Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Acts · About this commentary
David's tomb is with us: both Lord and Christ
Acts 2:29-36
29 “Brothers, I may tell you freely of the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. · WEB
Peter proves the psalm was not about David by pointing to David's grave, and lands the sermon on a title: the man they crucified is Lord.
The argument is settled by an address. David both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Everyone listening knew where it was. If the psalm promised its speaker that he would not see decay, and the speaker's body is a few minutes' walk away and has seen a thousand years of it, then the psalm was not about the speaker.
So Peter reads David as a prophet who knew the oath God had sworn him, and who spoke ahead about a descendant. The conclusion is stated plainly: he foreseeing this, spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that his soul wasn't left in Hades, and his flesh didn't see decay. This is the interpretive key to the whole quotation, and it is supplied by the preacher rather than inferred by a reader. The soul not left in Hades and the flesh not seeing decay are two ways of saying one thing, and the thing is that a dead man came out of a grave. Hades here is where David also lies, and the contrast is not between two destinations but between two outcomes in the same place.
The evidence for the claim is then named without embellishment: This Jesus God raised up, to which we all are witnesses. No description of the risen body, no account of the appearances, no argument from the empty tomb. A group of men who were there say what they saw, which is what the previous chapter defined their office as.
What follows is the sermon's boldest step. The outpouring the crowd is watching is offered as proof of an enthronement they cannot watch. Having been exalted to the right hand of God and having received the promised Spirit, he has poured out this which you now see and hear. The visible phenomenon is evidence of an invisible session. Peter is arguing from an effect on the street to a location in heaven.
And he closes it with a second psalm, handled the same way as the first. David did not ascend, yet he wrote The Lord said to my Lord, Sit by my right hand. If David calls the figure his Lord, that figure is not merely David's son. The sermon ends there: God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. Two titles and a fact, with the accusation left in the same sentence as the confession. The crowd is not asked to admire a doctrine. It is told that the man it executed is running the world.
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