The House Of David – From David To The Bride
Written by Elinor Montgomery – emontgomery@cogeco.ca
January 30, 2005
The house of David had its problems, beginning with the day he committed adultery with Bathsheba. He compounded his sin by murdering her husband, Uriah, who was a faithful soldier in his army. In anger, God promised that the sword would never depart from his house. He also said He would raise up adversaries against him from his own house, and He would take his wives before his eyes, giving them to his neighbor with whom they would lie in the sight of the sun. It is not a pretty picture that God placed before David, yet in Abishag we see the promise of a brighter day. There was infighting among David’s sons until his dying days, when we see Abishag come upon the scene.
So much has been spoken of Solomon and his temple throughout the pages of Scriptures, and even to this very day. Some have focused on his glory, and others, on his corruption. But the Davidic throne would not come through Solomon. The ten tribes of Israel were ripped away from him, leaving only a remnant in Judah for the sake of God’s servant David. And God spoke to Solomon’s servant Jeroboam saying that He would give one tribe only to Solomon’s son for the sake of David, so that he might always have a lamp before God in Jerusalem. One of the most important passages in Scriptures, regarding this cutting-off of Israel from the keys of David to the throne, is found in Isaiah 22:20-25. God says that in that day, the day of judgment, He will call forth a servant, Eliakim, meaning one ‘whom God sets up’, who will have the key to the house of David laid on his shoulder. This prophecy points directly to Jesus and then from Jesus it is passed by Him to the apostolic church, and ultimately goes to the bride, when she becomes the revived apostolic church.
God promised He would not afflict the descendants of David forever. He also spoke to Solomon concerning the temple that he was building (see 1 Kings 6:12). He said He would dwell among the Israelite children as long as they walked in His statutes, executed His judgments, kept all His commandments and walked in them. As the idolatry of Solomon’s wives was brought into the temple, it was destroyed, not once, but also a second time, centuries later. At this time not one stone of the temple was left standing upon another, just as Jesus had prophesied would happen.
Yet in Abishag, we see the promise of the lamp of Jerusalem. She speaks of a virginal woman free of religion who points to the church, the lampstand of Jerusalem. One has to look only to Revelation 3:7 to see the words of Isaiah being fulfilled in the church of Philadelphia, the lampstand of Jerusalem: And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, ‘These things says He who is holy, He who is true, “He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens” ’. The Lord actually quotes the words of Isaiah to show the tie between this church and the prophecy made centuries earlier. Abishag gives us the clue from the very beginning of the book of Kings, which deals with the line of David’s kingly inheritance. She identifies this woman to be the bride of Christ, who becomes the light of Israel with oil burning in her lamp. She is the spirit-filled bride, the born-again new creation of the water and the Spirit, and the son, whom David always wanted. She is a very ‘bonny one’ in the eyes of the Lord, and the one in whom the curse of God upon the house of David is removed. For she becomes a spiritual son of God, and a sister and spouse for Jesus.
The bride is blessed among women as her offspring is snatched up and taken to the very throne of God, where she shall rule and reign with an iron rod, forever more, in the line of David’s kingship.
