Genesis 49: 10 The scepter will not depart from Judah
2 Samuel 7: 11b – 16
The Lord declares to you that the Lord Himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.
Speaking to King David through the prophet Nathan, God promised King David that his house and his kingdom would be established forever. When King David died, His son Solomon succeeded him as King of Israel. Later, Solomon’s son, Rehoboam succeeded him. During Rehoboam’s reign Israel was divided into two: the Northern Kingdom, Israel, and into Judah. King David’s descendants, to this point in 2 Kings 11, were Solomon, Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, Jehosephat, Jehoram, Ahaziah, and Joash.
The Northern Kingdom, however, had numerous rulers with no lasting dynasty. God’s promise of continuity was only to King David of the tribe of Judah.
Although King David's direct line was on the throne, as God promised, Satan attempted to make God into a liar. There is a bloody coup in 2 Kings 11. Ahaziah’s mother, Queen Athaliah, who was also the daughter of Israel’s King Ahab and Jezebel, seized the throne of Judah after Ahaziah was assassinated by Jehu. Spawned by Jezebel, Athaliah was Ba-al’s true believer. As such, there was nothing about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that she loved. No doubt, she was greatly angered by God’s promise to establish David’s line and God's vow to curse her father’s line. After her son and his cousins were murdered by Jehu, the newly anointed King of Israel, her fury against God probably intensified. Athaliah, who gave her life to Baal worship, had witnessed God’s prophecy against her parents come true. Seething in her hatred of God, she resolved to thwart God – to make God’s promise to King David null and void, even though it meant murdering her own grandchildren. In fact, she ordered all of her male grandchildren to be murdered.
But, God’s Word does not return to Him empty.
Fortunately, Ahaziah’s sister, Jehosheba, managed to hide her brother’s infant son, Joash, with his nurse in the temple. Miraculously, no-one missed him when his brothers were being slaughtered.
Never suspecting that any of her grandsons survived the massacre, Athaliah ruled over Judah for seven years. She probably believed that she, in Ba-al's strength, had won this round against God. Nevertheless, God cannot be mocked. When Joash was seven, he was presented to Judah, as heir to the throne by the priest Jehoiada. As soon as he was anointed King of Judah in the temple, the temple guards executed Athaliah.
God honored His promise to King David then as even now He continues to honor His Word to Israel.
Even Balaam, who was hired to mightily curse Israel, could not do so. In Numbers 23: 19 it is written:
“God is not a man, that He should lie; nor a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?
God’s promises, the oaths which He swore to Abraham, to Moses, to King David concerning the people Israel, the land of Israel, and the purpose of Israel all continue to stand firm and to be true for the One who made these oaths does not change His mind.
