“Son of David”

Sunday, August 22, 2021

And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.” (Matthew 21.9-11)

One of the themes of Matthew’s Gospel is that Jesus is the heir to David’s throne.  Today we take this point for granted, but the reason for this, in large part, is Matthew’s focus on this very topic in his Gospel.  He’s not just trying to prove that the expected Messiah was to be from David’s line or was to reign on David’s throne; after all, the religious scholars of the day already knew that.  When Jesus asked them, “‘What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?’ They said to him, ‘The son of David’” (Mt 22.42).  They had figured this out from several Old Testament prophecies.

When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. (2 Samuel 7.12-13)

God gave this promise to David in response to David’s intention to build a glorious temple for God in Jerusalem.  Most immediately it applied to his son, Solomon, who did exactly as God had predicted.  For centuries this was seen as a prophecy long since fulfilled.  There had been an unbroken line of descent beginning with David himself, stretching back to the 11^th century BC, of those who reigned in Judah.  The temple on Mount Zion was so grand that no one could have seen it and gone away disappointed.  By the late 7^th century BC, the promise that David’s throne had been established “forever” could reasonably be considered fulfilled.

However, when Judah fell to the Babylonians in the 6^th century, it became difficult to maintain this interpretation.  David’s throne was no more.  Zerubbabel, the grandson of one of Judah’s final kings, was made governor of Judea when the Persians finally allowed them to return home, but it just wasn’t the same.  What happened?  Had God failed to keep his promise?  No!  In fact, God had begun preparing them for this turn of events since long before they fell to Babylon, hinting that the best for Israel lay in store.

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,

     and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,

     the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,

     the Spirit of counsel and might,

     the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. (Isaiah 11.1-2)

Even while acknowledging his people’s intense struggles with Gentile invaders—including the ongoing fall of the northern kingdom of Assyria—God promised that David’s line, though it would appear cut off, was not finished.  The stump would produce a shoot who would have God’s favor in every way.  Even as things got worse for Judah, and the Babylonians took over and began deporting the aristocrats, God gave another promise:

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’” (Jeremiah 23.5-6)

This certainly inspired hope in the poor people of Judah as they watched their nation decline under progressively worse kings, and ever-stronger enemies.  Justice is coming!  A king like David will rise!  We will be secure!  And yet, rather than reversing course and beating back the Babylonian hordes, the remainder of the Jews crumbled and submitted entirely to the heathens who burned the temple of the Lord to the ground. 

Had God failed this time?  No!  He repeated the promise again, even while the Jews were in exile:

“My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children's children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever.” (Ezekiel 37.24-25)

When Christ came to live as a man on earth, the Israelites were still waiting for the Son of David to restore the kingdom’s former glory.  Matthew worked hard to make it clear that Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s promise.  He first established that Jesus was a direct descendant of David, then recounted the wise men’s conclusion that a new “king of the Jews” had been born.  Afterward, he pointed to everyone from country bumpkins (12.23), to blind men (20.30), to Gentiles (15.22), to little children (21.15) recognizing Jesus as the Son of David, so long awaited.

He didn’t look like the earthly king they expected.  It wasn’t about putting Israel at the top of the food chain again.  It wasn’t about forcibly compelling the powerful to be nice to the powerless.  But the truth was in the promises all along: he came to build a house for God on earth, to share wisdom and counsel, to grant eternal security in a blessed home, and to be our righteousness.  Hosanna to the Son of David!

Jeremy Nettles

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