2 Samuel
7:14
Translated and Explained
by
Stephen M. Reynolds, Ph.D.
" I will be His Father and He shall be My Son, whom when sin is imputed to Him, I will punish with a rod used by men, with blows inflicted by human beings."
This translation is different from other translations because Hebrews 1:1-14, in which words from this passage in 2 Samuel are quoted, proves conclusively that the unnamed person of the Samuel passage is Jesus Christ and not Solomon. This being so, any translation which speaks of the unnamed person of 2 Samuel 7:14 as sinning is wrong, as Jesus Christ is God incarnate and never could sin.
Therefore, the difficult passage in 2 Samuel 7:14, containing the Hebrew expression BeHA'aOTO, which is elliptical and cannot be translated with a precise meaning, must be understood according to the wonderful words of the great apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:21 where he explains that Christ who "knew no sin," that is, He never committed sin, had the sin of others imputed to Him. This doctrine of the vicarious sacrifice of Christ by which He suffered and died in atonement for the sins of the human beings destined to be redeemed by His shed blood is essential to Christian theology.
All Christians when they come to a difficult passage in the Old Testament should look to the New Testament to find the true understanding of it. It is God's final word of revelation. They will find it a far better guide than if they look to other passages in the Old Testament.
As for the correct way to understand the Hebrew expression cited above, we should understand the meaning of the passage to be, "When sin is imputed to Him." This translation of the passage can only be explained by making use of important passages of the New Testament which along with the Old Testament is the evangelical Christian's only rule of faith and practice. The proof of this in brief is as follows:
1. The unnamed subject of this verse can only be Jesus Christ. This can be proved by Hebrews 1:5. The words, "I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son." are part of a series of things said about God's only unique Son of the same substance with the Father and about Him only. Solomon is totally excluded from this series.
That Jesus Christ, being of the same substance with the Father, cannot sin is proved from other parts of the Scripture and is accepted by all orthodox, that is, Trinitarian, Christians.
2. What is the proof that the rest of this verse means "whom, when sin is imputed to Him"? Answer: The proof of this is found in 2 Corinthians 5:21. In this verse the great Apostle Paul wrote: "For He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." This means that God the Father imputed to the Son the sins of all Christians that they might be made righteous by the imputation of His righteousness. God knew all the time, including the time of David and Solomon, that His divine Son would enter the world as the God-Man, would teach mankind many truths, and would die on the cross as an atoning vicarious sacrifice for human sin. He chose to have the scriptural statement in 2 Samuel 7:14 to be written elliptically. To complete what is missing in this elliptical expression and to give the sense in modern English, it is proper to translate the expression as above, "When sin is imputed to Him."
The full verse 14 should appear in the published purified translation of the Old Testament as it appears at the beginning of this exegetical article.
Passages in the Old Testament which some people say explain 2 Samuel 7:14ff do not do so, and other translations are inadequate in rendering the difficult Hebrew of verse 14. The explanation of this difficult passage in the Old Testament lies in our wonderful New Testament if Christians search for it with eyes of faith. This is one such difficult passage.
Neither Solomon nor any of his descendants who sat on David's throne were ever physically beaten, but this painful humiliation our Lord Jesus Christ suffered for his people as we read in the Gospels.
