NOTES for Sa2 7:8-12
In the Former Prophets of the Old Testament—or, as we call them, the historical books—God's covenant with David occupies a central place. This is not surprising: it is precisely this covenant that links the history of the old covenant, which God makes with His people and their leaders, to that of the new, messianic covenant.
It would seem that an earthly king and an earthly kingdom are in view. In this respect God fulfilled all the promises He had made to David. He remained faithful to the covenant He had entered into: until the end of the history of ancient Israel, and then of ancient Judah, right up to the Babylonian captivity, the dynasty of David ruled in Jerusalem. Yet God promises to establish David's throne “for ever” (v. 13). This does not mean some particular historical era, the period from the eleventh century BC, when David became king in Jerusalem, to the sixth century BC, when the Babylonian army stormed the city.
The corresponding Hebrew word, usually translated into Russian as “for ever”, actually means “until the end of time”, until the end of the present historical age, which is to culminate in the Day of Judgement and the coming of the Messiah. If so, the covenant with David cannot in any way be confined to earthly history alone. It must necessarily become a messianic covenant extending beyond that history. Yet the spiritual realm of the covenant, the realm of relationships with God, retains its inner unity. For from the very beginning God intended the world to be His Kingdom. In the course of world history, something went wrong, and a certain part of creation found itself outside that Kingdom.
God has never regarded this state of affairs as normal. His entire plan to set things right involves restoring the world to the state of God's Kingdom in which it was conceived and created. All the covenants God has made with His people and with individual members of that people are part of this plan. And the plan as a whole must inevitably embrace both history and metahistory—that very metahistory in which God's eternity touches the created world existing in space and time.
The history of the covenant is precisely the spiritual bond that joins history and metahistory, linking God and His creation and making the world God's Kingdom. David and the Messiah alike become part of this bond. Different, in many ways incomparable parts, yet equally necessary. For in the Kingdom there are no important and unimportant people. It is God's Kingdom, and everyone matters to God.