1 Samuel 2:35 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I will raise me up a faithful priest Of another line, as is necessarily implied by the total removal of that office from Eli's line. The person designed is Zadok, one eminent for his faithfulness to God, and to the king, who, when Abiathar, the last of Eli's line, was deposed by Solomon, was made high-priest in his stead. Build a sure house That is, give him a numerous posterity, and confirm unto him and his children that sure covenant of an everlasting priesthood made to Phinehas, of Eleazar's line, Numbers 25:13, and interrupted for a little while by Eli, of the line of Ithamar. The high-priesthood continued in his line till the captivity of Babylon, as appears from Ezekiel 40:16; and a long time after it, as Josephus shows, lib. 4. cap. 4. He shall walk before mine Anointed That is, Zadok and his descendants shall perform the office of high-priest before that king whom God shall anoint, and before his successors. The high- priest is said to walk before God's anointed, chiefly because he wore the breast-plate of judgment, which he was to consult, not in common cases, but for the king, in the affairs of state. For ever A learned writer justly observes, that though this, according to the history, was intended of, and may properly be applied to Zadok, yet in the highest sense it belongs to none but our Lord Jesus Christ, who offered himself to the Father for us, and is our great High-Priest for ever; who in all things did his Father's will, and for whom God will build a sure house, build it on a rock, so that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. For he is the main scope and design not only of the New but of the Old Testament, which, in all types and ceremonies, represented him; and the high-priest especially was an eminent type of him, represented by his person, acted in his name and stead, and did mediately what John the Baptist did immediately, namely, go before the face of the Lord Christ; and when Christ came, that officer and the office he sustained were to cease.