Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Samuel 7:5

"Go and tell my servant David, Thus saith Jehovah, Shalt thou build me a house for me to dwell in?" — 2 Samuel 7:5 (ASV)

Are you to build? —The question implies the negative, as it is expressed in 1 Chronicles 17:5, and as it is here translated in the Septuagint and Syriac.

After David was told that he would not be allowed to build a temple for God as he desired, he was promised that God would make a sure house for him and would accept the building of the temple from his son.

David is called “my servant,” an expression used only for those eminent and faithful in the service of God, such as Moses and Joshua. This shows—as, in fact, the whole message does—that the prohibition conveyed nothing of Divine displeasure, but no reason for it is expressed here.

But in David’s parting charge to Solomon (1 Chronicles 22:8), and to the heads of the nation (1 Chronicles 28:3), he says, “the word of the Lord came to him,” giving as the reason, because thou hast shed much blood on the earth, and hast been a man of war. Those wars had been necessary under the circumstances in which he was placed and had never been disapproved by God; still, the mere fact that he had been a man of blood unfitted him for this sacred office.

Two reasons for the prohibition are found by nearly all commentators in this message itself:

• That God must first build a house for David before he could properly build a temple for God.
• That the kingdom was not yet sufficiently established and peaceful for a temple to be built.

But neither of these is assigned as a reason in the Divine word, and it is better to keep only to what is assigned, however these other facts may convince us of the fitness and propriety of the postponement of David’s purpose.