“When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
Parallel translations
- WEB When your days are fulfilled, and you sleep with your fathers, I will set up your offspring after you, who will proceed out of your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
- KJV And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom.
- BSB And when your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom.
- NASB When your days are finished and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come from you, and I will establish his kingdom.
- NLT For when you die and are buried with your ancestors, I will raise up one of your descendants, your own offspring, and I will make his kingdom strong.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God promised that after David's death He would raise up his offspring and establish his kingdom. This pledge secures David's dynasty beyond his own lifetime.
Overview
The immediate reference is to Solomon, who would succeed David and reign securely. Yet the language of an established kingdom reaches beyond Solomon toward an everlasting throne. The New Testament reads this 'offspring' as ultimately fulfilled in Christ, the risen Son of David whose kingdom never ends (Acts 13:23; 2:30).
Cross-references & the web
Theme
- CovenantThe everlasting covenant with David's house.
Cross-references · 17
- 1 Kgs 8:20Yahweh has established his word that he spoke; for I have risen up in the place of David my father, and I sit on the throne of Israel, as Yahweh promised, and have built the house for the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel.
- Acts 2:30Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne,
- 1 Kgs 2:1Now the days of David came near that he should die; and he commanded Solomon his son, saying,
- Acts 13:36For David, after he had in his own generation served the counsel of God, fell asleep, and was laid with his fathers, and saw decay.
- 1 Chr 17:11It will happen, when your days are fulfilled that you must go to be with your fathers, that I will set up your offspring after you, who will be of your sons; and I will establish his kingdom.
- Ps 132:11–12Yahweh has sworn to David in truth. He will not turn from it: “I will set the fruit of your body on your throne.
- Deut 31:16Yahweh said to Moses, “Behold, you shall sleep with your fathers. This people will rise up, and play the prostitute after the strange gods of the land, where they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them.
- Matt 22:42–44saying, “What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “Of David.”
- 1 Kgs 1:21Otherwise it will happen, when my lord the king sleeps with his fathers, that I and my son Solomon will be considered criminals.”
- Isa 9:7Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, on David’s throne, and on his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from that time on, even forever. The zeal of Yahweh of Armies will perform this.
- 1 Cor 15:51Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed,
- 1 Th 4:14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.
- Isa 11:10It will happen in that day that the nations will seek the root of Jesse, who stands as a banner of the peoples; and his resting place will be glorious.
- Gen 15:4Behold, Yahweh’s word came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir, but he who will come out of your own body will be your heir.”
- Ps 89:29I will also make his offspring endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven.
- Dan 12:2Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
- Isa 11:1–3A shoot will come out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots will bear fruit.
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Christ at the center
God's covenant with David — a son whose throne and kingdom would last forever (7:12–16) — finds its yes in Jesus, the Son of David who reigns without end.
How 2 Samuel 7:12 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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