In His response to David’s desire to build Him a house, God in a sense came in to stop David by indicating that before David could do something for God, he needed God to do something for him. God prophesied to David that He would build him a house and that from this house He would give him a seed (vv. 11-12). David’s house is, literally, David’s household, David’s family, which eventually issued in Jesus Christ (Matt. 1:1, 6-16).
The prophecy in this chapter is related to the prophecy in Isa. 11:1 concerning Christ as the sprout from the stump of Jesse and the branch from his roots. At the time of Solomon the house of David was a flourishing tree, but a short time later it began to be cut down. Eventually, it became a stump consisting mainly of two persons, Joseph and Mary. At that juncture God came in to constitute His Son, Christ, into David’s family (Matt. 1:18-20). As a result, the child Jesus was born as a God-man, as both a divine Son and a human seed (Luke 1:31-32, 35). That was God’s building a house for David, through which He gave David a seed. Ultimately, David’s house and David’s seed in this chapter are types revealing that in His eternal economy the Triune God desires to build Himself in Christ into His chosen people to make them a house (Christ with the church) and to produce a seed (the all-inclusive Christ).