Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

78:65-72 Finally God Answered by Choosing the Line of David. The final section celebrates how God graciously answered this recurring pattern by raising up David to be king of Israel. the Lord awoke as from sleep. This is a bold image, conveying what the believer can feel like when he has not so far seen how God is active. God stirs himself from apparent inactivity to take action on behalf of his suffering people, even when, as here, they are suffering for their own unbelief (cf. 35:23; 44:23; 59:5). The action that God took was to install a king, selecting a man from the tribe of Judah rather than from the tribe of Ephraim (which, as a descendant of Joseph, might have seemed a more likely candidate); cf. Gen. 49:10, which foretold exactly this. God also chose Mount Zion (Jerusalem) to be not only the capital but the location of his sanctuary. David was taken from the sheepfolds. Like Moses (Ex. 3:1), he learned how to shepherd with literal sheep. (For the image of God's people as sheep, see notes on Ps. 23:1; 74:1-3.) to shepherd. The king is ideally a shepherd of his people (cf. 2 Sam. 5:2), caring for them, protecting them, and leading them in faithfulness to the covenant. David at his best did his work with upright heart and skillful hand, though he had his own moral failures; many kings in his line were much less upright and skillful. The term "shepherd" came to be used of leaders in Israel (priests, nobles, and judges), and the prophet Ezekiel spoke out about the greedy shepherds in his day (Ezekiel 34). He looked forward to the time after the exile when God would raise up "his servant David" (i.e., the Messiah) who would be the "shepherd" of his people (Ezek. 34:23-24). When Jesus called himself the "good shepherd" (John 10:11, 14), he claimed to be the long-awaited heir of David, who would guide his people perfectly.