“I am about to go the way of all the earth,” he said. “So be strong, act like a man, and observe what the LORD your God requires: Walk in obedience to him, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and regulations, as written in the Law of Moses. Do this so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go and that the LORD may keep his promise to me: ‘If your descendants watch how they live, and if they walk faithfully before me with all their heart and soul, you will never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.’ (1 Kings 2:2-4, NIV).
It is interesting that David here tells Solomon that God’s promise to him that his dynasty would last forever was dependent on the faithfulness of his descendants to God’s Law. If your descendants watch how they live, and if they walk faithfully before me with all their heart and soul, you will never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel (verse 4).
If we go back to 2 Samuel 7 we find God said something different.
This is what the LORD Almighty says:…When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.’ ” (2 Samuel 7:8, 11-16, NIV).
In this passage, God tells David that He is going to establish his kingdom. He tells him that when his successor did wrong He would punish him but that he would never remove his love from him as He did with Saul, and further promised his house and kingdom would be established forever. There is no mention that it was provisional on obedience, to the contrary it seems clear that it was promised knowing that there would be disobedience. So why would David tell Solomon otherwise?
The common thought seems to be that David was intending to set Solomon up for success as king by telling him that God would bless him and the nation through him if he remained faithful to God in living and ruling according to God’s Law.
I want to believe that David was intending to set Solomon off on the right path. Deuteronomy 17:18-20 (NIV) says—specifically talking about future kings:
When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.
There is no denying that God promises blessing for obedience. As I read this though, I cannot escape the pull to see it somewhat differently. The plain meaning of David’s words seems to be that he was saying God’s promise to him was dependent on the faithfulness of Solomon and those that would follow him. “Be faithful and God will be faithful.”
There is nothing so compelling to the human soul as the need to perform, to measure up, to make the grade, to show that you are enough. The irony is that when we commit ourselves to the task of living up to the standard—especially God’s standard—we inevitably find that we cannot. That is why we need grace. The Law is right and good. But all it can do is tell us what is righteous and good, and prove that we are not.
If anyone understood this, David should have. After he was given the promise in 2 Samuel 7, he went and committed adultery with the wife of one of his best friends, got her pregnant, attempted subterfuge to cover it up, and when that didn’t work, he resorted to murder (2 Samuel 11). If the prophet Nathan had not called him on it, who knows if he would have ever come clean? According to the Law, he should have been deposed and executed. But God forgave him when he repented. Yes, there were consequences for David’s actions, and true to His promise in 2 Samuel 7, God punished him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But God did forgive him; and not only did he forgive David, God never even threatened to renege on His promise that David’s line would always be before Him.
Is this the call to faithfulness in light of God’s gracious promise, or the creeping in of the idea that God’s gracious promise is dependent on our faithfulness? Perhaps it is both. The good intention on the one hand, and the unintended result on the other.
Learning To Be Full Of Grace And Truth. 