Did God’s Promise to David Fail?
It can be amusing to watch someone make an extraordinary truth claim and then be proven wrong. A few examples of this come to mind, like the Y2K scare, the supposed end of the world in 2012, and books such as 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988. Of course, this sort of thing is only amusing if you’re not the one proven wrong in an embarrassing fashion. For a long time, Bible skeptics have used this same reasoning against believers. They allege that the entire Christian faith collapses if biblical claims can be shown false. Such was the case for devout American atheist, Claud Dennis McKinsey, who authored the book Biblical Errancy: A Reference Guide. In this work, McKinsey sought to disprove biblical inerrancy1 by appealing to alleged contradictions and historical events he believed falsified biblical claims, particularly biblical prophecy. On one occasion, McKinsey specifically addressed God’s promise to David that “[his] house and [his] kingdom shall be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:162). He stated:
God’s prophecy failed; he didn’t tell the truth. The Davidic line ended with Zedekiah…. Since the end of the Maccabean dynasty there has never been a king of the Jews…. God said there would always be a Davidic king…. No descendant of David now rules in the Middle East. If David were alive now, he would be disappointed.3
According to secular and biblical history, it is true that the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, leveled the Temple, and exiled the last Davidic king, Zedekiah, in 586 B.C. (cf. Jeremiah 52:1-16). Could it be, then, that McKinsey was correct? Did God’s promise to David of a kingdom that would last forever fail? Did history prove a biblical prophecy false? Is the Christian belief in the reliability of Scripture laughable due to this? If so, this would be a justifiable piece of evidence for the skeptic to use in refuting the claims of the Bible. As it is, however, this argument is rarely made. McKinsey is among the few who use this example to reject biblical reliability. So, why is it that more skeptics don’t question the validity of God’s promise in 2 Samuel 7, and why does the history of interpretation both within Jewish and Christian circles show very little concern with this alleged discrepancy? The answer lies in understanding the nature of prophecy and in additional scriptural reflections on this matter.
Human and Divine Responses to the Interruption of David’s Line
To begin, it is noteworthy that the Bible addresses the end of the Davidic kingdom in the Exile from two perspectives. In Psalm 89, we see the human response to the end of the Davidic line. After recounting the promise to David of an enduring covenant4 for much of the psalm, the psalmist takes a turn in verse 39. He speaks to God saying: “You have renounced the covenant of Your servant; You have profaned his crown by casting it to the ground” (Psalm 89:39). The psalm then proceeds to lament the fact that Jerusalem had been destroyed, seeming as though God’s covenant with David failed. From the human perspective (i.e., those who witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem), it did seem as though God renounced His promise to David by sending the Babylonians to punish Judah. Scripture has another perspective on this matter, however—this time a divine one.
Jeremiah was already cited to note the biblical account of Jerusalem’s destruction in 586 B.C. Before that passage, Jeremiah addressed what the destruction meant for the eternal Davidic covenant. Jeremiah 33 specifically offers the hope of restoration following God’s punishment of Israel. The LORD assured that He would fulfill His promise to “cause a righteous Branch of David to spring forth” (Jeremiah 33:15, NASB). Thus, the message from God amid the calamity of exile is one of hope for restoration as opposed to reinterpretation.5 Furthermore, God reassured the validity and certainty of the Davidic covenant by comparing it to His covenant with the “day” and the “night” (Jeremiah 33:20-21). Simply put, the security of God’s covenant with David parallels the perpetual function of the “day” and the “night.” God assured His people, then, that His covenant of an eternal Davidic kingdom had not failed with the Babylonian captivity. This is why, anticipating any tension which might arise, God said, “My covenant I will not break” (Psalm 89:34). In so doing, God removed any tension between historical events and the term “forever” in 2 Samuel 7:16. “Forever” reflected God’s intention for the covenant, while the exile resulted from Israel’s unfaithfulness (cf. 1 Kings 2:4; 8:25; 9:4-5). As a result, one could argue that “no other dynasty ever [would] supplant the Davidic kingship, even if there [was] no king on the throne.”6 God’s commitment to uphold the covenant of eternal kingship with David is seen through His provision of hope for restoration through the exile. Such is the case when reading Jeremiah 33, which points forward to a more beautiful fulfillment of the covenant in the Messiah.
The people of Israel could not think God’s promise to David had failed in the exile, for they hoped for restoration. Likewise, Christians understand the covenant not as abolished, but as reaching its ultimate fulfillment in the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who inherits David’s throne forever (Luke 1:32). Thus, the skeptic’s claim that 2 Samuel 7 is a failed prophecy neglects to consider what the rest of Scripture says about the Babylonian exile, the meaning of “forever” in context, and the greater fulfillment of this passage in the person of Jesus Christ. Although no descendant of David rules on a physical throne in the Middle East, as McKinsey noted, there is a descendant of David Who reigns on a throne in heaven over His unending kingdom (cf. Acts 13:32-37; Ephesians 1:20-23). Once again, an honest look at Scripture with the goal of “rightly dividing the word of truth” defends against the claim of biblical errancy (2 Timothy 2:15).
Endnotes
1 For more information on the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, read Eric Lyons and Dave Miller (2004), “Biblical Inerrancy,” Reason & Revelation, 24[6]:57-63, apologeticspress.org/biblical-inerrancy-416/.
2 All italics in Scripture quotations are added for emphasis throughout the article.
3 C. Dennis McKinsey (2000), Biblical Errancy: A Reference Guide (Amherst, NY: Prometheus), pp. 163,663-664.
4 For a defense of viewing Nathan’s Oracle as a “covenant” despite the lack of the specific term in context, see Gregory Goswell (2018), “What Makes the Arrangement of God with David in 2 Samuel 7 a Covenant?” Restoration Quarterly, 60[2]:87-97.
5 In other words, the skeptic cannot argue that the prophets reinterpreted the Davidic covenant in light of historical events; the message was consistently one of restoration. God did not pivot from His initial promise to David when Babylon destroyed Jerusalem. He was not reacting to an external stimulus, for He sent Babylon (Jeremiah 25:8-9). As a result, He preached an accompanying message of restoration through His prophets. See Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5-6; Ezekiel 34:23-24; 37:24-25.
6 Hayyim Angel (2016), “The Eternal Davidic Covenant in II Samuel 7 and its Later Manifestations in the Bible,” Jewish Bible Quarterly,44[2]:86.
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