1 Chronicles 17:7

Now therefore thus shalt thou say unto my servant David, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I took thee from the sheepcote, even from following the sheep, that thou shouldest be ruler over my people Israel:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(7) I took thee from the sheepcote . . .—Comp. Psalm 78:70-72. The pronoun is emphatic: “I it was who took thee from the pasture.”

From following.—Heb., from behind. Samuel has the older form of this preposition.

That thou shouldest be.—That thou mightest become.

Ruler.—Nāgîd (1Chronicles 9:11; 1Chronicles 9:20). (Comp. 1Chronicles 11:2.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

17:1-27 David's purposes; God's gracious promises. - This chapter is the same as 2Sa 7. See what is there said upon it. It is very observable that what in Samuel is said to be, for thy word's sake, is here said to be, "for thy servant's sake," ver. 19. Jesus Christ is both the Word of God, Re 19:13, and the Servant of God, Isa 42:1; and it is for his sake, upon account of his mediation, that the promises are made good to all believers; it is in him, that they are yea and amen. For His sake it is done, for his sake it is made known; to him we owe all this greatness, from him we are to expect all these great things. They are the unsearchable riches of Christ, which, if by faith we see in themselves, and see in the Lord Jesus, we cannot but magnify as the only true greatness, and speak honourably of them. For this blessedness may we look amidst the trials of life, and when we feel the hand of death upon us; and seek it for our children after us.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Compare throughout 2 Samuel 7 and the notes found there.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I took thee from the sheepcote—a round tower of rude construction, high walled, but open at the top, in which sheep are often enclosed at night to protect them from wild beasts. The meaning is, I elevated you to the throne from a humble condition solely by an act of divine grace, and not from any antecedent merits of your own (see on [383]1Sa 16:11), and I enabled you to acquire renown, equal or superior to any other monarch. Your reign will ever be afterwards regarded as the best and brightest era in the history of Israel, for it will secure to the nation a settled inheritance of prosperity and peace, without any of the oppressions or disorders that afflicted them in early times.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

See Chapter Introduction

Geneva Study Bible

Now therefore thus shalt thou say unto my servant David, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I took thee from the sheepcote, {g} even from following the sheep, that thou shouldest be ruler over my people Israel:

(g) Of a shepherd of sheep I made you a shepherd of men: so that you did not come to this dignity through your own merits, but by my pure grace.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

7. sheepcote] Better as R.V. mg. pasture.

ruler] R.V. prince. Cp. 1 Chronicles 5:2, note.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 7. - I took thee. (So 1 Samuel 16:11, 12; 2 Samuel 7:8; Psalm 78:80.) The sheepcote. The Hebrew נָזֶה strictly signifies a resting or place of resting. Hence the habitation of men or of animals, and in particular the pasture in which flocks lie down and rest (Psalm 23:2, plural construction; Job 5:24; Hosea 9:13; Jeremiah 23:3; Jeremiah 49:20). The sheepcote was sometimes a tower, with roughly built high wall, exposed to the sky at the top, used for protection from wild beasts at night; sometimes the sheepfold was a larger low building of different shape, to which a fenced courtyard was adjacent, where the peril of cold or of wild beast was less imminent. The word of our present passage, however, cannot be compared with these places; comp. rather Exodus 15:13; 2 Samuel 15:25; Isaiah 33:20; Isaiah 65:10; Hosea 9:13, as above. 1 Chronicles 17:7

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In the Chronicle, as in 2 Samuel 7, the account of the removal of the ark to the city of David is immediately followed by the narrative of David's design to build a temple to the Lord; and this arrangement is adopted on account of the connection between the subjects, though the events must have been separated by a period of several years. Our account of this design of David's, with its results for him and for his kingdom, is in all essential points identical with the parallel account, so that we may refer to the commentary on 2 Samuel 7 for any necessary explanation of the matter. The difference between the two narratives are in great part of a merely formal kind; the author of the Chronicle having sought to make the narrative more intelligible to his contemporaries, partly by using later phrases current in his own time, such as אלהים for יהוה, מלכוּת for ממלכה, partly by simplifying and explaining the bolder and more obscure expressions. Very seldom do we find divergences in the subject-matter which alter the meaning or make it appear to be different. To supplement and complete the commentary already given in 2nd Samuel, we will now shortly treat of these divergences. In 1 Chronicles 17:1, the statement that David communicated his purpose to build a temple to the Lord to the prophet Nathan, "when Jahve had given him rest from all his enemies round about," is wanting. This clause, which fixes the time, has been omitted by the chronicler to avoid the apparent contradiction which would have arisen in case the narrative were taken chronologically, seeing that the greatest of David's wars, those against the Philistines, Syrians, and Ammonites, are narrated only in the succeeding chapter. As to this, cf. the discussion on 2 Samuel 7:1-3.