Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 33:17

"For thus saith Jehovah: David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel;" — Jeremiah 33:17 (ASV)

David shall never want a man ... —The words are hardly more than a repetition of promises like those of 2 Samuel 7:16; 1 Kings 2:4; Psalms 89:29; Psalms 89:36, but they are repeated here under very different circumstances. Then it had been given when the line of David was in all the freshness of its strength. Now it is uttered when that line seemed on the very point of dying out. The hope of the prophet is, however, inextinguishable. He is certain that the true King will always be of the house of David.

It was almost in the nature of things that the words of the prophet would find a fulfillment other than that which he himself envisioned; and that, while he pictured to himself an unbroken succession of sovereigns of David’s line, there was in fact a higher fulfillment in the continuous sovereignty of the Christ as the true Son of David. We have something like an echo of these words in the words of the Angel at the Annunciation (Luke 1:32–33), and it is an echo that interprets them.