2 Samuel 7:14

7:14 I will become his father and he will become my son. When he sins, I will correct him with the rod of men and with wounds inflicted by human beings.

2 Samuel 7:16

7:16 Your house and your kingdom will stand before me ¹  permanently; your dynasty ²  will be permanent.’”

2 Samuel 7:1

The Lord Establishes a Covenant with David

7:1 The king settled into his palace, ³  for the Lord gave him relief ⁴  from all his enemies on all sides. ⁵ 

2 Samuel 19:24

19:24 Now Mephibosheth, Saul’s grandson, ⁶  came down to meet the king. From the day the king had left until the day he safely ⁷  returned, Mephibosheth ⁸  had not cared for his feet ⁹  nor trimmed ¹⁰  his mustache nor washed his clothes.

Psalms 89:28

89:28 I will always extend my loyal love to him,

and my covenant with him is secure. ¹¹ 

Psalms 89:34

89:34 I will not break ¹²  my covenant

or go back on what I promised. ¹³ 

Isaiah 55:3

55:3 Pay attention and come to me!

Listen, so you can live! ¹⁴ 

Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to ¹⁵  you,

just like the reliable covenantal promises I made to David. ¹⁶ 

Acts 13:34-37

13:34 But regarding the fact that he has raised Jesus ¹⁷  from the dead, never ¹⁸  again to be ¹⁹  in a state of decay, God ²⁰  has spoken in this way: ‘I will give you ²¹  the holy and trustworthy promises ²²  made to David.’ ²³  13:35 Therefore he also says in another psalm, ²⁴  ‘You will not permit your Holy One ²⁵  to experience ²⁶  decay.’ ²⁷  13:36 For David, after he had served ²⁸  God’s purpose in his own generation, died, ²⁹  was buried with his ancestors, ³⁰  and experienced ³¹  decay, 13:37 but the one ³²  whom God raised up did not experience ³³  decay.

[7:16]  ¹ tc Heb “before you.” A few medieval Hebrew mss read instead “before me,” which makes better sense contextually. (See also the LXX and the Syriac Peshitta.) The MT reading is probably the result of dittography (note the כ [kaf] at the beginning of the next form), with the extra כ then being interpreted as a pronominal suffix.

[7:16]  ² tn Heb “throne.”

[7:1]  ³ tn Heb “house” (also in the following verse).

[7:1]  ⁴ tn Or “rest.”

[7:1]  ⁵ tn The translation understands the disjunctive clause in v. 1b as circumstantial-causal.

[19:24]  ⁶ tn Heb “son.”

[19:24]  ⁷ tn Heb “in peace.” So also in v. 31.

[19:24]  ⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Mephibosheth) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[19:24]  ⁹ tn Heb “done his feet.”

[19:24]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “done.”

[89:28]  ¹¹ tn Heb “forever I will keep for him my loyal love and will make my covenant secure for him.”

[89:34]  ¹² tn Or “desecrate.”

[89:34]  ¹³ tn Heb “and what proceeds out of my lips I will not alter.”

[55:3]  ¹⁴ tn The jussive with vav (ו) conjunctive following the imperative indicates purpose/result.

[55:3]  ¹⁵ tn Or “an eternal covenant with.”

[55:3]  ¹⁶ 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.”

[13:34]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “him”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[13:34]  ¹⁸ tn Although μηκέτι (mhketi) can mean “no longer” or “no more,” the latter is more appropriate here, since to translate “no longer” in this context could give the reader the impression that Jesus did experience decay before his resurrection. Since the phrase “no more again to be” is somewhat awkward in English, the simpler phrase “never again to be” was used instead.

[13:34]  ¹⁹ tn The translation “to be in again” for ὑποστρέφω (Jupostrefw) is given in L&N 13.24.

[13:34]  ²⁰ tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[13:34]  ²¹ tn The pronoun “you” is plural here. The promises of David are offered to the people.

[13:34]  ²² tn Or “the trustworthy decrees made by God to David.” The phrase τὰ ὅσια Δαυὶδ τὰ πιστά (ta Josia Dauid ta pista) is “compressed,” that is, in a very compact or condensed form. It could be expanded in several different ways. BDAG 728 s.v. ὅσιος 3 understands it to refer to divine decrees: “I will grant you the sure decrees of God relating to David.” BDAG then states that this quotation from Isa 55:3 is intended to show that the following quotation from Ps 16:10 could not refer to David himself, but must refer to his messianic descendant (Jesus). L&N 33.290 render the phrase “I will give to you the divine promises made to David, promises that can be trusted,” although they also note that τὰ ὅσια in Acts 13:34 can mean “divine decrees” or “decrees made by God.” In contemporary English it is less awkward to translate πιστά as an adjective (“trustworthy”). The concept of “divine decrees,” not very understandable to the modern reader, has been replaced by “promises,” and since God is the implied speaker in the context, it is clear that these promises were made by God.

[13:34]  ²³ sn A quotation from Isa 55:3. The point of this citation is to make clear that the promise of a Davidic line and blessings are made to the people as well.

[13:35]  ²⁴ tn Grk “Therefore he also says in another”; the word “psalm” is not in the Greek text but is implied.

[13:35]  ²⁵ tn The Greek word translated “Holy One” here (ὅσιόν, {osion) is related to the use of ὅσια (Josia) in v. 34. The link is a wordplay. The Holy One, who does not die, brings the faithful holy blessings of promise to the people.

[13:35]  ²⁶ tn Grk “to see,” but the literal translation of the phrase “to see decay” could be misunderstood to mean simply “to look at decay,” while here “see decay” is really figurative for “experience decay.”

[13:35]  ²⁷ sn A quotation from Ps 16:10.

[13:36]  ²⁸ tn The participle ὑπηρετήσας (Juphrethsa") is taken temporally.

[13:36]  ²⁹ tn The verb κοιμάω (koimaw) literally means “sleep,” but it is often used in the Bible as a euphemism for the death of a believer.

[13:36]  ³⁰ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “was gathered to his fathers” (a Semitic idiom).

[13:36]  ³¹ tn Grk “saw,” but the literal translation of the phrase “saw decay” could be misunderstood to mean simply “looked at decay,” while here “saw decay” is really figurative for “experienced decay.” This remark explains why David cannot fulfill the promise.

[13:37]  ³² sn The one whom God raised up refers to Jesus.

[13:37]  ³³ tn Grk “see,” but the literal translation of the phrase “did not see decay” could be misunderstood to mean simply “did not look at decay,” while here “did not see decay” is really figurative for “did not experience decay.”