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.
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.
From following.--Heb., from behind. Samuel has the older form of this preposition.
That thou shouldest be.--That thou mightest become.
Ruler.--N?gid (1 Chronicles 9:11; 1 Chronicles 9:20). (Comp. 1 Chronicles 11:2.)