לתשובת המינים

Isaiah 55:3 Who will Receive the Enduring Kindnesses Promised to David? Acts 13:34

"Incline your ear and come to Me; listen, and your soul will be rejuvenated [or your soul shall live]; I will make an eternal covenant with you, the enduring kindnesses [promised to] David."

In a sermon at they synagogue in Pisdian Antioch Paul loosely cites Isaiah 55:3, "I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David."

Insofar as we find an allusion to the Davidic promise we have good reason to understand this passage as Messianic. Likewise it continue to say that he, presumably indicating that the reference to "David" refers specifically to the Messiah, will be a witness to the peoples and that other nations will hasten to Israel. I can see how it is tempting for Christians to see the acceptance of Christianity among the non-Jews as being referred to here. There are a couple of difficulties with such an approach though.

Firstly, while undoubtedly both Christianity and Islam have to varying degrees introduced Torah ideas to non-Jews, it is begging the question to assert that Christianity has brought non-Jews to the true service of the God of Israel. Furthermore, the prophet says to the people of Israel that "the nations that do not know you will hasten to you because the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor." (Isaiah 55:5, NIV). While God has given us many blessings, it has not happened that Israel has been endowed with splendor such that non-Jews hasten to Israel. Certainly the Church, while much more sympathetic in recent decades, has not "hastened" to Israel but to the contrary. Rather than "hastening" to Israel, a more accurate description would be they have set themselves up as rivals (whether this was intended by the founders of Christianity or not doesn’t change the reality).

Secondly, perhaps counter intuitively, the role of "David" with respect to the nations was not the significance which Paul ("the Apostle to the Gentiles") saw in the verse. Instead, Paul sees an allusion to the Messiah being resurrected, "The fact that God raised him from the dead, never to decay, is stated in these words: ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.’ So it is stated elsewhere, ‘You will not let your Holy One see decay.’" (Acts 13:34-35, NIV, citing Isaiah 55:3 and Psalm 16:10).

Our verse, of course, does not indicate, at least directly, that "David" (the Messiah) would be resurrected. In the first half of the verse, not cited by Paul, there is a reference to "your soul may live", but this applies not to "David" but the prophet's audience who is telling about "David".

Of course it is most likely that Paul (or the author of Acts) intended to show that the promises given to David belong to the Messiah by citing our verse, then cited Psalm 16 to show that resurrection is among those promises. While we will have to deal with Psalm 16 on its own, we must recognize that this passage does not constitute a separate indication that the Messiah be resurrected but is entirely dependent upon Psalm 16. It would also seem to suggest that Paul saw the words in Psalm 16 as promised to David, requiring our verse’s mediation to confer that promise onto the Messiah. If so we find a subtle conflict with Peter who saw Psalm 16 as David speaking of the Messiah, "Seeing what was ahead he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay." (Acts 2:31). It seems that while Peter sees Psalm 16 as predicting the Messiah’s resurrection, Paul sees it as a promise to David (even if it is fulfilled in the Messiah).

While the non-Jewish people, especially in the West and the Middle East, have expressed the desire to follow the God of Israel, they have not hastened after Israel. Instead of seeing Israel as a kingdom of Priests they have seen themselves as the one’s who need to minister to Israel (if they haven’t entirely dismissed them). While our verse speaks of promises given to David, which we understand to mean the Messiah, we cannot at all derive this from our passage directly and the use of this verse as an indirect link to Psalm 16 suggests a subtle but fundamental difference in how Paul and Peter understand that passage.