John Calvin Commentary Psalms 132:17

"There will I make the horn of David to bud: I have ordained a lamp for mine anointed." — Psalms 132:17 (ASV)

There will I make, etc. He reverts to the state of the kingdom, which God had promised to take under His care and protection. We should attend to the peculiar force of the words employed: I will make the horn of David to bud. Now, there can be no doubt as to the meaning of the term horn, which in Hebrew is very commonly used to signify force or power; but we should note that by the horn budding there is an allusion to the humble origin of the kingdom and the remarkable restorations it underwent.

David was taken from the menial drudgery of the sheepfold and from the lowly cottage where he lived, the youngest son of his father, who was no more than an ordinary shepherd, and was advanced to the throne, and rose by a series of unexpected successes. Under Jeroboam, the kingdom was at an early period so effectively cut down again that it was only by budding forth from time to time that it maintained itself in a moderate degree of advancement.

Afterwards, it underwent various shocks, which must have resulted in its destruction, had it not still budded anew. And when the people were dispersed in the captivity, what would have become of them, had not God made the broken and trampled horn of David to bud again? Isaiah accordingly seems to have had this in mind when he compared Christ to a rod that should spring not from a tree in full growth, but from a trunk or stem (Isaiah 11:1).

To the prophecy now before us, Zechariah perhaps refers when he says, Behold the man whose name is the Branch (Zechariah 6:12), intimating that only in this way could the power and dignity of the kingdom be restored after the dismemberment and ravages to which it had been exposed.

In 2 Samuel 23:5, David uses the word employed in the verse before us, but in a somewhat different sense, referring to the continual advancement of the kingdom to further measures of prosperity. Here the inspired penman rather refers to the remarkable manner in which God would cause the horn of David to revive again, whenever it might seem broken and withered.

The figure of the lamp is much to the same effect and occurs in many other places of Scripture, being a prophecy very common among the people. The meaning is that the kingdom, though it underwent occasional obscurings, would never be wholly extinguished by the calamities that overtook it, being like the lamp of God constantly burning and pointing out safety to the Lord’s people, though not shining to a great distance. At that time all the illumination enjoyed was but the feeble lamp that shone in Jerusalem; now Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, sheds a full radiance all over the world.