1 Chronicles 17

David, settled in his house of cedar, is troubled that the ark dwells under curtains, and proposes to build Yahweh a house. Nathan says go; then the word of Yahweh comes by night and turns the whole thing around. David will not build the house — thou shalt not build me an house to dwell in. Instead Yahweh says, Yahweh will build thee an house. The man who would give Yahweh a dwelling is told that Yahweh will give him a dynasty. The builder becomes the one built.

Nathan had said go, and Nathan was wrong — a true prophet speaking his own good sense before the word came. The refusal itself is finer than it looks: thou shalt not build me an house reads better as thou art not he who shall build it, not a rebuke of the wish but a naming of the wrong man. David’s desire was the right thing, and his motive was right — Yahweh himself says so, thou didst well that it was in thine heart (2 Chr 6:8) — but it was not his to do, and not yet the time. Right thing, right time, right man: acceptable service needs all three, and a man may be refused while his heart is commended.

The promise then reaches past Solomon to the One it was always shaped for. I will raise up thy seed after thee… and I will stablish his kingdom. He shall build me an house, and I will stablish his throne for ever. Solomon answers the words in the short term — he builds the temple, he reigns. But for ever outruns Solomon by a thousand years and lands on the Seed in whom the throne is endless: the Son of David who builds the true house and reigns without end.

The Chronicler sharpens it past the wording of 2 Samuel. There the throne is thine house and thy kingdom; here Yahweh says mine house and mine kingdom — I will settle him in mine house and in my kingdom for ever. The Chronicler, writing for the returned exiles with no king on the throne, lifts the eye higher: the kingdom is finally Yahweh’s own, administered by the promised Son, and that is why no failure of David’s natural line can cancel it.

The hinge-line is quoted in Hebrews and settles the sonship of Christ: I will be his father, and he shall be my son. It is said of Solomon and fulfilled in the Beloved. And the clause that follows is full of grace — I will not take my mercy away from him, as I took it from him that was before thee — Saul lost the mercy; the true Son never will, because in him the covenant is unconditional and sure.

David’s response is all wonder. Who am I, O Yahweh God, and what is mine house, that thou hast brought me hitherto? He does not bargain or boast; he sits before Yahweh — David the king came and sat before Yahweh — and lets the promise tower over him. Thou, O my God, hast told thy servant that thou wilt build him an house: therefore thy servant hath found in his heart to pray. Prayer is what rises when a man sees how far past his deserving the promise runs. And what he asks is that the Name be magnified — let it even be established, that thy name may be magnified for ever, saying, Yahweh of Hosts is the God of Israel, even a God to Israel — the covenant kept so that the Name of Yahweh of armies is known to be Israel’s own.

The one who would build Yahweh a house is given an everlasting one instead — and the Son who fills the promise turns David’s kingdom into Yahweh’s own.

Ezekiel 29

The first of the oracles against Egypt fixes on Pharaoh under a single emblem: the great dragon of the Nile. Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself. The Hebrew tannin is the river-monster, the crocodile sprawled in his waters; and out of his mouth comes the purest distillation of the flesh’s pride — I made it for myself. The creature claims to be his own creator.

This is the same sin as Tyre’s I am El, now in the older and deeper symbol. From Genesis 3 the serpent/dragon is the standing figure of sin in the flesh exalting itself, and the canon keeps reaching for it: Rahab the dragon Yahweh cut in pieces, leviathan whose heads Yahweh broke in the waters, the dragon of Revelation 12. Egypt is the house of bondage embodied as a sea-monster; Pharaoh is sin enthroned, saying the river of life is his own making.

Yahweh’s sentence is to hook the dragon and drag him out: I will put hooks in thy jaws… and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers. Egypt had been a staff of reed to Israel — leaned on for help against Babylon, it splintered and tore the hand that grasped it. When they took hold of thee by thy hand, thou didst break, and rend all their shoulder. The lesson is old as the exodus: the house of bondage cannot save; lean on the world-power and it pierces you. Zedekiah had just proved it — he sent to Egypt for horses and men against Babylon (17:11–18) and got nothing; the Pharaoh he trusted, Hophra, marched out and turned back, and Jeremiah names his end as the sign of the whole business (Jer 44:30). The reed splintered in Judah’s hand exactly when the hand closed on it.

The land is sentenced to forty years of desolation, the probation-number, before a partial return. Egypt will come back, but only as the basest of the kingdoms, never again to rule the nations or to be Israel’s confidence. The proud dragon is reduced to a low and watched thing, so that the people of Yahweh will learn where help does not come from.

The oracle ends with Egypt handed to Nebuchadnezzar as wages. Tyre cost Babylon a long siege and yielded little spoil, so Yahweh gives him Egypt for his labor — I have given him the land of Egypt for his labour wherewith he served against it; because they wrought for me. Even the proud Babylonian, all unknowing, is Yahweh’s hired workman. The dragon who made the river for himself is paid out to a king who is himself only a tool in the hand of the One who actually made it.

The creature who says I made the river for myself is hooked and hauled out — and the world-power leaned on for help is a reed that pierces the hand.

Galatians 3–4

Paul turns from history to argument with a cry: O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you? They received the Spirit by hearing of faith, not by works of law — so why finish in the flesh what was begun in the Spirit? His first witness is Abraham, who believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness — justified by faith four hundred years before the law was given, and promised that in thee shall all nations be blessed. The gospel was announced to Abraham in advance; the law cannot annul a promise already ratified.

The law’s role was real but temporary. It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come — a custodian, not a savior. The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. The Greek paidagogos is the household slave who walked the child to the teacher’s door; once the child is delivered, the escort’s task is done. The law brought Israel to Christ’s door and there handed them over; to go back under it now is to send for the escort after you have already met the teacher.

The promise rests on a single Seed. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. All the blessing of Abraham funnels through one person, and the many enter only by being in him: as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek… ye are all one in Christ Jesus. Baptism into the Seed is how Gentile and Jew alike become heirs according to the promise — the very blessing on all nations that Abraham was told of.

There is a hinge here not to pass over: Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. He was morally sinless, yet by hanging on the tree he was brought under a moral curse of the law (Deut 21:23) — taking hold of our condemned standing from the inside, as one of the family, not as a substitute paid over to a third party. And the purpose-clause is the surprise: this was done that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles. The curse borne in the flesh he shared is the very door through which the promise to all nations swings open. It is a powerful connection, and it rewards sitting with.

Chapter 4 opens with the heir under age, no better than a servant until the time appointed of the father — and then the great hinge of all history: when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law. He came of our nature — made of a woman, made under the law, sharing the very flesh and the very bondage he came to redeem — and through him comes the adoption, the Spirit of his Son in our hearts crying Abba, Father.

Paul ends with the allegory he names as an allegory: Hagar and Sarah, two covenants. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants. Hagar is Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, answering to the Jerusalem that now is, in bondage with her children. Sarah is the Jerusalem above, which is the mother of us all, and her children are born by promise, not by the strength of the flesh. The divine family stands whole in the chapter — a Father (Yahweh, Abba, v.6) and a mother (the Jerusalem above, v.26), which ties to the wisdom of God and the word that John 1 names — and the freeborn children are begotten of both. The verdict is Scripture’s own: cast out the bondwoman and her son… we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. The freeborn line is the line of faith, and it cannot share the inheritance with the line of works.

The law walked Israel to Christ’s door and there its task was done — the heir of the promise is the freeborn son, made one with the single Seed by faith.