More than 400 years after King David’s death when the prophet Ezekiel wrote in chapter 37 of the “valley of dry bones” the Lord vowed, “O, my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel” (vs. 12).

Later in this, Israel’s “resurrection” chapter, in verses 22-25, the Lord God says He “will make them one nation … and one king shall be king to them all (i.e. both Israel and Judah)”…

…And David my servant shall be king over them and they shall all have one shepherd; they shall also walk in my judgements and observe my statutes and do them (vs. 24).

And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt, and they shall dwell therein and their children and their children’s children for ever (lit. to the end of the age) and my servant David shall be their prince for ever (i.e. to the end of the age) (vs. 25).

Now, seven times in the Old Testament the word “anointed”, Hebrew mashiyach, is used directly of David out of 31 usages of the word in total. And by inference he is referred to in another seven instances. Yet nowhere is the Hebrew title for the Lord Jesus Christ Yeshua Ha Mashiac used in the OT.

Indeed, the word Messias is only used twice in the gospels, leaving the preponderance of evidence showing the “anointed one” of Old Testament prophecy is David. (Of course, other kings and prophets were also anointed). However, it is conspicuous that the Lord Jesus is not named as the “anointed one” in Old Testament scriptures. Rather David is. The exception is found in Daniel 9:25 based on a wrong interpretation, hence an incorrect translation, but more of that later. Meantime here is what scripture repeatedly and plainly says about David’s future kingship:

But they shall serve the Lord their God and David their king whom I will raise up to them. (Jeremiah 30:9).

And I will set up one shepherd over them and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them and he shall be their shepherd… And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them (Ezekiel 34:23-24).

And my servant David shall be king over them and they shall all (both Israel and Judah) have one shepherd and they shall walk in my judgements and observe and do my statutes … my servant David shall be their prince for ever (Ezekiel 37:24).

Israel shall endure many days without a king, prince or sacrifice… Afterward shall the children of Israel return (to the land) and seek the Lord their God and David their king and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days (Hosea 3:5).

Afterward means a time when Israel once more has a king, prince and sacrifice. At present it has none of these. The latter days refers to the time of Christ’ appearing (Titus 2:13, 2 Timothy 4:1) when He judges the quick and the dead at the ushering in of his kingdom in the Day of Christ which is mentioned seven times in Paul’s epistles.

Now come to Daniel 9:25:

Know therefore and understand that that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times (King James Bible).

Here two misrepresented and wrongly capitalised words have been used to assert that the Lord Jesus Christ is the person described as “an anointed one and a prince” in the verse. Fact is the words “anointed” and “prince” should be lower case, as they are routinely elsewhere in the Old Testament.

That this is so is supported by the best of Bible scholars. For example, in the Oxford reference system of my King James Bible the margin note on Daniel 9:25 says of the word presented as “Messiah”, i.e. the anointed one that it should be without capitals.

It is notable that in all it is eight times that David is mentioned as the future king of a resurrected and restored Israel. And eight is the number that spiritually represents resurrection.

So why is David’s resurrection to again be king over Israel during the Day of Christ (1 Corinthians 1:8, Philippians 1:6, 10, 2:16) studiously ignored in most scholarly attempts to understand the Bible’s prophecies of times to come?

Answer: Because unscriptural and non-doctrinal fables, such as the “Rapture theory” of believers being taken to heaven (when there’s no mention of heaven in 1 Thessalonians 4:17) and the myth that the current secular and largely atheistic State of Israel is the restored Israel of God when it’s clearly not, are preferred to the plain, straight truth found in the Bible.

We must ask: How can the present political state that calls itself Israel be the Israel God will restore as his own people when the majority of its citizens don’t believe He exists? And how can they be the biblical Israel God will one day restore through resurrection (Ezekiel 37) when David has not been resurrected to be their king?

John Dudley Aldworth

You’re welcome to contact me at the email address below.

Email: john.aldworth@hotmail.com

Website: https://www.dayofchristmnistries.com/rss/all.xml