1 Raja-raja 1:47-48

1:47 The king’s servants have even come to congratulate ¹  our master ²  King David, saying, ‘May your God ³  make Solomon more famous than you and make him an even greater king than you!’ ⁴  Then the king leaned ⁵  on the bed 1:48 and said ⁶  this: ‘The Lord God of Israel is worthy of praise because ⁷  today he has placed a successor on my throne and allowed me to see it.’” ⁸ 

1 Raja-raja 2:1-4

David’s Final Words to Solomon

2:1 When David was close to death, ⁹  he told ¹⁰  Solomon his son: 2:2 “I am about to die. ¹¹  Be strong and become a man! 2:3 Do the job the Lord your God has assigned you ¹²  by following his instructions ¹³  and obeying ¹⁴  his rules, commandments, regulations, and laws as written in the law of Moses. Then you will succeed in all you do and seek to accomplish, ¹⁵  2:4 and the Lord will fulfill his promise to me, ¹⁶  ‘If your descendants watch their step ¹⁷  and live faithfully in my presence ¹⁸  with all their heart and being, ¹⁹  then,’ he promised, ²⁰  ‘you will not fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.’ ²¹ 

Yeremia 23:5-6

23:5 “I, the Lord, promise ²²  that a new time will certainly come ²³ 

when I will raise up for them a righteous branch, ²⁴  a descendant of David.

He will rule over them with wisdom and understanding ²⁵ 

and will do what is just and right in the land. ²⁶ 

23:6 Under his rule ²⁷  Judah will enjoy safety ²⁸ 

and Israel will live in security. ²⁹ 

This is the name he will go by:

‘The Lord has provided us with justice.’ ³⁰ 

[1:47]  ¹ tn Heb “to bless.”

[1:47]  ² tn The plural form is used in the Hebrew text to indicate honor and authority.

[1:47]  ³ tc Many Hebrew mss agree with the Qere in reading simply “God.”

[1:47]  ⁴ tn Heb “make the name of Solomon better than your name, and make his throne greater than your throne.” The term שֵׁם (shem, “name”) is used here of one’s fame and reputation.

[1:47]  ⁵ tn Or “bowed down; worshiped.”

[1:48]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew text reads, “and the king said.”

[1:48]  ⁷ tn Or “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who….” In this blessing formula אֲשֶׁר (’asher, “who; because”) introduces the reason why the one being blessed deserves the honor.

[1:48]  ⁸ tn Heb “and my eyes are seeing.”

[2:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “and the days of David approached to die.”

[2:1]  ¹⁰ tn Or “commanded.”

[2:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “going the way of all the earth.”

[2:3]  ¹² tn Heb “keep the charge of the Lord your God.”

[2:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “by walking in his ways.”

[2:3]  ¹⁴ tn Or “keeping.”

[2:3]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “then you will cause to succeed all which you do and all which you turn there.”

[2:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “then the Lord will establish his word which he spoke to me, saying.”

[2:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “guard their way.”

[2:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “by walking before me in faithfulness.”

[2:4]  ¹⁹ tn Or “soul.”

[2:4]  ²⁰ tn Heb “saying.”

[2:4]  ²¹ tn Heb “there will not be cut off from you a man from upon the throne of Israel.”

[23:5]  ²² tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[23:5]  ²³ tn Heb “Behold the days are coming.”

[23:5]  ²⁴ tn Heb “a righteous sprig to David” or “a righteous shoot” (NAB).

[23:5]  sn This passage and the parallel in Jer 33:15 are part of a growing number of prayers and prophecies regarding an ideal ruler to come forth from the Davidic line who will bring the justice, security, and well-being that the continuing line of Davidic rulers did not. Though there were periodic kings like Josiah who did fulfill the ideals set forth in Jer 22:3 (see Jer 22:15), by and large they were more like Jehoiakim who did not (see Jer 22:13). Hence the Lord brought to an end the Davidic rule. The potential for the ideal, however, remained because of God’s promise to David (2 Sam 7:16). The Davidic line became like a tree which was cut down, leaving only a stump. But from that stump God would bring forth a “shoot,” a “sprig” which would fulfill the ideals of kingship. See Isa 11:1-6 and Zech 3:8, 6:12 for this metaphor and compare Dan 4:14-15, 23, 26 for a different but related use of the metaphor.

[23:5]  ²⁵ tn Heb “he will reign as king and act wisely.” This is another example of the use of two verbs joined by “and” where one becomes the adverbial modifier of the other (hendiadys). For the nuance of the verb “act wisely” rather than “prosper” see Amos 5:13; Ps 2:10 (cf. BDB 968 s.v. שָׂכַל Hiph.5).

[23:5]  ²⁶ sn This has been the constant emphasis in this section. See 22:3 for the demand, 22:15 for its fulfillment, and 22:13 for its abuse. The ideal king would follow in the footsteps of his illustrious ancestor David (2 Sam 8:15) who set this forth as an ideal for his dynasty (2 Sam 23:3) and prayed for it to be true of his son Solomon (Ps 72:1-2).

[23:6]  ²⁷ tn Heb “In his days [= during the time he rules].”

[23:6]  ²⁸ tn Parallelism and context (cf. v. 4) suggest this nuance for the word often translated “be saved.” For this nuance elsewhere see Ps 119:117; Prov 28:18 for the verb (יָשַׁע [yasha’] in the Niphal); and Ps 12:6; Job 5:4, 11 for the related noun (יֶשַׁע, yesha’).

[23:6]  ²⁹ sn It should be noted that this brief oracle of deliverance implies the reunification of Israel and Judah under the future Davidic ruler. Jeremiah has already spoken about this reunification earlier in 3:18 and will have more to say about it in 30:3; 31:27, 31. This same ideal was espoused in the prophecies of Hosea (1:10-11 [2:1-2 HT]), Isaiah (11:1-4, 10-12), and Ezekiel (37:15-28) all of which have messianic and eschatological significance.

[23:6]  ³⁰ tn Heb “his name will be called ‘The Lord our righteousness’.”

[23:6]  sn The Hebrew word translated “justice” here is very broad in its usage, and it is hard to catch all the relevant nuances for this word in this context. It is used for “vindication” in legal contexts (see, e.g., Job 6:29), for “deliverance” or “salvation” in exilic contexts (see, e.g., Isa 58:8), and in the sense of ruling, judging with “justice” (see, e.g., Lev 19:15; Isa 32:1). Here it probably sums up the justice that the Lord provides through raising up this ruler as well as the safety, security, and well-being that result (see vv. 5-6a). In the NT this takes on soteriological connotations (see 1 Cor 1:31 in its context).