1 Chronicles 17:2

As yet God had not revealed to the Prophet what he purposed concerning David: therefore seeing God favored David, he spake what he thought.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

(2) Do.—Samuel, “Go, do.”

All that is in thine heart.—According to Hebrew ideas, the heart was the seat of the mind and will, as well as of the emotions. But even the great Greek Aristotle, seven centuries later than David, supposed the brain to be merely a kind of cooling counterpoise to the heat of the liver.

God.—Samuel, “Jehovah;” but in last verse,” ark of God.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2. in thine heart] The heart according to Heb. thought is the seat of intention and purpose.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

This verse gives Nathan"s response on the spur of the moment. And that it was not radically wrong from a prophet may be inferred from the stress afterwards laid upon the acceptableness to God of what had been in the heart of David to do. Even with God, silence would sometimes be understood by a prophet to be equivalent to assent.

Vers. 2-5.

God"s obstructions of the good purposes of men, and the uses of such obstructions.

The greatest trials of man"s faith lie in the working of the sovereignty of God. Yet there is not an individual attribute of the Creator to be yielded to him more unreservedly than this same sovereignty, which may be said to include in it the rights of many an attribute. The Divine frustration of our purposes, disappointment of our hopes, and summary determination of many a life that we thought made for the highest service, often enough elude all the acumen of our reason, and bring to nought in one moment the pride of creature-wisdom. But so soon as ever we are recovered from the first severity of the blow and from the deep prostration which it has inferred, it is always left to us to search for, gather, and compare the relative uses that may attend cases of this description of suffering. We may vainly seek the reason, as vainly as try to search the immortal mind itself; but far from vainly shall we attempt to observe attendant uses and lessons. Human wisdom is, indeed, never in so fair a way for increase and improvement as when thus engaged. The present narrative contains little or nothing of difficulty, however, either in respect of finding the reasons of God"s prohibition, in the instance before us, or in respect of gathering the lessons and uses suggested by that prohibition. Let us notice

I THE REASONS, SO FAR AS HERE GIVEN, OF GOD"S DENIAL OF DAVID IN THE GOOD PURPOSE OF HIS HEART. It is remarkable that neither this passage nor the parallel to it states the one of these reasons on which the real stress would have been supposed to fall. We will notice this, therefore, in its place, (1Ch_22:8) inasmuch as the silence about it here is entire. We must not pass unnoticed, however, one and perhaps the only sign of an explanation of this silence which we can find. In both this and the parallel place the historian speaks. In 1Ch_22:8, 1Ch_28:3, where all the facts are boldly stated, it is the noble-hearted David himself who speaks; and in 1Ki_5:3, where we have what may be called an intermediate account as regards fulness, the son Solomon speaks. Equally honourable to the historian and to David himself are these circumstances, to whatever further use they lend themselves. And no distant analogies will the New Testament yield, as e.g. when it is not the Evangelist John who will record some shortcoming of Peter, where Peter himself would have made clean breast of it all, with noble spirit of confession and self-surrender (comp. Joh_13:36-38, with Mar_14:29-31). Confining ourselves, then, to the reasons recorded in our present passage, they must stand confessed as of the most condescending and touching description. We must notice, first, that the reasons assigned for the refusal of permission to David to build do not carry the slightest reflection on him or his character, or the character of his foregoing life the matter is viewed now not from the "standpoint" of David at all, but, if that may be reverently said by human lip which is so graciously done by Divine act, from the "standpoint" of the Divine Personage himself; and secondly, that those reasons do not exclude from consideration the fulfilment of the purpose of David"s heart, but only his own fulfilment of that purpose. "Praying breath," sings one, "is never spent in vain." And holy purpose and noble religious ambition are not learn and nourished in vain. They often fulfil more purpose in the subject of them, than their realization by himself would fulfil for the object of them, or for others generally. Personal disappointment, times without number, shall signify personal improvement, and not signify any loss to the general community, nor to the course of the world. Those reasons are delicately put, but will have been fully appreciated by David; and they are full of tenderest suggestion. They are:

1. That the Divine Friend, Leader, Captain, has for ages and generationsshared the pilgrim lot of his people. If they have not had a fixed home, so has it been with him also. If they have travelled from place to place, so has he also.

2. That he has shared this pilgrim lot of the people without a murmur,without a reproach, a request, or even a suggestion addressed to them. How often had they murmured, but he never! How often had they done worse than murmur! They had rebelled against the Holy One of Israel; but he had forgiven their backslidings, had not forsaken them, and to the last ripe hour would carry on his own wise, consistent, gracious purpose. They for whose sake all the journey, all the discipline, all the teaching, all the promise were, had wearied, and been impatient; but he had borne all the sorrow, and stood the mark of all the ingratitude, and gives up no jot nor. tittle of the good purpose of his great decrees. He suffers with them, for them; he hears and still forbears.

3. That he will not even now anticipate by an hour, as it were, theestablished peace, happiness, and home of his people. Not till they are where he designs to place them, and have all that he purposes to give them, will he permit his own house to be builded, his own throne to be set, or himself to "arise and enter into his rest." Great every way is the moral sublimity of this position, when brought into comparison with that so often assumed by men. Each thinks for himself, each snatches for himself, each hastens to make secure above all his own position first. And in the very instance before us, whether more or less rightly, David has built his own house first has set the example, and established himself first, a representative of the people, and of how it should be with them also. But the Divine Leader and Lord of the people all, both nation and king, observes this different order. He fixes the time, the place, the peace and rest of all, before he will allow that the hour has come for himself. It is a little type and a suggestive analogy of what is ever going on throughout nature and the entire world. All the forces of these are at work, and intensely active; their push and strife and tumult are wonderful. They are beneath all appearances finding their own place and fulfilling their legitimate mission, till when they all are satisfied, the Lord shall enter in an emphatic sense his holy temple. A moment all the earth shall keep silence before him, but the next moment the vast theatre shall resound again with his praise. Whatever fitness of time there may have seemed to David to be present now, we may understand God to say that he knows all that shall he yet, and is biding the moment of supreme occasion. Nor is there a lesson that more needs, in all our impatience and short-sighted eagerness, to be made familiar with us, and to be accepted with the sacredness of a principle.

II THE USES OF GOD"S DENIAL OF HUMAN PURPOSES, EVEN WHEN AS WELL MEANT AS THAT OF DAVID. Such uses may have been very many, and a large proportion of them very indirect, in the present instance. But if not so in any one particular case if, on the contrary, very few and definite in their character the other alternative will prove the rule. The apparent slight which God puts on our purposes and our higher aspirations, we may rest assured, is but an apparent slight. It is not real, and is compensated for by what vastly outweighs the pain and disappointment and sorrow of it. Those Divine contradictions:

1. Save us from self-dependence and spiritual pride. These are two of themost noxious weeds, and most baneful their shade, which grow in a nature spiritually inclined.

1. They exert a direct tendency to increase the wisdom and circumspectionand adaptedness of our human purposes. If our aspirations are not still continued, they were not deep, and are not entitled to any sympathy if

2. blown away like chaff by the wind. But if they were deep and genuine, then we take them back again, nurse them in our hearts, and even improve upon them. The poor thing called our wisdom then grows perhaps only then.

3. They increase the deep, calm purity of our heart"s purpose. Amazing isthe proportion of ecclesiastical zeal, priestly zeal, zeal to have dominion over other men"s souls, and to usurp domination over their whole life thereby, compared with the zeal for God"s glory, simple and pure, and man"s soul in its infinite value, infinite danger. If any spiritual purpose were fed by the inflammable fuel of success, a fire would be lighted which would know no suppression, but which would inevitably, in a vast majority of cases, fatally envelop first of all them that lit it.

1. They will increase the reverence and deep religious fear of our noblesthuman purposes. Easy usefulness, uniform success, rapidly engenders perfunctory service, and perfunctory service bespeaks prompt disaster, wherever it touches the temple, the Church, the altar.

2. They will, in fact, increase force. No loss will in the event be sustained. That which can best be spared will have disappeared. The good will be left. And though that good may not show the same bulk, nor utter the larger volume of sound, it will be irresistible. It will work its way, steal its way, penetrate its way; it will thaw the ice, break the stone, melt the iron of human hearts; it will be mighty with the breath of God"s own spirit. When, therefore, God holds back awhile our good purpose, it is to make good better. And the better good will always make in the long run the mightier good.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.