GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
1 CHRONICLES 28:1-7
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28:1 David summoned to Jerusalem all the princes of Israel: the officers over the tribes, the commanders of the divisions that served the king, the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds, and the stewards in charge of all the property and livestock belonging to the king and his sons, together with the palace officials, the mighty men and all the veteran warriors. 2 King David rose to his feet and said: “Listen to me, my brothers and my people. I had it in my heart to build a house as a place of rest for the ark of the covenant of the LORD, for the footstool of our God, and I made plans to build it. 3 But God said to me, ‘You are not to build a house for my Name, because you are a man of war. You have shed blood.’
Toward the end of his life, David brought all of the leaders of the people together at Jerusalem. The various groups and ranks were assembled. We have a good idea who they all were because the author just spent the last five chapters describing and naming them all. David had ruled for about forty years, and although he was only about seventy, his health was failing him. He stood, in an act that is laboriously described in Hebrew as “He rose up onto his feet” (the phrase is only used one other time, when a dead man stood after coming back to life, 2 Kings 13:21). The aging King who had run from Saul throughout his youth and who had to run from his own son Absalom a decade ago now found it to be a little bit of a struggle just getting up out of a chair to stand. A young person who is intuitive will understand. Any older person needs no help or illustration with the obvious.
David is about to hand over the kingdom to Solomon. To do this, he involves the Lord’s own choices over and above his own. First, the King had wanted to build something for the ark. This could not just be a tent such as it was in at this time, but something more permanent. It was God’s own sovereign choice to keep David from doing this, but not from the project being done. The Lord had no objection to the idea of the temple.
But as for David? God said: “My place of peace will not be built by you,” since David was not a man of peace, but a man of war. David had shed blood. A reader may wonder, was David being punished in some way because of the wars he had to fight for Israel? Doesn’t that seem unfair? Another reader might wonder, was David being further punished because of the sin of shedding Uriah the Hittite’s blood, which was a terrible sin David committed before Solomon was born?
There is a problem with both points. First, shedding blood is something that is sometimes necessary in war, and which God himself had commanded when it came to the tribes occupying Canaan. David had brought much of that work to an end with his wars against the Philistines, Amalekites, Jebusites, and so on. Because he had faithfully done those things, he was the apple of God’s eye. Second, he had repented of his sin with Uriah and with Uriah’s wife and he had been forgiven. In his Psalm about that sin, he prayed: “Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:7). No, to be forgiven is to be forgiven, when God puts all our sins “behind his back” (Isaiah 38:17).
Therefore it is not a negative point, but a positive point, that the Lord was making. This house was to be a house of peace, a place where people would receive forgiveness and peace with God, the peace that transcends man’s understanding (Philippians 4:7). So God interwove Solomon’s name, which is based on “shalom,” peace, and wanted the son of David who would bring peace to raise up this temple. But this was not only about the physical temple. There was more:
4 “Yet the LORD, the God of Israel, chose me from all my father’s house to be king over Israel forever. He chose Judah as leader, and from the house of Judah he chose my father’s house, and from my father’s sons he was pleased to make me king over all Israel. 5 Of all my sons (for the LORD has given me many) he has chosen my son Solomon to sit on the throne of the kingdom of the LORD over Israel. 6 He said to me: ‘It is Solomon your son who will build my house and my courts, for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father. 7 I will establish his kingdom forever if he is resolute in keeping my commandments and laws, as is being done at this time.’
David had been honored by God with the promise that even more was happening than the raising of a building. As magnificent as the temple was planned to be, God was talking about something far bigger, far greater. To begin with, this involved the promise about David’s house. This was to be the royal house of Israel. Solomon would follow after David on the throne. With these words, David made a peaceful transition of power in Israel; there should have been no contest as to who would be king after David. Now, in the first chapter of 1 Kings, we learn that one of Solomon’s brothers rebelled against all this. Of David’s oldest four sons, two were dead (Amnon and Absalom). Daniel (also called Kileab) the peaceful son of Abigail was not involved in these things, and we will not speculate about him. But Adonijah was next, and he wanted to be King instead of Solomon. Bathsheba herself went to inform the bed-ridden David about Adonijah’s rebellion (1 Kings 1:15) and to coax him into restating his position about Solomon. Some old friends and trusted servants helped to thwart Adonijah’s plans, and Adonijah ended his revolt and submitted to his brother, and was permitted to return home in peace (1 Kings 1:53). But this seems to have happened just a little later than our text here.
Continuing with the passage before us, David’s report of God’s words about Solomon move into a prophecy about the coming Savior. “I will establish his kingdom forever,” the Lord said. And while neither Solomon nor any human monarch could ever fully “be resolute in keeping God’s commandments and laws,” the Messiah, Jesus Christ, did exactly that. Christ is called “the Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6) and “a Solomon.” Paul says about Christ: “He himself is our peace… He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near” (Ephesians 2:14,17). And Jesus himself said: “In me you have peace. In the world you have trouble and difficulty” (John 16:33).
The peace that comes from God follows righteousness. For Paul says: “Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace” (Romans 5:1). And Solomon himself preaches the same thing when he says, “In his days righteousness will flourish and peace will abound” (Psalm 72:7). And in another Psalm the Holy Spirit adds: “Righteousness and peace kiss each other” (Psalm 85:10). For righteousness is a gift handed to us by Christ from the cross; he has given it to us as our robe to wear in God’s presence. And now, dressed and adorned in the righteousness of Christ, we have peace, shalom, and we are able to remain in God’s presence forevermore. For although the wicked have a kind of worldly peace and even prosper in this lifetime (Psalm 73:3), yet in eternity there can be no peace for the wicked (Isaiah 57:21) since they try to sneak into heaven with no righteousness at all, but the Father of the Banquet orders them to be thrown outside, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 22:13).
Praise our God and our Savior Jesus Christ! He is the true and great Son of David, the bringer of righteousness, the resurrection to eternal life, and everlasting peace.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – 1 Chronicles 28:1-7 True peace