2 Samuel 7:1

2 Samuel 7:1-29. The Promise of Perpetual Dominion to the house of David

=1 Chronicles 17. Cp. Psalms 89:19-37

1 3. David's desire to build a house for the Lord

1. when the king sat in his house When the king dwelt in his house, which he had built in the "city of David" (ch. 2 Samuel 5:9; 2 Samuel 5:11; 1 Chronicles 14:1). At what period of his reign David formed this resolution to build a temple cannot be exactly determined. On the one hand the emphatic words "when the Lord had given him rest round about from all his enemies" (cp. 2 Samuel 7:9) seem to point to a time after some at least of the wars recorded in ch. 8. On the other hand it was before the birth of Solomon (2 Samuel 7:12), and so cannot be placed in the latter years of his reign. The arrangement of the book is not strictly chronological, and this narrative finds a most suitable place here from its close connexion with the subject of the preceding chapter.