1 Chronicles 17: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

David tells the prophet Nathan that he lives in a cedar house while the ark of the covenant sits under a tent. That night God sends Nathan back with a different message: David will not build God a house, but God will build David a house, a lasting family line. God promises that a son of David will build the temple and that his throne will be established forever. David then sits before the LORD and prays, thanking God and asking that the promise stand.

Claim by Claim

1. 17:1
   • David was sitting in his house.
   • David spoke to Nathan the prophet.
   • Nathan was a prophet.
   • David said that he was living in a house of cedar.
   • David said that the ark of the covenant of the LORD was under curtains.
2. 17:2
   • Nathan said to David to do all that was in his heart.
   • Nathan said that God was with David.
3. 17:3
   • That same night the word of God came to Nathan.
4. 17:4
   • God told Nathan to go and tell David, God's servant.
   • God called David his servant.
   • The message was introduced as what the LORD says.
   • The LORD said that David would not be the one to build him a house to dwell in.
5. 17:5
   • The LORD said he had not dwelt in a house from the day he brought Israel up until that day.
   • The LORD said he had gone from tent to tent and from one dwelling place to another.
6. 17:6
   • The LORD said he had walked about among all Israel.
   • The LORD asked whether he had ever spoken a word to any of the judges of Israel.
   • The LORD said he had commanded those judges to shepherd his people.
   • The word in question would have been: Why have you not built me a house of cedar?
   • The question implies the LORD never asked for such a house.
7. 17:7
   • The LORD told Nathan to say this to his servant David.
   • The message was introduced as what the LORD of hosts says.
   • The LORD said he took David from the pasture, from following the flock.
   • The LORD said he took David to be ruler over his people Israel.
8. 17:8
   • The LORD said he had been with David wherever David went.
   • The LORD said he had cut off all David's enemies from before him.
   • The LORD said he would give David a name like the name of the great ones on the earth; whether this is stated as already done or still to come is unclear.
9. 17:9
   • The LORD said he would appoint a place for his people Israel.
   • The LORD said he would plant Israel.
   • The LORD said Israel would dwell in their own place.
   • The LORD said Israel would be disturbed no more.
   • The LORD said the sons of wickedness would no longer wear Israel down as they did at the beginning.
10. 17:10
    • The LORD referred to the time since he commanded judges to be over his people Israel.
    • The LORD said he would subdue all David's enemies.
    • The LORD declared to David that the LORD would build David a house.
11. 17:11
    • The LORD said David's days would be fulfilled and David would go to be with his fathers.
    • The LORD said he would raise up David's offspring after him.
    • The LORD said that offspring would be one of David's own sons.
    • The LORD said he would establish that son's kingdom.
12. 17:12
    • The LORD said that son would build him a house.
    • The LORD said he would establish that son's throne forever.
13. 17:13
    • The LORD said he would be a father to him.
    • The LORD said he would be his son.
    • The LORD said he would not take his steadfast love away from him.
    • The LORD said he had taken his steadfast love away from the one who was before David.
14. 17:14
    • The LORD said he would set him in his own house and in his own kingdom forever.
    • The LORD said his throne would be established forever.
15. 17:15
    • Nathan spoke to David according to all these words and all this vision.
16. 17:16
    • King David came and sat before the LORD.
    • David asked who he was, addressing the LORD God.
    • David asked what his house was.
    • David said that the LORD had brought him this far.
17. 17:17
    • David said this was a small thing in God's eyes.
    • David said God had spoken about the house of his servant for a long time to come.
    • David said God had regarded him according to the rank of a man of high degree; the sense of the phrase is obscure.
    • David addressed God as LORD God.
18. 17:18
    • David asked what more he could say to God for the honor given to his servant.
    • David said God knew his servant.
19. 17:19
    • David said the LORD had done all this greatness for the sake of his servant.
    • David said the LORD had done it according to his own heart.
    • David said the LORD had done it to make known all these great things.
20. 17:20
    • David said there is none like the LORD.
    • David said there is no God besides the LORD.
    • David said this according to all they had heard with their ears.
21. 17:21
    • David asked what nation on earth is like God's people Israel.
    • David said Israel is one nation on the earth.
    • David said God went to redeem Israel to be a people for himself.
    • David said God did this to make for himself a name of great and awesome deeds.
    • David said God drove out nations from before his people.
    • David said God had redeemed his people out of Egypt.
22. 17:22
    • David said God made his people Israel his own people forever.
    • David said the LORD became their God.
23. 17:23
    • David asked that the word the LORD had spoken concerning his servant and his servant's house be established forever.
    • David asked the LORD to do as he had spoken.
24. 17:24
    • David asked that it be established and that God's name be magnified forever.
    • David gave the words to be said: the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, is God to Israel.
    • David asked that the house of David his servant be established before the LORD.
25. 17:25
    • David said God had revealed to his servant that he would build him a house.
    • David said that for this reason his servant had found the heart to pray before God.
26. 17:26
    • David said that the LORD is God.
    • David said the LORD had promised this good thing to his servant.
27. 17:27
    • David said the LORD had been pleased to bless the house of his servant.
    • David said the purpose was that it might be before the LORD forever.
    • David said that the LORD had blessed it.
    • David said it would be blessed forever.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

17:1

Cedar was imported from Lebanon and was the prestige building material of the ancient Near East, used for palaces and temples; a cedar house marks David as a settled king. The ark of the covenant was a gilded wooden chest containing the terms of the covenant, the binding agreement between God and Israel, and it had traveled in a portable tent since the wilderness years, never having a permanent building. Note also that where the King James prints LORD in capitals it is standing in for the personal name of Israel's God (YHWH), not the ordinary word 'lord' meaning master.

17:3

"The word of God came to Nathan" is the standard Hebrew way of reporting that a prophet received a message. It says nothing about how the message arrived, only that it did, and it marks what follows as coming from God rather than as the prophet's own opinion, which is what Nathan gave in verse 2.

17:4

'A house to dwell in' means a temple. Throughout the ancient Near East a god's temple was spoken of as that god's house, the place where the deity was understood to be present among the people.

17:5

The tabernacle was the portable tent-shrine that housed the ark while Israel moved from place to place. The King James 'from tent to tent, and from one tabernacle to another' renders a Hebrew phrase about a dwelling that keeps being taken down and set up again.

17:6

The judges were the military and legal leaders who ruled Israel in the period between the settlement of the land and the first kings, not judges in a courtroom sense. 'To feed my people' translates a Hebrew word meaning to shepherd: to pasture, guide and protect a flock. Shepherding was the standard image for ruling in this world, which is why the point lands on David, a former shepherd.

17:7

'The LORD of hosts' (rendered here 'the LORD of Armies') translates Hebrew YHWH Tseva'ot. The 'hosts' are massed armies, variously understood as Israel's fighting forces, the heavenly beings pictured as God's army, or the stars. The title casts God as commander.

17:8

Making someone's name great means making them famous. People far away would know who David was.

17:9

"The children of wickedness" is a Hebrew idiom. "Children of" or "sons of" plus a quality means people characterized by that quality, so this means wicked people, not anyone's actual offspring.

17:10

The word 'house' now turns on its second sense. David wanted to build God a house meaning a temple; God answers that he will build David a house meaning a dynasty, a family line of descendants holding the throne. The same Hebrew word carries both senses, and the whole speech plays on that.

17:11

'Go to be with thy fathers' is the standard Hebrew idiom for dying. It comes from the practice of burying family members together in one tomb, so that the dead were literally laid alongside their ancestors.

17:12

The son meant here is Solomon. He became king after David and built the temple in Jerusalem.

17:13

'Him that was before thee' is Saul, the king before David, from whom God's backing was withdrawn. 'Mercy' here translates hesed, a word for loyal, committed love, the steady faithfulness expected between parties bound by an agreement, rather than pity for someone in trouble.

17:14

In the parallel version of this speech in 2 Samuel 7:16 the promise reads 'thy house and thy kingdom', David's. Here it is God's house and God's kingdom, with David's descendant set over them. The difference is in the ancient texts themselves, not in the translation.

17:16

Sitting was not the usual posture for prayer, which was ordinarily done standing or bowed low. 'Before the LORD' means in front of the ark, in the tent David had set up for it. 'What is mine house' uses the same word for family or dynasty that runs through God's speech.

17:17

This verse is unusually hard to construe in Hebrew and translators differ widely over the second half of it. The phrase behind 'hast regarded me according to the estate of a man of high degree' is obscure; renderings range from 'you have looked on me as a man of high rank' to 'you have shown me the future generations of humanity.'

17:18

"What can David speak more to thee for the honour of thy servant?" means roughly: what is left for David to say in response to being honored like this? The point is that David has run out of words, not that he is asking for something further.

17:21

'Redeem' is a commercial word: to buy something back, as one bought a relative out of slavery or reclaimed family land that had been sold off. Applied to the exodus, it casts God as the kinsman who paid to get his people out of Egypt. 'Terribleness' in 1611 English meant awe-inspiring, the quality that makes onlookers afraid of someone's power: it did not mean bad or of poor quality.

17:24

"Magnified" means made great or recognized as great. The concern is reputation: David is asking that what happens to his family make God's name known, so that people draw the conclusion quoted in the rest of the verse.