Key of David

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Question: What is the key of David? What does it symbolize?

Answer: What you are referring to only appears once in the Bible: "To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the KEY OF DAVID.  What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open." (Revelation 3:7, NIV, emphasis added)

The speaker is the resurrected Jesus, whom John sees in a vision, and the message is to the church at Philadelphia. But what exactly IS this key? The scriptures do not give us a direct answer to this question. There is a lot of conjecture and supposition on this subject but one should understand that the Bible does not specifically identify this object. That said, the one thing that made David unique was the promise God made to him. God, speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, prophesied of the descendent who would bring salvation and confirm His covenant:

"'The days are coming,' declares the LORD, 'when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David's line;  he will do what is just and right in the land.  In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.  This is the name by which it will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness.'

"For this is what the LORD says: 'David will never fail to have a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, nor will the priests, who are Levites, ever fail to have a man to stand before me continually to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings and to present sacrifices.' . . .

"This is what the LORD says: 'If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed laws of heaven and earth, then I will reject the descendants of Jacob . . . will not choose one of his sons to rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  For I will restore their fortunes and have compassion on them.' " " (Jeremiah 33:14-18, 25-26, NIV)

Some have speculated that the covenant, which has nothing to do with any key of David, would require a physical descendent to be ruling over at least some portion of Israel down to our present time. One explanation of this can be found in Judah's Sceptre and Joseph's Birthright, written by J. H. Allen. He makes a powerful case for the lineage of rulers existing today.

The problem with considering this to be a physical, ruling king of the present time is that the covenant also covered the Levites (Jeremiah 33:18). We know that since the time Jesus became our High Priest, the Levitical priesthood has had no function (see Hebrews 7-10). Some have explained this problem by saying that Jesus, a descendant of King David through Mary, now rules over "spiritual Israel", the church, and will in the future once again physically rule over Israel on this earth. That still does not explain the question of the promise of the Levitical priesthood remaining functioning and offering burnt offerings and sacrifices, which parallels the promise of a ruling descendents. Unfortunately, there is no concrete answer to this dilemma.

However, Jesus and His apostles have given us the plan for our salvation and that salvation DOES NOT depend on the 'key of david' and our interpretation of what it is. It is, indeed, one of the most fascinating areas of study in the Bible but we should not claim to know for certain what this means. Each of us will have to decide for himself the spiritual meaning of the key and its purpose in understanding God’s plan for man.