John Gill's Bible Commentary Ver. 4. Nevertheless, for David’s sake did the Lord his God give him a lamp in Jerusalem , etc.] A kingdom there, as the Targum, splendid and glorious, to be continued in his posterity: to set up his son after him; in it: and to establish Jerusalem : to continue that in which the temple was, for the sake of which, and the worship of God in it, there was a succession of David’s posterity on the throne of Judah.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-8 - Abijam's heart was not perfect with the Lord his God; he wante sincerity; he began well, but he fell off, and walked in all the sin of his father, following his bad example, though he had seen the ba consequences of it. David's family was continued as a lamp in Jerusalem, to maintain the true worship of God there, when the light of Divine truth was extinguished in all other places. The Lord has stil taken care of his cause, while those who ought to have been serviceabl thereto have lived and perished in their sins. The Son of David wil still continue a light to his church, to establish it in truth an righteousness to the end of time. There are two kinds of fulfilling the law, one legal, the other by the gospel. Legal is, when men do all things required in the law, and that by themselves. None ever thu fulfilled the law but Christ, and Adam before his fall. The gospe manner of fulfilling the law is, to believe in Christ who fulfilled the law for us, and to endeavour in the whole man to obey God in all his precepts. And this is accepted of God, as to all those that are in Christ. Thus David and others are said to fulfil the law.
Original Hebrew כי3588 למען4616 דוד1732 נתן5414 יהוה3068 אלהיו430 לו ניר5216 בירושׁלם3389 להקים6965 את853 בנו1121 אחריו310 ולהעמיד5975 את853 ירושׁלם׃3389
