2 Samuel 23:5

23:5 My dynasty is approved by God, ¹ 

for he has made a perpetual covenant with me,

arranged in all its particulars and secured.

He always delivers me,

and brings all I desire to fruition. ² 

2 Samuel 23:1

David’s Final Words

23:1 These are the final words of David:

“The oracle of David son of Jesse,

the oracle of the man raised up as

the ruler chosen by the God of Jacob, ³ 

Israel’s beloved ⁴  singer of songs:

2 Samuel 16:17

16:17 Absalom said to Hushai, “Do you call this loyalty to your friend? Why didn’t you go with your friend?”

Isaiah 55:3

55:3 Pay attention and come to me!

Listen, so you can live! ⁵ 

Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to ⁶  you,

just like the reliable covenantal promises I made to David. ⁷ 

Isaiah 61:8

61:8 For I, the Lord, love justice

and hate robbery and sin.

I will repay them because of my faithfulness; ⁸ 

I will make a permanent covenant with them.

Jeremiah 32:40

32:40 I will make a lasting covenant ⁹  with them that I will never stop doing good to them. ¹⁰  I will fill their hearts and minds with respect for me so that ¹¹  they will never again turn ¹²  away from me.

Ezekiel 37:26

37:26 I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be a perpetual covenant with them. ¹³  I will establish them, ¹⁴  increase their numbers, and place my sanctuary among them forever.

[23:5]  ¹ tn Heb “For not thus [is] my house with God?”

[23:5]  ² tn Heb “for all my deliverance and every desire, surely does he not make [it] grow?”

[23:1]  ³ tn Heb “the anointed one of the God of Jacob.”

[23:1]  ⁴ tn Or “pleasant.”

[55:3]  ⁵ tn The jussive with vav (ו) conjunctive following the imperative indicates purpose/result.

[55:3]  ⁶ tn Or “an eternal covenant with.”

[55:3]  ⁷ 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.”

[61:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “in faithfulness”; NASB, NRSV, NLT “faithfully.”

[32:40]  ⁹ tn Heb “an everlasting covenant.” For the rationale for the rendering “agreement” and the nature of the biblical covenants see the study note on 11:2.

[32:40]  ¹⁰ tn Or “stop being gracious to them” or “stop blessing them with good”; Heb “turn back from them to do good to them.”

[32:40]  ¹¹ tn Or “I will make them want to fear and respect me so much that”; Heb “I will put the fear of me in their hearts.” However, as has been noted several times, “heart” in Hebrew is more the center of the volition (and intellect) than the center of emotions as it is in English. Both translations are intended to reflect the difference in psychology.

[32:40]  ¹² tn The words “never again” are not in the text but are implicit from the context and are supplied not only by this translation but by a number of others.

[37:26]  ¹³ sn See Isa 24:5; 55:3; 61:8; Jer 32:40; 50:5; Ezek 16:60, for other references to perpetual covenants.

[37:26]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “give them.”