arked out as the person from whom, at length, should
proceed the glorious King whose peaceful dominion is destined to extend
over all the nations of the earth.

Whilst, hitherto, the tribe only had been pointed out, in the midst of
which an imperishable dominion should be established, and out of which
the Saviour was at last to come,--under David another feature was added
by the determination of the _family_. This was done in the prophetic
announcement which the Lord, by the prophet Nathan, addressed in 2 Sam.
vii. to David, when he had adopted the resolution of building to the
Lord a fixed temple, instead of the moveable tabernacle which had
hitherto been used.

Ver. 1. "_And it happened when the king sat in his house, and the Lord
had given him rest from all his enemies round about._ Ver. 2. _And the
king said unto Nathan the prophet, See, now, I dwell in a house of
cedar, and the ark of God dwelleth within curtains._"

The question here is:--To what time is the occurrence to be assigned?
The answer is:--To the time not long after David had obtained the
dominion over all Israel. To this opinion we are led by the position
which the report occupies in the Books both of Chronicles and of
Samuel. The supposition is so very probable, that nothing short of very
cogent reasons could induce us to abandon it. A narrative, in which
David's accession to the throne is followed by the conquest of
Jerusalem, and this by the building of his palace,--and this again by
the bringing up of the ark of the covenant,--and this, still further,
by David's anxiety for a fixed sanctuary, evidently agrees with the
order in which these events followed each other. We can the less
entertain any doubt concerning it, because we are expressly told, that
the wars and victories of David reported in chap. viii. were subsequent
to what is reported in chap. vii.; compare viii. 1. That the conquest
of Jerusalem and the [Pg 132] building of his palace belong to the
period soon after his accession to the throne, is both evident, and
generally acknowledged; but that David's anxiety for a fixed sanctuary
was awakened in him soon after the completion of his palace, is
expressly stated in 1 Chron. xvii. 1. Instead of [Hebrew: ki iwb] in
ver. 1 of our passage, we find there [Hebrew: kawr iwb], "when," or "as
soon as" he dwelt. We cannot well think of any later period, as David's
zeal for the building of the house of the Lord was closely connected
with the ques