2 Samuel 23 · a question people ask
Who is the ruler who "shall be as the light of the morning"?
The words don't name him. David gives them as God's: "The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spoke to me" (23:3). The saying is, "One who rules over men righteously, who rules in the fear of God" (23:3), "shall be as the light of the morning when the sun rises, a morning without clouds, when the tender grass springs out of the earth, through clear shining after rain" (23:4). Then David turns to his own house: "Isn’t my house so with God? Yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure" (23:5). Christians read the ruler of 23:3-4 in two main ways. Both agree that the words are given as God's (23:3), that they name no king, and that David sets them beside the covenant God made with him (23:5).
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
What a king of David's house should be
Those who read it this way take 23:3-4 as God's word on what any king who rules rightly is like, a measure for David and the kings of his house. Moses' law told the king to write himself a copy of the law (Deuteronomy 17:18) and read from it, "that he may learn to fear the LORD his God" (Deuteronomy 17:19). David reminds Solomon of the LORD's word to him, "If your children are careful of their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul" (1 Kings 2:4). A psalm "By Solomon" (Psalm 72:1) prays, "God, give the king your justice; your righteousness to the royal son" (Psalm 72:1), and says of the king, "He will come down like rain on the mown grass" (Psalm 72:6). On this reading, "Isn’t my house so with God?" (23:5) sets David's house beside that measure, and David rests on the covenant (23:5).
2 Samuel 23:3-5 · Deuteronomy 17:18-20 · 1 Kings 2:3-4 · Psalm 72:1 · Psalm 72:6
The son of the promise, kept in Jesus
Those who read it this way take the ruler as the son the LORD promised David, whose throne is "forever" (7:13), since David speaks of the covenant in the next breath (23:5). Later prophets speak of a righteous king from David: "I will raise to David a righteous Branch; and he will reign as king and deal wisely, and will execute justice and righteousness in the land" (Jeremiah 23:5), and "I will cause a Branch of righteousness to grow up to David" (Jeremiah 33:15), where grow up is the same Hebrew verb as 23:5's "Won’t he make it grow?" (23:5). Isaiah says of the shoot from Jesse, "His delight will be in the fear of the LORD" (Isaiah 11:3). And Peter says David was a prophet who knew that God "would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne" (Acts 2:30). On this reading, the ruler of 23:3-4 is Jesus.
2 Samuel 7:13 · 2 Samuel 23:5 · Jeremiah 23:5 · Jeremiah 33:15 · Isaiah 11:1-3 · Acts 2:30
The verses
“The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spoke to me, ‘One who rules over men righteously, who rules in the fear of God, shall be as the light of the morning when the sun rises, a morning without clouds, when the tender grass springs out of the earth, through clear shining after rain.’ Isn’t my house so with God? Yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure, for it is all my salvation and all my desire. Won’t he make it grow?”