1 Chronicles 17:16-19 meaning

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1 Chronicles 17:16-19 describes David the king going in and sitting before the LORD, asking who he is and what his house is that God has brought him this far, marveling that God has spoken of his house for a great while to come and regarded him as a man of high degree, confessing that God knows His servant, and acknowledging that God has done all this greatness for His servant's sake and according to His own heart.

1 Chronicles 17:16-19 records David's response, and it begins with his posture: Then David the king went in and sat before the LORD and said, "Who am I, O LORD God, and what is my house that You have brought me this far? (v 16). He went in to the tent where the ark now rested, and he sat before the LORD (v 16). The king who wanted to build does not begin by planning; he sits, and he asks a question about himself. "Who am I" is the response of a man measuring the gift against the recipient. Moses asked it at the burning bush (Exodus 3:11), and David asked it when Saul offered him a royal marriage (1 Samuel 18:18). My house, his family of Bethlehem shepherds, had been brought this far by God alone.

He then weighs the promise: "This was a small thing in Your eyes, O God; but You have spoken of Your servant's house for a great while to come, and have regarded me according to the standard of a man of high degree, O LORD God" (v 17). Everything God had already done—the pasture, the kingship, the victories—David calls a small thing in His eyes, measured against the promise just given about his house for a great while to come (v 17). The Hebrew of the last clause is difficult, and translations differ; the NASB95's rendering, regarded me according to the standard of a man of high degree (v 17), takes David to mean that God has treated him as if he ranked among the great, the honor God promised in 1 Chronicles 17:8. Whatever the precise sense, David is saying that God has looked at a shepherd and seen a dynasty.

Words begin to fail: "What more can David still say to You concerning the honor bestowed on Your servant? For You know Your servant (v 18). David speaks of himself in the third person, David, and Your servant, taking up the title God had given him twice through Nathan (1 Chronicles 17:4, 7). You know Your servant closes the gap that words cannot; God knows David's heart, including the gratitude he cannot fully speak. Psalm 139 develops the same confession: "O LORD, You have searched me and known me" (Psalm 139:1).

David then traces the promise to its source: "O LORD, for Your servant's sake, and according to Your own heart, You have wrought all this greatness, to make known all these great things (v 19). Two reasons are given. God acted for Your servant's sake, for David's good, and according to Your own heart (v 19), out of God's own purpose and will. 2 Samuel 7:21 reads "for Your word's sake and according to Your own heart"; the statement, "for Your servant's sake," keeps the attention on God's kindness to David personally. The greatness and great things are the covenant just announced. God's promises originate in God's heart, apart from any merit in the one who receives them. That is the foundation of David's confidence in the rest of the prayer, and it is the foundation of every believer's confidence: God "saved us...according to His own purpose and grace" (2 Timothy 1:9).