2 Samuel 7:17

7:4-17 Blessings are promised to the family and posterity of David. These promises relate to Solomon, David's immediate successor, and the royal line of Judah. But they also relate to Christ, who is often called David and the Son of David. To him God gave all power in heaven and earth, with authority to execute judgment. He was to build the gospel temple, a house for God's name; the spiritual temple of true believers, to be a habitation of God through the Spirit. The establishing of his house, his throne, and his kingdom for ever, can be applied to no other than to Christ and his kingdom: David's house and kingdom long since came to an end. The committing iniquity cannot be applied to the Messiah himself, but to his spiritual seed; true believers have infirmities, for which they must expect to be corrected, though they are not cast off.

According to all these words, and according to all this vision,.... All the words of this prophecy, just as they were delivered to Nathan, were exactly expressed by him; he did not vary from them in the least, but with the greatest faithfulness related them: so did Nathan speak unto David; though in the part which related to the history of the house of God, it was contrary to the advice which he had given; but he was not ashamed to retract his sense, when he was made acquainted with the mind of God.

2 Samuel 7:17 . According to all this vision did Nathan speak unto David — And thereby manifested his integrity, not being ashamed to retract his own words when he was better taught of God. And, as Dionysius observes in the epistle to Novatus, the correction of his fault was more remarkable than the fault itself.

17 . this vision ] The manner in which God’s message was communicated to Nathan was by “a vision,” in which his spiritual sight was quickened to discern the truth. The word for “vision” is derived from the same root as chôzeh , one of the words translated ‘seer’ (see on 1 Samuel 9:9 ), and is distinguished as a method of revelation from a ‘dream.’ Cp. Isaiah 1:1 . On the Messianic interpretation of this prophecy, see Additional Note I. p. 233.

Verse 17. - Vision . This word does not imply that Nathan saw anything with the natural eye, but signifies that sort of prophecy which was vouchsafed to a "seer." Thus the prophecies of Isaiah, of Nahum, and of Obadiah are called "visions." Probably the word is taken from the fixed gaze, with which the seer looked into the far off world with unmoved eyes, yet seeing not with them, but with the spiritual sight within. It would thus be an intellectual process accompanied by a rigidity of the natural organs, caused partly by intensity of feeling, but chiefly by mental preoccupation, which left no faculty at liberty to discharge its ordinary function. 2 Samuel 7:17

My mercy shall not depart ... - Hence, Isaiah's saying, the sure mercies of David Isaiah 55:3 , i. e. unfailing, lasting mercies: mercies which are like streams of water that never dry up Isaiah 33:16 ; Jeremiah 15:18 . This is explained in 2 Samuel 7:16 , where the word established is the same word as is rendered sure in Isaiah. Before thee - Before Me is probably the true reading in 2 Samuel 7:15-16 (if the rest of the text be sound), according to the analogy of Jeremiah 35:19; 1 Samuel 2:30, 1 Samuel 2:35; and many other places; whereas the idea contained in the reading, before thee, is unparalleled. But the reading in 1 Chronicles 17:13 is quite different: "As I took it from him that was before thee," meaning Saul, which gives a very good sense, and suggests that the text here may have been corrupted.

13. He shall build an house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever—This declaration referred, in its primary application, to Solomon, and to the temporal kingdom of David's family. But in a larger and sublimer sense, it was meant of David's Son of another nature (Heb 1:8). [See on [270]1Ch 17:14.]

"According to all these words ... did Nathan speak unto David," i.e., he related the whole to David, just as God had addressed it to him in the night. The clause in apposition, "according to all this vision," merely introduces a more minute definition of the peculiar form of the revelation. God spoke to Nathan in a vision which he had in the night, i.e., not in a dream, but in a waking condition, and during the night; for חזּיון equals חזון is constantly distinguished from חלום, a revelation in a dream.