“The Rock” (as in 2Sa 22:3) of Israel, to indicate that the contents of his prophecy relate to the salvation of the people of Israel, and are guaranteed by the unchangeableness of God. The saying which follows bears the impress of a divine oracle even in its enigmatical brevity. The verbs are wanting in the different sentences of 2Sa 23:3 and 2Sa 23:4. “A ruler over men,” sc., “will arise,” or there will be. בּאדם does not mean “among men,” but “over men;” for בּ is to be taken as with the verb משׁל, as denoting the object ruled over (cf. Gen 3:16; Gen 4:7, etc.). האדם does not mean certain men, but the human race, humanity. This ruler is “just” in the fullest sense of the word, as in the passages founded upon this, viz., Jer 23:5; Zec 9:9, and Psa 72:2. The justice of the ruler is founded in his “fear of God.” אלהים יראת is governed freely by מושׁל. (On the fact itself, see Isa 11:2-3.) The meaning is, “A ruler over the human race will arise, a just ruler, and will exercise his dominion in the spirit of the fear of God.”
Verse 4
2Sa 23:4 2Sa 23:4 describes the blessing that will proceed from this ruler. The idea that 2Sa 23:4 should be connected with 2Sa 23:3 so as to form one period, in the sense of “when one rules justly over men (as I do), it is as when a morning becomes clear,” must be rejected, for the simple reason that it overlooks Nathan's promise (2 Samuel 7) altogether, and weakens the force of the saying so solemnly introduced as the word of God. The ruler over men whom David sees in spirit, is not any one who rules righteously over men; nor is the seed of David to be regarded as a collective expression indicating a merely ideal personality, but, according to the Chaldee rendering, the Messiah himself, the righteous Shoot whom the Lord would raise up to David (Jer 23:5), and who would execute righteousness and judgment upon earth (Jer 33:15). 2Sa 23:4 is to be taken by itself as containing an independent thought, and the connection between it and 2Sa 23:3 must be gathered from the words themselves: the appearance (the rise) of this Ruler will be “as light of the morning, when the sun rises.” At the same time, the Messiah is not to be regarded as the subject to בּקר אור (the light of the morning), as though the ruler over men were compared with the morning light; but the subject compared to the morning light is intentionally left indefinite, according to the view adopted by Luther in his exposition, “In the time of
