[ [3]] Seb. Schmid says: "He rightly considers the tribes and the judges as one. For the tribes are viewed in the judges who had sprung from them, and vice versa, the judge, in his paternal tribe. And that the matter is thus to be understood, is clear, because, in Chronicles, where the judge is spoken of, he is introduced in the plural: 'Why have ye not built Me an house,' etc.? viz., thou, judge, with thy tribe."
[ [4]] That נוה, properly "habitation," "abode," is used here, as frequently, of the sheep-cote, is shown by Ps. lxxxviii. 70
, which is based upon our passage.
[ [5]] Michaelis says: "Just as in the preceding verses also, the house of David did not mean a heap of stones and wood brought together, but a congregation of people."
[ [6]] This mistake was corrected by Seb. Schmid. He says: "The promises here given to David have, of course, a reference to Solomon; but not such as if they were to be fulfilled only in the person of Solomon, and not also in his posterity, and, most of all, in the Messiah to be descended from David and Solomon."
[There is no direct mention of the person of the Messiah;] and yet the words, when considered in their full import, point, indirectly, to Him. The absolute perpetuity of the race can be conceived of, only when at last it centres in some superhuman person. But still more decisive is the connection in which this promise stands to Gen. xlix. The dominion which is there promised to Judah is here transferred to David. It is then to David's race that the exalted individual must belong, in whom, according to Gen. xlix. 10, Judah's dominion is to centre at some future period. That David really connected the promise which he received with Gen. xlix. 10, is shown by 1 Chron. xxviii. 4 (compare p. 91), and also by the name, Solomon, which he gave to his son; compare ibid. That Solomon also founded his hopes regarding the future upon a combination of Gen. xlix. and 2 Sam. vii., is shown by Ps. lxxii., which was composed by him; compare pp. 91, 92.
But, as respects this combination, David was not left to himself. He received further light from the source from which the promise had come to him. Although his mission was not properly a prophetic one,—although, in the main, it belonged to him to describe poetically what had come to him through prophetic inspiration, yet prophetic inspiration and sacred lyric are frequently commingled in him. The man who is "the sweet psalmist of Israel" claims a נאם in 2 Sam. xxiii. 1, and, in ver. 2, says that the Spirit of God spake by him, and His word was upon his tongue. In Acts ii. 30, 31, Peter declares that, by the divine promise, David received, first the impulse, and afterwards further illumination, by the prophetic spirit dwelling in him. The latter declaration, moreover, rests on the testimony of the Lord Himself, in Matt. xxii. 43, where He says that in Ps. cx., David had spoken ἐν πνεύματι, i.e., seized with the Holy Spirit.
It is true that, in a series of Psalms, David is not any more explicit and definite than the fundamental prophecy, but speaks only of the grace which the Lord had conferred upon the Davidic race by the promise of a dominion which should outlast all earthly things. Thus it is in Ps. xviii., where, in the presence of the congregation, he offers those thanks which previously he had, as it were, privately expressed, for the glorious promise made to him;—in Ps. xi., where, in the name of the people, he expresses thankful joy for this same promise;—in Ps. lxi. and in the cycle of Psalms from Ps. cxxxviii. to cxlv.—the prophetic legacy of David—in which, at the beginning, in Ps. cxxxviii., he praises the Lord for His promise of eternal mercy given to him, and then, with the torch of promise, lightens up the darkness of the sufferings that are to fall upon this house,—Psalms with which Ps. lxxxix. and cxxxix., which were composed at a later period, and by other writers, are closely connected.
But there are other Psalms (ii. and cx.) in which David, with a distinctness which can be accounted for only by divine revelation, beholds the Messiah in whose coming the promise in 2 Sam. vii. should find its final and complete fulfilment. Whilst David, in these Psalms, represents the Messiah as his antitype, as the mighty conqueror, who will not rest until He shall have subjected the whole earth to His sway, Solomon, in Ps. lxxii., represents Him as the true Prince of Peace, and His dominion, as a just and peaceful rule. The circumstances of the time of Solomon form, in a similar way, the foundation for the description of the Messiah in Ps. xlv., which was written by the sons of Korah.
A personal Messianic element is contained in some of those Davidic Psalms also which refer to the ideal person of the righteous one, whose image we at last find fully portrayed in the Book of Wisdom. In these the sufferings of the righteous one in a world of sin are described, as well as the glorious issue to which he attains by the help of the Lord. After his own experience, David could not have doubted that, notwithstanding the glorious promise of the Lord, severe sufferings were impending over his family, and over Him in whom that family was, at some future time, to centre. But his own experience likewise promised a glorious issue to these sufferings. The Psalms in which, besides the reference to the righteous one, and to the people, the allusion to the afflictions of the Davidic race, and to the suffering Messiah, most plainly appear, are the xxii., the cii., and the cix.