In My House and in My Kingdom: The Son of David Whose Kingdom Has No End
Old Testament: 1 Paralipomenon 17:11-14
And when thou shalt have ended thy days to go to thy fathers, I will raise up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons: and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build me a house, and I will establish his throne for ever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son: and I will not take my mercy away from him, as I took it from him that was before thee. But I will settle him in my house, and in my kingdom for ever: and his throne shall be most firm for ever.
Old Testament, also: 2 Kings 7:16
And thy house shall be faithful, and thy kingdom for ever before thy face, and thy throne shall be firm for ever.
New Testament: Luke 1:31-33; Hebrews 1:5
Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end. ... For to which of the angels hath he said at any time, Thou art my Son, today have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?
The connection
King David lived in a house of cedar while the ark of the Lord stayed "under skins", and he wanted to build God a house (1 Paralipomenon 17:1). God answered through Nathan the prophet: "Thou shalt not build me a house to dwell in" (17:4). Instead, "the Lord will build thee a house" (17:10). A son of David would come, whose throne God would establish for ever (17:11-14). The same promise in the books of Kings says "thy house ... and thy kingdom" (2 Kings 7:16). Paralipomenon, set down after the exile, when no son of David sat on any throne, says "my house" and "my kingdom". The kingdom is God's own, and the Son reigns in it. It could not be Solomon. He built the Temple, but "his heart was turned away by women to follow strange gods" (3 Kings 11:4), and the kingdom was torn in two after him. A thousand years later the angel Gabriel, sent to a virgin espoused to a man of the house of David, gives Nathan's promise back word by word: "He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end" (Luke 1:32-33). Throne, house, kingdom, son, and for ever: every part of the promise is there. The Epistle to the Hebrews takes the next line of the oracle and gives it to Christ alone: "I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son" (Hebrews 1:5). When Mary asks how this shall be, the answer is "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee" (Luke 1:35). The Catechism teaches that the Kingdom promised to David would be the work of the Holy Ghost (CCC 709). St Augustine says it plainly: "He who thinks this grand promise was fulfilled in Solomon greatly errs". Solomon, "as a shadow of Him that should come, he foreshowed Christ our Lord", and the true Son of David builds "an house of God, not of wood and stone, but of men".
Moral sense
David wanted to do something great for God, and God answered by promising to do something greater for David. Our plans for God are good, but the deeper work is to let Him build us: "Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it" (Psalms 126:1). The house He builds is made of people. "Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16). We are "built together into an habitation of God in the Spirit" (Ephesians 2:22). Mary is the model. She did not build the throne of David; she consented to it: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word" (Luke 1:38).
Anagogical sense
God promised to settle the Son "in my house, and in my kingdom for ever". The risen Son has gone into His Father's house, and He goes to make room for us there: "In my Father's house there are many mansions ... I go to prepare a place for you" (John 14:2). At the end the seventh trumpet sounds and heaven cries out, "The kingdom of this world is become our Lord's and his Christ's, and he shall reign for ever and ever" (Apocalypse 11:15). The last words of the Bible's last book give His name: "I am the root and stock of David, the bright and morning star" (Apocalypse 22:16).
The Fathers
St Augustine, City of God XVII.8: "He who thinks this grand promise was fulfilled in Solomon greatly errs; for he attends to the saying, 'He shall build me an house,' but he does not attend to the saying, 'His house shall be faithful, and his kingdom for evermore before me.'" And: "while, as a shadow of Him that should come, he foreshowed Christ our Lord, he did not also in his own person resemble Him." And: "He behoved to come, who should build an house of God, not of wood and stone, but of men, such as we rejoice He does build."
Warrant
Scriptural, because the Epistle to the Hebrews quotes the oracle of Nathan, "I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son" (1 Paralipomenon 17:13; 2 Kings 7:14), of Christ (Hebrews 1:5), and Gabriel's words at Luke 1:32-33 repeat the promise's throne, house, kingdom and for ever; St James at Jerusalem reads the tabernacle of David rebuilt (Amos 9:11) as fulfilled in the Church (Acts 15:16). St Augustine, City of God XVII.8, argues that the promise is in no wise fulfilled in Solomon but most fully in Christ, and St Cyprian (Testimonies II.11) gives Nathan's oracle as proof that Christ was born of the seed of David. Checked in the languages: the Hebrew of 1 Paralipomenon 17:14 reads beveiti uvemalkhuti, in my house and in my kingdom, and the Vulgate keeps both, in domo mea, et in regno meo; the Septuagint has in my house but his kingdom, en basileia autou. The Hebrew of 2 Kings 7:16 has thy house and thy kingdom. Luke 1:33 has basileusei epi ton oikon Iakob eis tous aionas and tes basileias autou, the house and kingdom nouns of the Septuagint promise, oikos and basileia. The site touches the promise in passing in the entries on the queen mother and on the Lord who builds the house; this entry is the promise itself. The lead was Dunk's, from reading 1 Paralipomenon 17:14.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 709.
The verses
1 Paralipomenon 17:11 · 1 Paralipomenon 17:12 · 1 Paralipomenon 17:13 · 1 Paralipomenon 17:14 · 2 Kings 7:16 · Luke 1:31 · Luke 1:32 · Luke 1:33 · Hebrews 1:5
