The promise given to David of a kingdom and his throne enduring, or the Davidic Covenant, are recorded for us in 2 Samuel 7:11-16 and in 1 Chronicles 17:10-15. Other passages that refer to this covenant with David include 2 Samuel 23:5;2 Chronicles 7:18; 2 Chronicles 21:7; Psalms 89:3-4, 28-29, 34-37; Jeremiah 33:19-26.
God promised David an everlasting lineage, and an eternal throne and kingdom. Jesus will sit on the throne of David forever in Jerusalem. David’s realm was the physical land and people of Israel. While it is clear that Jesus is already exercising His kingly rule and authority as He sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven, the Bible indicates that Jesus will also fulfill God’s promises to David by reigning over a natural kingdom on this present earth in the future.
The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.
2 Samuel 7:11-16 NIV
The promise to David is in different parts. His kingdom will be established, he will build the Lord’s house, and his throne will be established forever.
Various schools of thought make logical assumptions about the throne, that it must correlate to the physical land of Israel, but this is not the case. For clarity, the throne of David is actually called the Throne of the Lord in 1 Chronicles 29:23. What this means is that the throne God gave to David was actually his own throne, in some manner.
Heaven and Earth will pass away, but Christ’s words never will. Additionally, the Kingdom of God never will, because it is everlasting (Psalm 145:13). The promise of an eternal throne must only correlate to God Himself’s throne, because it is what will last forever, not the Earthly, and not any other heavenly thing.
The covenant to David does not expressly link the throne to the land of Israel, and all attempts to do so are purely speculation. Rather, when David sat on his throne, he at the same time sat upon the Lord’s himself’s throne, as a precursor to Christ Himself. This is the image of what God originally intended in Genesis 1:28, that man would fill the Earth and subdue it.