2 Samuel 7:25-29

7:25 So now, O Lord God, make this promise you have made about your servant and his family a permanent reality. ¹  Do as you promised, ²  7:26 so you may gain lasting fame, ³  as people say, ⁴  ‘The Lord of hosts is God over Israel!’ The dynasty ⁵  of your servant David will be established before you, 7:27 for you, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have told ⁶  your servant, ‘I will build you a dynastic house.’ ⁷  That is why your servant has had the courage ⁸  to pray this prayer to you. 7:28 Now, O sovereign Lord, you are the true God! ⁹  May your words prove to be true! ¹⁰  You have made this good promise to your servant! ¹¹  7:29 Now be willing to bless your servant’s dynasty ¹²  so that it may stand permanently before you, for you, O sovereign Lord, have spoken. By your blessing may your servant’s dynasty be blessed on into the future!” ¹³ 

2 Samuel 7:2

7:2 The king said to Nathan the prophet, “Look! I am living in a palace made from cedar, while the ark of God sits in the middle of a tent.”

2 Samuel 1:9

1:9 He said to me, ‘Stand over me and finish me off! ¹⁴  I’m very dizzy, ¹⁵  even though I’m still alive.’ ¹⁶ 

Psalms 119:49

ז (Zayin)

119:49 Remember your word to your servant,

for you have given me hope.

Jeremiah 11:5

11:5 Then I will keep the promise I swore on oath to your ancestors to give them a land flowing with milk and honey.” ¹⁷  That is the very land that you still live in today.’” ¹⁸  And I responded, “Amen! Let it be so, ¹⁹  Lord!”

Ezekiel 36:36-37

36:36 Then the nations which remain around you will know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruins and replanted what was desolate. I, the Lord, have spoken – and I will do it!’

36:37 “This is what the sovereign Lord says: I will allow the house of Israel to ask me to do this for them: ²⁰  I will multiply their people like sheep. ²¹ 

¹ tn Heb “and now, O Lord God, the word which you spoke concerning your servant and concerning his house, establish permanently.”

² tn Heb “as you have spoken.”

³ tn Heb “and your name might be great permanently.” Following the imperative in v. 23b, the prefixed verbal form with vav conjunctive indicates purpose/result.

⁴ tn Heb “saying.” The words “as people” are supplied in the translation for clarification and stylistic reasons.

⁵ tn Heb “the house.” See the note on “dynastic house” in the following verse.

⁶ tn Heb “have uncovered the ear of.”

⁷ tn Heb “a house.” This maintains the wordplay from v. 11 (see the note on the word “house” there) and is continued in v. 29.

⁸ tn Heb “has found his heart.”

⁹ tn Heb “the God.” The article indicates uniqueness here.

¹⁰ tn The translation understands the prefixed verb form as a jussive, indicating David’s wish/prayer. Another option is to take the form as an imperfect and translate “your words are true.”

¹¹ tn Heb “and you have spoken to your servant this good thing.”

¹² tn Heb “house” (again later in this verse). See the note on “dynastic house” in v. 27.

¹³ tn Or “permanently”; cf. NLT “it is an eternal blessing.”

¹⁴ tn As P. K. McCarter (II Samuel [AB], 59) points out, the Polel of the verb מוּת (mut, “to die”) “refers to dispatching or ‘finishing off’ someone already wounded and near death.” Cf. NLT “put me out of my misery.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “the dizziness has seized me.” On the meaning of the Hebrew noun translated “dizziness,” see P. K. McCarter, II Samuel (AB), 59-60. The point seems to be that he is unable to kill himself because he is weak and disoriented.

¹⁶ tn The Hebrew text here is grammatically very awkward (Heb “because all still my life in me”). Whether the broken construct phrase is due to the fact that the alleged speaker is in a confused state of mind as he is on the verge of dying, or whether the MT has sustained corruption in the transmission process, is not entirely clear. The former seems likely, although P. K. McCarter understands the MT to be the result of conflation of two shorter forms of text (P. K. McCarter, II Samuel [AB], 57, n. 9). Early translators also struggled with the verse, apparently choosing to leave part of the Hebrew text untranslated. For example, the Lucianic recension of the LXX lacks “all,” while other witnesses (namely, one medieval Hebrew ms, codices A and B of the LXX, and the Syriac Peshitta) lack “still.”

¹⁷ tn The phrase “a land flowing with milk and honey” is very familiar to readers in the Jewish and Christian traditions as a proverbial description of the agricultural and pastoral abundance of the land of Israel. However, it may not mean too much to readers outside those traditions; an equivalent expression would be “a land of fertile fields and fine pastures.” E. W. Bullinger (Figures of Speech, 626) identifies this as a figure of speech called synecdoche where the species is put for the genus, “a region…abounding with pasture and fruits of all kinds.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “‘a land flowing with milk and honey,’ as at this day.” However, the literal reading is too elliptical and would lead to confusion.

¹⁹ tn The words “Let it be so” are not in the text; they are an explanation of the significance of the term “Amen” for those who may not be part of the Christian or Jewish tradition.

²⁰ tn The Niphal verb may have a tolerative function here, “Again (for) this I will allow myself to be sought by the house of Israel to act for them.” Or it may be reflexive: “I will reveal myself to the house of Israel by doing this also.”

²¹ sn Heb “I will multiply them like sheep, human(s).”