55:3 Pay attention and come to me!
Listen, so you can live! 1
Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to 2 you,
just like the reliable covenantal promises I made to David. 3
55:4 Look, I made him a witness to nations, 4
a ruler and commander of nations.”
23:5 “I, the Lord, promise 5 that a new time will certainly come 6
when I will raise up for them a righteous branch, 7 a descendant of David.
He will rule over them with wisdom and understanding 8
and will do what is just and right in the land. 9
30:9 But they will be subject 10 to the Lord their God
and to the Davidic ruler whom I will raise up as king over them. 11
1 tn The jussive with vav (ו) conjunctive following the imperative indicates purpose/result.
2 tn Or “an eternal covenant with.”
3 tn Heb “the reliable expressions of loyalty of David.” The syntactical relationship of חַסְדֵי (khasde, “expressions of loyalty”) to the preceding line is unclear. If the term is appositional to בְּרִית (bÿrit, “covenant”), then the Lord here transfers the promises of the Davidic covenant to the entire nation. Another option is to take חַסְדֵי (khasde) as an adverbial accusative and to translate “according to the reliable covenantal promises.” In this case the new covenantal arrangement proposed here is viewed as an extension or perhaps fulfillment of the Davidic promises. A third option, the one reflected in the above translation, is to take the last line as comparative. In this case the new covenant being proposed is analogous to the Davidic covenant. Verses 4-5, which compare David’s international prominence to what Israel will experience, favors this view. In all three of these interpretations, “David” is an objective genitive; he is the recipient of covenantal promises. A fourth option would be to take David as a subjective genitive and understand the line as giving the basis for the preceding promise: “Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to you, because of David’s faithful acts of covenantal loyalty.”
4 sn Ideally the Davidic king was to testify to the nations of God’s greatness (cf. Pss 18:50 HT [18:49 ET]; 22:28 HT [22:27 ET]). See J. H. Eaton, Kingship in the Psalms (SBT), 182-84.
5 tn Heb “Oracle of the
6 tn Heb “Behold the days are coming.”
7 tn Heb “a righteous sprig to David” or “a righteous shoot” (NAB).
8 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).
9 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).
10 tn The word “subject” in this verse and “subjugate” are from the same root word in Hebrew. A deliberate contrast is drawn between the two powers that they will serve.
11 tn Heb “and to David their king whom I will raise up for them.”
12 tn Heb “David their king”; cf. NCV “the king from David’s family”; TEV “a descendant of David their king”; NLT “David’s descendant, their king.”
13 tn Heb “his goodness”; NLT “his good gifts.”
14 tn Heb “in the end of the days.” Cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NCV, NLT “in the last days.”
15 tn Grk “this one.”
16 sn Compare the description of Jesus as great here with 1:15, “great before the Lord.” Jesus is greater than John, since he is Messiah compared to a prophet. Great is stated absolutely without qualification to make the point.
17 sn The expression Most High is a way to refer to God without naming him. Such avoiding of direct reference to God was common in 1st century Judaism out of reverence for the divine name.
18 tn Or “ancestor.”