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( Äáíåßä , but TR [Note: Textus Receptus, Received Text.] Äáâßä )
David, the most popular of the heroes and the most illustrious of the kings of Israel, is often alluded to in the NT. He is ‘David the son of Jesse’ (Act_13:22), a name reminiscent of his lowly origin; and he is ‘the patriarch David’ (Act_2:29), ‘our father David’ (Act_4:25), one of that company of venerable progenitors who may be supposed to have bequeathed something of their spirit to all their descendants. He is habitually thought of as the ideal of manhood, the man ( ἀíÞñ ) after God’s heart, doing all His will (Act_13:22); and as the devout worshipper who desired to find a habitation for the God of Jacob (Act_7:46). All Israelites loved to think of his ‘days’ (Act_7:45) as the golden age of Hebrew history, and of ‘the holy and sure blessings’ shown to him (Act_13:34), or Divine promises made to his family, as pledges of everlasting favour to his nation. He is of course included in the roll of the OT heroes of faith (Heb_11:32).
These were matters of ancient history, but the relation of David to the Messiah seemed a point of vital importance to every Jew and Jewish Christian, as well as of deep interest to all educated Gentile Christians. The Davidic descent of the coming Deliverer-based on Isa_11:6, Jer_23:5, Psa_132:11 -was an article of faith among the scribes, who connected with it the hope of regal power and a restored Kingdom. It would be too much to say that our Lord’s own discussion of the point (Mat_22:41, Mar_12:35, Luk_20:41) amounts to a denial on His part of Davidic descent, but it clearly implies that He did not attach to the traditional genealogy the same importance as the Rabbis. The Messiah’s spiritual Lordship, acknowledged by the writer of Psalms 110 -who is presumed to be David-is for Him the essential fact (cf. W. Baldensperger, Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu2, 1892, p. 82f.). The Apostolic Church, however, appears to have taken for granted His Davidic extraction on the male side. This fact is genealogically set forth in Mat_1:1-16 and Luk_3:23-38. Much earlier, St. Paul is said to have referred to it at Pisidian Antioch (Act_13:23), and in Rom_1:3 he expresses the belief that Christ was ‘born of the seed of David according to the flesh’ (cf. 2Ti_2:8). For the writer of the Revelation, too, it is an article of faith that Christ is ‘the Root (meaning shoot or scion from the main stem) of David’ (Rev_5:5), ‘the Root and Offspring of David’ (Rev_22:16).
Before the rise of historical and literary criticism, the Psalms were assumed to be Davidic in authorship and many of them directly Messianic in import. In Act_1:16 the 69th Psalm, in Act_2:25; Psalms 16, in Act_2:34; Psalms 110, in Act_4:25; Psalms 2, in Rom_4:6; Psalms 32, in Rom_11:9; Psalms 69, and in Heb_4:7; Psalms 95 are ascribed to David. Psalms 16 is supposed to be the poetical embodiment of an astonishing vision granted to David, of the resurrection of his greater Son. In its original significance it was a cry for the deliverance or the writer from death and the expression of a serene hope that the prayer would be answered. St. Peter is struck by the parallel between the words of ‘the patriarch David’ and the experience of Christ, and instead of abstracting the eternal principle contained in the Psalm-that God cannot leave to destruction any holy one with whom He had made a covenant-and applying it to Christ, he assumes, as the exegetical methods of his time permitted him to do, that the Psalmist had the actual historical events directly in view a thousand years before their occurrence. In the same way Psalms 110, which ascribes to an ideal King the highest participation in the sovereignty of God, is interpreted, on the ground that David himself ‘ascended not into the heavens,’ as a prevision on his part of the Ascension of Christ (Act_2:34). Historical criticism insists on the rigid separation of all the Psalms from their NT applications. Each of them had its own meaning in its own time and place. The words ‘his office let another take’ (Act_1:20 ║ Psa_109:8) were no doubt originally spoken regarding some traitor, but probably not by David, and certainly not concerning the betrayer of our Lord. Yet ‘the idea lying behind the parallel perceived … is usually profound, admitting of suggestive restatement in terms of our own more rigorous literary methods’ (J. V. Bartlet, Acts [Century Bible, 1901], p. 145).
In Rev_3:7 the Messiah is described as ‘he that hath the key of David.’ This is part of a message of comfort to the persecuted Church of Philadelphia. The whole verse is an adaptation of Isa_22:22. The idea is that the steward who has the key of the house possesses the symbol of unlimited authority over the household. As the Scion of the house of David, Christ has supreme power in the Divine realm, admitting and excluding whom He will. ‘And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder’ (Isa_22:22) is synonymous with ‘And the government shall be upon his shoulder’ (9:6). Vested with that authority, possessing that key, the Messiah sets before the Jewish Christians of Philadelphia, who are shut out from the synagogue, the ever-open door of His eternal Kingdom.
Literature.-F. Weber, Jüdische Theologie, Leipzig, 1897, p. 382f.; C. A. Briggs, The Messiah of the Apostles, 1895, pp. 42, 74ff.; E. F. Scott, The Kingdom and the Messiah, 1911, p. 175ff.
James Strahan.