Psalm 132 · a question people ask
"He will not turn from it" (132:11), and then, "If your children will keep my covenant" (132:12). Is the LORD's oath to David conditional?
The psalm says both, one after the other. The oath is sworn "in truth", and "He will not turn from it: “I will set the fruit of your body on your throne" (132:11). Then: "If your children will keep my covenant, my testimony that I will teach them, their children also will sit on your throne forever more" (132:12) (tap throne). Other places have the same two things side by side. In 2 Samuel 7 the LORD says of David's offspring, "If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him" (2 Samuel 7:14), "but my loving kindness will not depart from him" (2 Samuel 7:15). Psalm 89 has "If his children forsake my law" (Psalm 89:30), and "Once I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David" (Psalm 89:35). And David, commanding Solomon (1 Kings 2:1), gives the LORD's word as "If your children are careful of their way" (1 Kings 2:4); in Hebrew that if opens with the same three words as 132:12's If your children will keep, and the Hebrew Bible has those three words together only there, in 1 Kings 8:25, in 2 Chronicles 6:16 and here. The psalm doesn't say how the oath and the if fit together, and these notes don't either.
The verses
“The LORD has sworn to David in truth. He will not turn from it: “I will set the fruit of your body on your throne. If your children will keep my covenant, my testimony that I will teach them, their children also will sit on your throne forever more.””
“I will be his father, and he will be my son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the stripes of the children of men; but my loving kindness will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before you.”
“If his children forsake my law, and don’t walk in my ordinances; if they break my statutes, and don’t keep my commandments; then I will punish their sin with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. But I will not completely take my loving kindness from him, nor allow my faithfulness to fail. I will not break my covenant, nor alter what my lips have uttered. Once I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David.”
“Now therefore, may LORD, the God of Israel, keep with your servant David my father that which you have promised him, saying, ‘There shall not fail from you a man in my sight to sit on the throne of Israel, if only your children take heed to their way, to walk before me as you have walked before me.’”