Psalm 89: The Lord’s reign through David has died

The final psalm in Book 3 is the low point of the Psalter. Jerusalem has fallen. Judah is captive to Babylon. There is no longer any nation to show the nations the wonder of belonging to God. The kingdom of God and the reign of David no longer exist.

Psalm 89 is attributed to Ethan the Ezrahite, but we don’t know who he was. He speaks for a people grappling with contradictory realities: God is faithful, but we’re not experiencing it.

Psalm 89 takes us up to the heights, and down to the depths. In summary:

• God, you are faithful. The promises you made to David give us our identity as the people of your good and just reign (verses 1-19).
• God, what you said to David was unmistakeable. We recall the details of what you said (verses 20-37).
• God, we’re so confused! How can you reject David? How can you go back on the promises you made to your anointed? (verses 38-51).

Note that verse 52 is not part of Psalm 89. It is the compilers’ response to the whole of Book 3, marking the end of the Book. As we saw (on Psalm 72), the compilers added these comments at each point where they stitched together the Books of the Psalms.

So, the shape of Psalm 89 reflects Israel’s journey. It begins as a royal psalm, celebrating God’s appointment of David. It ends in lament, with no answer for why the kingship fell.

For Israel/Judah

The joy of God’s reign (verses 1-18)

The first eighteen verses are a joyful celebration of God’s ḥě·sěḏ, his faithful covenant love for his people across the generations:

Psalm 89:title-4 (NIV)
A maskil of Ethan the Ezrahite.
¹ I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations.
² I will declare that your love stands firm forever, that you have established your faithfulness in heaven itself.
³ You said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David my servant,
⁴ ‘I will establish your line forever and make your throne firm through all generations.’ ”

God’s enduring love is expressed for his nation through the king God anointed for them. Their security as a nation rests on the promise God made to David that his house would always represent God’s reign on earth (2 Samuel 7:11-16).

David’s authority came from the highest source, the sovereign of the universe. The Davidic kingship represented the all-encompassing reign of the Lord:

Psalm 89:5-14 (NIV)
⁵ The heavens praise your wonders, Lord, your faithfulness too, in the assembly of the holy ones.
⁶ For who in the skies above can compare with the Lord? Who is like the Lord among the heavenly beings?
⁷ In the council of the holy ones God is greatly feared; he is more awesome than all who surround him.
⁸ Who is like you, Lord God Almighty? You, Lord, are mighty, and your faithfulness surrounds you.
⁹ You rule over the surging sea; when its waves mount up, you still them.
¹⁰ You crushed Rahab like one of the slain; with your strong arm you scattered your enemies.
¹¹ The heavens are yours, and yours also the earth; you founded the world and all that is in it.
¹² You created the north and the south; Tabor and Hermon sing for joy at your name.
¹³ Your arm is endowed with power; your hand is strong, your right hand exalted.

The Lord is the cosmic sovereign, the trustworthy ruler over all the beings in heavenly places, the unchallenged authority who bows to no one (verses 6-8).

The Lord reigns over things beyond our control:

• threatening seas, like the Red Sea (verses 9-10),
• heaven and earth, the two realms God established (verse 11),
• lofty mountains with a majesty reflecting heaven (verses 12-13).

The character of the king shapes and secures the kingdom:

Psalm 89:14-18 (NIV)
¹⁴ Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you.
¹⁵ Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you, who walk in the light of your presence, Lord.
¹⁶ They rejoice in your name all day long; they celebrate your righteousness.
¹⁷ For you are their glory and strength, and by your favour you exalt our horn.
¹⁸ Indeed, our shield belongs to the Lord, our king to the Holy One of Israel.

God doing right by his people (righteousness) makes things right for them (justice). His ḥě·sěḏ (loyal love) and eměṯ (faithfulness, true-to-his-word) establishes them (verse 14).

This is what God’s secure authority means for them:

• they walk in the light of your presence (verse 15),
• they rejoice in your name all day long, i.e. they live as a celebration of God doing right among them (verse 16),
• they live as a reflection of God’s honour (verse 17) and protection (verse 18).

The foundation of God’s reign (verses 19-37)

Everything in Israel’s life depended on what God had decreed. Verses 19-37 are therefore an extended explanation of heaven’s declaration that David would always have the kingdom. If this is the word of the cosmic sovereign who is faithfully committed to his covenant people and beyond challenge from any other authority, surely this decree can never fail:

Psalm 89:19-37 (NIV)
¹⁹ Once you spoke in a vision, to your faithful people you said:

“I have bestowed strength on a warrior; I have raised up a young man from among the people.
²⁰ I have found David my servant; with my sacred oil I have anointed him.
²¹ My hand will sustain him; surely my arm will strengthen him.
²² The enemy will not get the better of him; the wicked will not oppress him.
²³ I will crush his foes before him and strike down his adversaries.
²⁴ My faithful love will be with him, and through my name his horn will be exalted.
²⁵ I will set his hand over the sea, his right hand over the rivers.
²⁶ He will call out to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, the Rock my Saviour.’
²⁷ And I will appoint him to be my firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the earth.
²⁸ I will maintain my love to him forever, and my covenant with him will never fail.
²⁹ I will establish his line forever, his throne as long as the heavens endure.

³⁰ “If his sons forsake my law and do not follow my statutes,
³¹ if they violate my decrees and fail to keep my commands,
³² I will punish their sin with the rod, their iniquity with flogging;
³³ but I will not take my love from him, nor will I ever betray my faithfulness.
³⁴ I will not violate my covenant or alter what my lips have uttered.
³⁵ Once for all, I have sworn by my holiness — and I will not lie to David —
³⁶ that his line will continue forever and his throne endure before me like the sun;
³⁷ it will be established forever like the moon, the faithful witness in the sky.”

After the exile, this decree of the Lord was described as a covenant with David (verses 3, 28, 34, 39. Compare 2 Chronicles 7:18; 13:5; 21:7; Isaiah 55:3; Jeremiah 33:21). So, how can the reign of David end? How can God’s covenant faithfulness fail?

The loss of God’s reign (verses 38-51)

Nothing made sense anymore. Israel was no longer a nation under God’s rule. If they weren’t God’s people, what were they? Losing God’s reign through his anointed meant they’d lost everything:

Psalm 89:38-51 (NIV)
³⁸ But you have rejected, you have spurned, you have been very angry with your anointed one.
³⁹ You have renounced the covenant with your servant and have defiled his crown in the dust.
⁴⁰ You have broken through all his walls and reduced his strongholds to ruins.
⁴¹ All who pass by have plundered him; he has become the scorn of his neighbours.
⁴² You have exalted the right hand of his foes; you have made all his enemies rejoice.
⁴³ Indeed, you have turned back the edge of his sword and have not supported him in battle.
⁴⁴ You have put an end to his splendour and cast his throne to the ground.
⁴⁵ You have cut short the days of his youth; you have covered him with a mantle of shame.

⁴⁶ How long, Lord? Will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire?
⁴⁷ Remember how fleeting is my life. For what futility you have created all humanity!
⁴⁸ Who can live and not see death, or who can escape the power of the grave?
⁴⁹ Lord, where is your former great love, which in your faithfulness you swore to David?
⁵⁰ Remember, Lord, how your servant has been mocked, I bear in my heart the taunts of all the nations,
⁵¹ the taunts with which your enemies, Lord, have mocked, with which they have mocked every step of your anointed one.

Here’s what they cannot understand. God rejected his anointed (verse 38), exalting his enemies over them (verse 42). Life has no meaning (verse 47); death has taken over (verse 48).

God’s anointed is shamed (verse 45), publicly mocked by the nations (verse 50), a mockery of the reign of the Lord and his anointed (verse 51).

There’s no escape. After extoling the meaning of God’s reign through his anointed (verses 1-18) and explaining its foundation in God’s decree (verses 19-38), we feel the scale of this unmitigated disaster, as if the whole world has come crashing down.

If God has removed his hand from the earth, history has no meaning. We’re going nowhere. There is no future. For many Jewish people, it still feels like that, two and a half thousand years later.

For us

Centuries later, the son of David was born, to inherit the throne of his father David (Luke 1:27, 32). But how did he inherit the kingship?

Here’s what Jesus expected (summarized from Matthew 16:16-28):

“You’re God’s anointed,” Peter said.
“Don’t say that out loud!” Jesus ordered. “You do realize that when we go to the capital, those in charge will kill me, don’t you?”
“That’s not how it works!” Peter corrected Jesus.
“Whose side are you on, Peter? This is how it works! Get ready to carry your cross up the road too! It’s not through military victory that my Father gives me the kingdom. It’s by dying at the hands of evil that evil and death are defeated. But you won’t all die; some of you will live to see it.”

Jesus was right. The king of the Jews was betrayed by his own people, handed over to their enemies to be crucified. As the king sank into the death of the kingdom, we hear him echoing the Davidic cry of the centuries, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

“We had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel,” people said as they turned and walked away (Luke 24:21).

So how did God restore his reign to the earth? When the kingship had been dead and buried for so long, how did God restore it to his anointed? (Hint: 1 Corinthians 15:1-4.)

The New Testament picks up on some of the language used in Psalm 89.

For example, the central section about God’s decree to David describes him as God’s firstborn (Psalm 89:27). The firstborn in the ancient world was one to whom the father entrusted responsibility for the family. The Father of all nations had given Israel that responsibility (Exodus 4:22). David inherited that responsibility, making him the most exalted of the kings of the earth (the parallel expression for firstborn in verse 27).

Colossians 1:13 says that God has rescued us from the dark dominion (i.e. the loss of “the light of your presence” as Psalm 89:15 described it). God rescued us into the kingdom of his Son. In other words, God has raised up his Christ as the firstborn over creation, (verse 15), with every domain restored to God’s reign in him (verse 16).

Psalm 89 helps us understand what these phrases mean in relation to God’s character and sovereignty. Verses 14-16 describe God’s righteousness and justice as the foundation of his throne, and that means his love and faithfulness go before him (the parallel expression). The result is a blessing on those who acclaim him, as they enjoy God’s reign and celebrate his righteousness. God’s character and authority — previously seen in the Davidic kingship — have returned to earth in his Anointed. These phrases can contribute to our understanding of what passages like Romans 3:21-22 mean by the righteousness of God bringing us justice/justification through the faith[fulness] of the Messiah.

Do you see other phrases in Psalm 89 that help us understand the New Testament?

And finally, what unanswered prayer? Both this psalm (89:46) and the one about the fall of Israel (80:4) asked, “How long, O Lord?” (80:4 and 89:46). It’s a frequent question in the Psalms (4:2; 6:3; 13:1-2; 35:17; 62:3; 74:9-10; 79:5; 82:2; 90:13; 94:3; 119:84.)

Is it a conversation you have with God sometimes? What about our disappointments, when God doesn’t use his authority the way we think he should? What can these psalms teach us about prayers that are not answered in our lifetime?

Adapted from the series, “Formed in God’s Story: Psalms.” Full notes and podcasts here.

Related posts

• Psalm 80: Israel has fallen
• Psalm 72: Prayer for the king
• What’s in the five books of the Psalms?