both Jesus and David himself were promised an eternal throne and a kingdom.
God promised David that ‘Yahweh will build you a house’ (2 Samuel 7:11). This means that Jesus (Yahweh) will build David a temple. Therefore David is Christ, and will build a house or temple for himself – as he said in John 2 – and govern from his throne in that temple, as is the case in Ezekiel.
The World English Bible translated Psalm 22:20 as: ‘Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog.’ The Hebrew word ye-kee-dati yechidati, which means ‘only one’ or ‘unique one’, is translated as ‘precious life’.[i] One meaning of Yek-ee-dah (Yechidah) is only child[ii] and is used as such in The Book of Judges 11:34.[iii] The ‘only-begotten’ and ‘only one’ in this context is Jesus’ only or unique child.
John the Apostle was there at the cross, alongside Mary Magdalene and The Virgin Mary (John 19:26). John was there because he was Jesus’ son. In Psalm 22:20, Jesus was praying to the Father that his unique child be spared martyrdom.
When Jesus was on the cross and saw the ‘disciple whom he loved’ (John 19:26), understood to be John, the Lord said to his mother ‘Woman, behold your son!’ (John 19:26). Jesus said to the disciple, ‘behold, your mother!’ (John 19: 27). In the original Greek, the word is huios, which can mean son, descendant, a term of endearment, or one belonging to a certain kind.[iv] The Greek word for mother used in John 19:27 is meter, and this generally means mother, but can also metaphorically mean the origin of something or someone.The received understanding of these verses is that Jesus wanted John to be a kind of adoptive son to his mother, and look after her, and for Mary to take care of John, in Jesus’ absence. This is obviously true and is reinforced by the fact John took Mary into his own home afterwards (John 19:27). John’s biological mother was not the Virgin Mary, and nor was she Salome, but a different woman. Jesus’ phenomenal love (agape) was public, for all of his sheep, and private, developed and expressed through his family relationships. But there is an additional shade of meaning.
‘Woman, behold your son’ also implies that John was Mary’s grandson, and she his grandmother. Remember that huios can mean descendant as well as son and meter can mean the origin of someone as well as ‘mother’.The identity of the Son of David must be clarified. ‘Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, “what do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “of David”. He said to them, “How then does David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying ‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit on my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’ If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?’’ (Matthew 22:42–45). The meaning here is threefold. Jesus identifies the Son of David, the Messiah – himself – with the Lord. But in the quotation from Psalm 110:1, written by King David, the Lord talks to ‘my Lord’ – there are two Lords in dialogue, God the Father and God the Son. Jesus was also asking a legitimate question of the Pharisees. He asked them how is the Messiah David’s son, if David called him Lord? The answer is that God incarnated as one of David’s descendants, Jesus, ‘the root and offspring of David’ (Revelation 22:10). Jesus is The Son of David with the eternal throne of David, and John, though he is part of the same family, typology and covenant, is merely a son of David, not the Messiah. For obvious reasons, it’s better for there to be only one king in a kingdom.
After Peter was told he must ‘follow’ (John 21:19) Jesus to Crucifixion and heaven, he asked about John’s fate, and the Lord said, ‘if I desire that he stay until I come, what is that to you?’ (John 21:22). The disciples believed this meant that John would not die (John 21:23), but Jesus did not say the beloved disciple would not die (John 21:22); in fact, John died in the reign of Trajan (98–117 AD).[v] The Lord was saying that, in contrast to the martyred Peter, John will remain alive on the earth until the Second Coming, an event that did not happen during John’s lifetime in the Roman era, that therefore lies in the future and could only happen through his reincarnation in the latter days.
In Ezekiel 43 and 45, Yahweh is also prophesied to be served by a figure called ‘the prince’. The prince is the individual with the greatest access to Yahweh in Ezekiel’s temple, since he is described as entering and leaving via the porch of the east gate that Jesus himself will enter by (Ezekiel 46:8), presenting the sacrifices and offerings to King Jesus (Ezekiel 46), and giving voluntary sacrifices (Ezekiel 46:12). The prince of Israel is clearly under Yahweh/King Jesus, as demonstrated by the fact he makes sin offerings to Yahweh for himself and for his people Israel (Ezekiel 45:22).
We know that the Book of Ezekiel chapters 40 to 48, which describes the ordinances and dimensions of the temple, pertains to the fourth temple in the millennial kingdom, because the dimensions and ordinances do not fit the historical first or second temples, it cannot be the temple in which the abomination of desolation will occur because ‘Yahweh’ in the form of a glorified ‘man’ resides within the temple. Yahweh would never let anything like that happen while he is living in the temple, and in the New Jerusalem, there will be no temple (Revelation 21:22).
[iii]Rabbi Reuven Klein. 2020. The Chayah and Yechidah, https://ohr.edu/8914#:~:text=Although%20the%20word%20Yechidah%20in,that%20is%20unique%20and%20unparalleled.
[iv] https://www.billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/huios#:~:text=Definition:,who%20participates%20in%20the%20resurrection.
[v] Saint Irenaeus. Against Heresies.
Read the next chapter here: https://www.robertensor.com/post/godmindfamily-chapter-14
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