He Gave Us Prophets: The People Of The CovenantSample

Davidic Covenant: 2 Samuel 7:1-17

Abraham’s covenant focused on descendants and land. Moses gave attention to laws for living in the land. Following Moses, God made a special covenant with David, the king of Israel. Once again, we should look at the main concerns of this covenant and then how the prophets depended on it.

What were the main concerns of the covenant with David? David’s covenant focused on building God’s people into an enormous empire. The Davidic covenant appears in 2 Samuel 7, Psalm 89, and Psalm 132. These passages make it clear that one vital aspect of this covenant was the establishment of David’s family as the permanent dynasty over God’s people. David’s family certainly had troubles and failures, but God chose this family to be the dynasty over His people forever. David’s descendants would one day establish a worldwide kingdom of salvation. Needless to say, this covenant offered the people of God a very bright future of victory and dominion over the earth. And even as Christians today, we follow Jesus as our King because he was the last great son of David, the perfect son of David, whose kingdom will never end.

Now we must ask another question: how did the prophets depend on this covenant with David? Old Testament prophets frequently drew upon David’s covenant as they ministered to Israel. As far as the prophets were concerned, God promised that eventually the kingdom of David would be a magnificent, worldwide kingdom. They believed this very strongly and predicted that it would happen one day in the future. For example, in Amos 9:11, the prophet describes the days of the restoration after the exile in this way: 

In that day I will restore David's fallen tent. I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be.

Old Testament prophets speak this way about the Davidic covenant many times. His covenant was so important to them that they mention David by name thirty-four times.