1 Lord, remember David, and all his afflictions:
2 How he sware unto the Lord, and vowed unto the mighty God of Jacob;
3 Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my bed;
4 I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids,
5 Until I find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob.
6 Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah: we found it in the fields of the wood.
7 We will go into his tabernacles: we will worship at his footstool.
8 Arise, O Lord, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy strength.
9 Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness; and let thy saints shout for joy.
10 For thy servant David's sake turn not away the face of thine anointed.
11 The Lord hath sworn in truth unto David; he will not turn from it; Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne.
12 If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore.
13 For the Lord hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation.
14 This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it.
15 I will abundantly bless her provision: I will satisfy her poor with bread.
16 I will also clothe her priests with salvation: and her saints shall shout aloud for joy.
17 There will I make the horn of David to bud: I have ordained a lamp for mine anointed.
18 His enemies will I clothe with shame: but upon himself shall his crown flourish.
God has established a place where His people become kings and priests and where He is worshiped.
Our chief interest is to assemble in the tabernacle of God. We carry the spirit of David with us as we come to worship. With all that was in him, David vowed that he would find a place for the worship of God, for meeting with God. As we read this psalm, we redouble our commitments to build the church of Jesus Christ, the Son of David. This becomes our central focus, our life’s goal, our chief passion, and our greatest cause for joy. We rejoice as we anticipate meeting with God in the company of the saints.
Verses 1-5
In order to follow the psalm through, the reader needs to pay attention to who is speaking. The first ten verses consist of our prayer to God. We recall David’s commitment to building the temple, but the point is that we identify with David. We resonate with his sentiment, in his passion to build a temple to God. Don’t miss David’s tremendous dedication to this task. He prioritized God’s house over His own. This establishes the priority of the church (or Christ) over our families. To prioritize the church is not to denigrate the family or to negate the responsibilities a man has to his own home. For example, an elder must rule his family well first, before he can rule in the household of God (1 Tim. 3:5). Nonetheless, the goal of building a faithful family is in order to build the body of the church. We do not build a family for the sake of the family. We build a family for the sake of the church. Jesus said, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). This establishes the priority of Christ’s body (the body of believers) over the family. Our task is to raise our children in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord,” with the intent that they will be part of that body of Christ.
“I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids, until I find out a place for the Lord. . .” There is a certain spirit of desperation and insistence about these verses. There comes a point in a man’s life in which he will do or die. He commits himself to the task. He knows that he must do it. That is the spirit David brings to the project of building the temple. He refuses to sleep until he has found a place for the house of God. Truly, God meets with His people in the assembly of the saints, and this then becomes the chief interest of every godly family.
Verses 6-7
The place in which the psalm is written, from which David cries, is Bethlehem (Ephratah) and Kirjathjearim (“the fields of the wood”). In 1 Chronicles 13:1-14, we find the ark of God sitting in the house of Uzzah in Kirjathjearim, about fifteen miles outside of Jerusalem. The worship of God was in disrepair, and had been so since the Philistines had captured the ark some forty years earlier. For some reason, the people of God did not consider the worship of Yahweh a priority (even though the ark of the covenant signified the place at which God met with his people in the Old Testament). So the church languished. At times, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ also suffers neglect. It may be that the elders have other priorities, such as making money and providing for their own comforts. They may do very little discipling, and accountability and discipline fall apart. The teaching becomes rote and unchallenging, conflicts constantly split their church bodies, programs replace relationship, and corporate structures and slick presentations keep the masses happy. While all this is going on, it is the bride of Christ that suffers. Now, when David walks up and down in Bethlehem and finds the present situation untenable, unacceptable, and even despicable, he must act. It is time to re-prioritize the church in the estimation of God’s people. We cannot put it off any longer.
Verses 8-10
Now we pray for a return of the presence of God by His Spirit into the worship. We pray that He will come into the rest that He instituted from the beginning. Our Sabbath rest is in Christ, and it is principally experienced on the first day of the week when we gather as God’s people. Where two or three are gathered in His name, Christ promised that He would be in the midst. Therefore, when we gather it is appropriate to invoke the name of Christ. We invite Him into our presence, to the end that we would be clothed in righteousness and respond in joyful worship. These are the two signs that the Spirit of Christ is within us. We enjoy the imputed righteousness (justification), and the infused righteousness (sanctification) of God in Jesus Christ. Then, we let loose a rousing shout of faith-filled joy that God has shown Himself to us, that Christ has redeemed us from our enemies, that we are delivered from the pains of hell to the glories of heaven forever. Verse ten speaks of David and “His Anointed,” which must be David’s Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Verses 11-13
These verses teach us of the covenant that God made with David concerning his monarchical line. It is usually referred to as the “Davidic covenant.” Generally, monarchies remain within the family from generation to generation. For various reasons, however, it is rare to see the throne continue within a single line for more than five to ten generations. For example, the Stuart dynasty in England failed after eighty years, ending with the Glorious Revolution of William and Mary. The longest monarchical succession among earthly kingdoms is the Japanese Jimmu dynasty that dates back to 660 BC. David’s kingdom exceeds that of the Japanese emperor.
The house of Saul failed after a single generation, and Jeroboam’s monarchy in the northern kingdom ended with Jehu. But God promised that David’s monarchy would continue in his house forever. Verse twelve notes that this promise is dependent upon the “keeping of the covenant.” Only one descendant of David was able to keep the testimonies of God perfectly, and that was the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus, our Lord becomes the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant. He was installed on the throne of David in AD 33, and he must reign until all of his enemies are put under his footstool (1 Cor. 15:25).
Verses 14-18
The psalm turns a corner in verse 14, and God Himself enters the stage and begins to speak. These are comforting words, effectively answering the prayer contained in the previous verses of the psalm. First, He promises His presence with His people in the church forever. This is His desire. These are beautiful words indeed: that God desires to be with His people. This was also the gist of the Abrahamic covenant. It’s comforting to know that we are not asking Him to do something that He does not want to do. Our Lord Jesus chose twelve disciples to be “with Him” (Mark 3:14), and then promised He would be with them until the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). And finally, the entire plan is consummated at the end of time, when “God Himself shall be with them, and they shall be His people” (Rev. 21:3). He promises abundant physical and spiritual blessings to His people (verse 15). He answers the petition of verse nine with the promise of salvation for the priests, and joyful worship amongst the saints.
Whenever a family moves to a new geographical location, their number one priority (before finding their own home) should be to identify a good church with which to worship. The materialist age in which we live puts the job ahead of the church—or the school, the house, and the neighborhood ahead of the church. But the Christian would rather live in a tent in the wilderness with access to the assembly of true saints, than in some wealthy metropolitan area where there is no church with which to worship.
Our worship should be clothed in joy, with a true sense that Christ has secured the victory for us! The primary sentiment of worship is not sappy, flabby sentimentality or sadness. Nor is it a sharp angry tone, or a somber, prolonged gravity. While there may be a range of proper emotions expressed in worship, the preeminent emotion must an irrepressible, triumphant, loud-ringing joy. You will know that it is Christian church when you hear victorious shouts coming from the building in which the saints gather to worship!
1. Where was David when he wrote this psalm? How far is this place from Jerusalem?
2. What is the state of Israel’s worship assumed as the psalmist pens this psalm?
3. What are the two signs that the Spirit of God is within our assembly?
4. What happens to monarchies throughout the generations? Why is the Davidic monarchy so special?
5. What is the preeminent sentiment that should be present in God’s worship?
1. How do worship and the local church fit into our family’s priorities? Would we move to a new area without the possibility of Christian worship?
2. Where is our joy in worship? Is our worship dull, somber, sentimental, or triumphant?