House of David

It says this, "And the Levitical singers, the Asaph, Heman, Jeduth, their sons, their kinsmen, arrived in linen with cymbals, harps, lyres, stood east of the altar," look at this, "120 priests who were trumpeters." Now, if you just read the Bible without context, you don't know what you're talking about.

So King David built what was called the House of David, the Tent of David, okay? And this is where we get the, the worshipers of David, where they worshiped for decades under the Lord, where they worshiped in the glory of God.

But now they're transitioning into a new season.

Someone say new season.

New season.

So I told you that the trumpets were dis- were a sound, the shofars were a sign of a new season.

So now they're going from David's tent to Solomon's Temple, or they're transferring the Holy of Holies into its new and permanent location, which we know as the Temple Mount today.

So they're going from the tent into the permanent place of the Holy of Holies, and how they decided to usher in the transition into the new season of the moving of the Ark of God was 120 trumpeters blowing a war cry.

He's writing this in the mid to late ninth century.

In the inscription, he writes how he defeated a king from the house of David, and the inscription is clearly written Bet David, meaning House of David.

So on the Te- Tel Dan Stele, we have an inscription stone with a, with a message inscribed in the mid to late ninth century attesting to the presence of the royal dynasty of King David.

Uh, and this is the first inscription we have testifying to the presence of King David.

So about 3,000 years ago.

Yeah.

And what you're saying is for 3,000 years, if somebody were to ask you to prove the existence of King David not using the Bible, or to prove the dynasty of David, the so-called House of David mentioned many times in the Bible, you'd have a hard time doing it.

But now, with the Tel Dan inscription, you have...

And he's boasting about his military victories.

And he says this, he goes, he essentially says that he won a great victory over, quote, the house of David.

And this is engraved in the stele.

Engraved in the stone.

Because this is about 150 years after David.

So his victory wasn't over David.

It was one of David's successors, right? But suddenly the house of David, a phrase used multiple times in the Bible, is completely validated.

And again, coming from a hostile source, it's more believable.

And one of the seemingly insignificant details listed in this passage recently served a huge purpose.

12:37 says, "At the Fountain Gate, they went up straight before them by the stairs of the City of David, at the ascent of the wall, above the House of David, to the Water Gate on the east." When we read that passage today, it's easy to be like, "Blah, blah, blah, get on to the good stuff." But little things like this that our eyes and ears fly past have made significant impact on recovering the history of ancient Jerusalem.

That verse in particular helped archeologists locate and unearth King David's palace less than two decades ago.

Discoveries like that help us understand scripture better, and even sometimes help us understand God better, too.

The Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them and gave them into the hands of plunderers until he had cast them out of his sight.

When he had torn Israel from the house of David, they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king.

Then Jeroboam drove Israel away from following the Lord and made them commit a great sin." The sons of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam, which he did.

They did not depart from them until the Lord removed Israel from his sight, as he spoke through all his servants the prophets.

1 Kings 12, 14.

New American Standard.

The authors or editors of Kings observed, So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.

1 Kings 12, 19, New American Standard.

Okay.

So that means that the house of David, the Davidic monarchy, serves as a precedent, right? for the role of Jesus as the Messiah.

So one of the things you find when you study the House of David is—and not just the House of David, this was also true of other ancient Near Eastern kingdoms as well—but one of the things you find when you study it is there was a special woman in the court of the king.

Now, today, when we think of the most influential woman in the court of a king, we think of a queen, right? Yeah, his wife.

And kings are pretty dang wealthy, so kings tended to have multiple wives.

And that means they can't all be co-equal queens.

And so the most influential woman in the court of the Davidic king was actually not the king's wife or even his chief wife, but his mom.

because even though a king might have many wives, he only had one mom.