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1 Chronicles 17 Bible study: The LORD will build you a house
David was told he would not build God a house; the LORD would build David one (17:4, 17:10). In Chronicles the promise ends with the house and the kingdom called God's own: "I will settle him in my house and in my kingdom forever" (17:14), where 2 Samuel 7:16 has "Your house and your kingdom".
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“Now it has pleased you to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue forever before you; for you, LORD, have blessed, and it is blessed forever.”
Try it · Did you catch it?
“In 1 Chronicles 17, the LORD tells David, "the LORD will build you a house."”
Is that in 1 Chronicles 17, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
A cedar house and a tent
The chapter opens with David at home: "When David was living in his house, David said to Nathan the prophet" (17:1), "Behold, I live in a cedar house, but the ark of the LORD’s covenant is in a tent" (17:1) (tap house and tent). Both have come into the book already. Hiram king of Tyre "sent messengers to David with cedar trees, masons, and carpenters, to build him a house" (1 Chronicles 14:1). The tent was David's own: "he prepared a place for God’s ark, and pitched a tent for it" (1 Chronicles 15:1), and "They brought in God’s ark, and set it in the middle of the tent that David had pitched for it" (1 Chronicles 16:1). David doesn't say here what he means to do. Nathan answers, "Do all that is in your heart; for God is with you" (17:2). Later in the book David says what was in his heart: "As for me, it was in my heart to build a house to the name of the LORD my God" (1 Chronicles 22:7).
Where it leads to Jesus
Whose son is he?
1 Chronicles 17:11leads toMatthew 22:42
"I will set up your offspring after you, who will be of your sons; and I will establish his kingdom" (17:11), and of that son the LORD says, "I will be his father, and he will be my son" (17:13). While the Pharisees were gathered together (Matthew 22:41), Jesus asked them, "What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he?" They said to him, "Of David" (Matthew 22:42). Then he gave David's words, "The Lord said to my Lord" (Matthew 22:44), and asked, "If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?" (Matthew 22:45). Jesus doesn't name 1 Chronicles 17, and the Pharisees don't say which Scripture their answer rests on, so setting this beside 17:11 is a reading. Some see in Jesus' question the son this chapter promises: David's offspring, whom God calls "my son" (17:13). Others read Matthew 22 on its own terms, as a question about the words of David that Jesus quotes (Matthew 22:43-44), which are not from 1 Chronicles 17.
Honest questions
Questions people ask about 1 Chronicles 17
That was a taste
The rest of 1 Chronicles 17 is waiting in Favor
- Who builds whom a house?
- My house and my kingdom
- "Who am I?"
- Side by side with 2 Samuel 7
- The promise through the rest of the book
- 10 questions as you read
- 11 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
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The Hebrew word behind it
בַּיִתbayitsay BA-yit
Brown-Driver-Briggs: "house", and also "household, family". In Hebrew it comes 14 times in this chapter, and the WEB gives "house" every time. It is David's own house, "I live in a cedar house" (17:1), and the house David may not build: "You shall not build me a house to dwell in" (17:4). Then it turns: "the LORD will build you a house" (17:10), and the next verse speaks of "your offspring after you" (17:11). David's offspring "will build me a house" (17:12), and the LORD will settle him "in my house and in my kingdom forever" (17:14). David takes the word into his prayer, "what is my house" (17:16), and ends with it: "Now it has pleased you to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue forever before you" (17:27).
For your group
1 Chronicles 17 Bible study questions
- 1David spoke of his cedar house and the tent the ark was in (17:1). What do you notice about how you care for your own life beside how you make room for God?
- 2David asked, "Who am I, LORD God, and what is my house, that you have brought me this far?" (17:16). Looking back, how far has God brought you, and what would you say to him about it?
- 3David was told no to what was in his heart (17:4), and then given a bigger promise than he asked for (17:10-14). Has a no from God ever turned out to hold something better? How did you come to see it?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads 1 Chronicles 17 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home