The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"mercies," Hebrew chasdei YHWH (חַסְדֵי יְהוָה), the steadfast covenant-loves of the LORD. The psalm opens in song over God's covenant faithfulness: "I will sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever." These are not general kindnesses but the loves God has bound Himself to by covenant.

"faithfulness," emunah (אֱמוּנָה). Mercy's constant companion in this psalm is faithfulness: "with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations." God's love is dependable because His word does not shift.

"built up for ever," chesed olam yibbaneh (חֶסֶד עוֹלָם יִבָּנֶה). "Mercy shall be built up for ever: thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens." The picture is of construction, a structure of mercy rising course by course and never coming down.

"covenant," berit (בְּרִית). "I have made a covenant with my chosen." The mercy has a legal shape; God has bound Himself in a formal agreement, so that His kindness to David is now a matter of His own sworn obligation.

"I have sworn," nishba'ti (נִשְׁבַּעְתִּי). "I have sworn unto David my servant." God does not merely promise, He swears, staking His own name on the outcome and leaving Himself no room to withdraw.

"thy seed," zar'akha (זַרְעֲךָ). The oath reaches past David to his line: "Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations." The promise is made to a man but aimed at his descendants.

Explanation

Two words carry this whole opening, and indeed the whole psalm: "mercies" and "faithfulness." The Hebrew behind "mercies" (chesed) is God's steadfast, covenant-keeping love, and "faithfulness" (emunah) is His utter reliability, His being as good as His word. Ethan pairs them again and again, and stakes everything on them. Notice how solid he makes them: mercy is "built up for ever," like a house rising course on course that will never fall; and faithfulness is "established in the very heavens," fixed as the sky, higher and surer than anything on earth. Then he grounds this song of mercy and faithfulness in one concrete thing God has done: "I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant." God did not merely feel kindly toward David; He bound Himself by covenant and oath, the two strongest ties there are, promising, "Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations." This is the famous promise of an everlasting throne in David's line. Hold onto how absolute it is, "for ever... to all generations", because the drama of the psalm will be the terrible day when that everlasting throne appears to lie in ruins, and the singer must decide whether God's mercy and faithfulness can be trusted when the evidence seems to say they have failed. The psalm begins by building the promise as high as heaven, precisely so that we will feel the fall when it comes.

Gospel Focus

"Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations", this covenant with David is kept, past all breaking, in Jesus Christ, the seed of David. The angel announced it at His birth: "the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end" (Luke 1:32-33). Every "for ever" of the promise, an everlasting seed, an everlasting throne, lands on Him, for only a King who never dies can hold a throne to all generations, and Christ, risen and ascended, does. And the "mercies" of this psalm are made ours by name in the gospel, for God has given us "the sure mercies of David" (Acts 13:34), the settled, covenant loves that cannot fail, sealed in the resurrection of Jesus. So the song Ethan sang in hope we sing in fullness: the mercy and faithfulness of God stand firm, built up for ever and established in the heavens, in the Son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Word Study

"the rock of my salvation," Hebrew tzur yeshu'ati (צוּר יְשׁוּעָתִי). The king's own confession is quoted first: "He shall cry unto me, Thou art my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation." Before he is anything to the nation, he is a son leaning on God.

"my firstborn," bekhori (בְּכוֹרִי). God swells the promise beyond any mere king: "Also I will make him my firstborn." The firstborn's place is one of rank and inheritance, and God assigns it by His own appointment.

"higher than the kings," elyon lemalkhei-aretz (עֶלְיוֹן לְמַלְכֵי־אָרֶץ). The rank is spelled out: "higher than the kings of the earth." Every other throne is placed beneath his, so the promise outgrows the small kingdom David actually ruled.

"shall stand fast," ne'emenet (נֶאֱמֶנֶת), be faithful, sure. "My covenant shall stand fast with him." The word belongs to the same family as the faithfulness sung of at the psalm's opening; the covenant holds because God holds it.

"as the days of heaven," kimei shamayim (כִּימֵי שָׁמָיִם). "His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven." The measure of the dynasty's life is not a span of years but the duration of the sky itself.

Explanation

Read these verses carefully and you will feel the promise straining past David, growing too large for any ordinary king to fill. "I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth." David was not literally a firstborn, he was the youngest of Jesse's sons, and he was one king among many, not "higher than the kings of the earth." The language is reaching beyond the historical David toward a greater Son in his line, one who would truly be God's firstborn and truly supreme over every earthly throne. "Firstborn" here is a title not of birth-order but of rank: the firstborn held the chief place, the double portion, the headship of the family, and God says He will give this One the chief place over all the kings of the world. And notice the relationship at the heart of it: "He shall cry unto me, Thou art my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation." Here is a King who calls God "my Father", who lives in trusting dependence, crying to God as to a father and leaning on Him as "the rock of my salvation." No king in Israel's history filled this to the brim. And over this One God pronounces the promise in its most unbreakable form: "My covenant shall stand fast with him... his throne as the days of heaven." The everlasting throne is safe, not because David's descendants would prove faithful (the psalm knows they would not, vv30-32), but because it rests at last on one Son whom God Himself would establish for ever.

Gospel Focus

"I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth", this is the Lord Jesus Christ, David's Son and David's Lord. He is "the firstborn of every creature" and "the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence" (Colossians 1:15, 18), firstborn not as one made, but as the supreme Heir over all. And He is "the prince of the kings of the earth" (Revelation 1:5), higher than every crown that has ever been worn. The words "he shall cry unto me, Thou art my father, my God" were fulfilled in the One who prayed to the Father through all His earthly life and, risen, said, "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God" (John 20:17), the Son who is God manifest in flesh, living in perfect dependence on the eternal Spirit He called Father, the "rock of my salvation." In Him the covenant "stands fast," for His throne truly is "as the days of heaven": He died, but "death hath no more dominion over him," and He reigns for ever. Every swelling word of this promise, firstborn, highest, everlasting throne, was measured for Jesus Christ, and He fills it all.

Word Study

"how long," Hebrew ad-mah (עַד־מָה). The psalm turns to anguish over a throne cast down, and the anguish begins with a question of duration: "How long, LORD?" It is not the fact of God's anger that breaks him but its apparent endlessness.

"hide thyself," tissater (תִּסָּתֵר). "Wilt thou hide thyself for ever? shall thy wrath burn like fire?" The God who swore the covenant has withdrawn from view, and the withdrawal feels permanent.

"former lovingkindnesses," chasadekha harishonim (חֲסָדֶיךָ הָרִאשֹׁנִים). He appeals back to the very mercies the psalm opened by singing: "Lord, where are thy former lovingkindnesses?" What God has done before becomes the ground of the complaint that He is not doing it now.

"which thou swarest," nishba'ta (נִשְׁבַּעְתָּ). "Which thou swarest unto David in thy truth?" The oath of the opening verses is thrown back to God as an argument; He is asked to be true to what He Himself put under oath.

"thine anointed," meshichekha (מְשִׁיחֶךָ), thy Messiah. "Wherewith they have reproached the footsteps of thine anointed." The insult falls on the very king God set apart, so the shame of the throne is God's own concern and not merely the nation's.

"blessed be the LORD," barukh YHWH (בָּרוּךְ יְהוָה). Yet the psalm closes with a doxology of faith: "Blessed be the LORD for evermore. Amen, and Amen." Nothing in the situation has changed; the man blessing God is still the man asking "how long."

Explanation

To feel this ending you must know what happened between verse 37 and verse 38. Up to verse 37 God has piled promise on promise, an everlasting throne, a covenant that shall stand fast. Then, at verse 38, the psalm falls off a cliff: "But thou hast cast off and abhorred... thou hast made void the covenant of thy servant: thou hast profaned his crown by casting it to the ground." The throne that was to be "as the days of heaven" now lies in the dust; the crown is defiled; enemies rejoice. And the singer is left holding an impossible contradiction: God swore the throne would stand for ever, and the throne has fallen. So he cries the great questions of a faith in crisis: "How long, LORD?... where are thy former lovingkindnesses, which thou swarest unto David in thy truth?" He does not doubt that God swore; he cannot see how the oath and the ruin can both be true. And here is the wonder of the ending. He has no answer. The exile is not reversed, the throne is not raised, the questions are not resolved. And yet the very last words of the psalm, and of the whole Third Book of the Psalter, are not a complaint but a blessing: "Blessed be the LORD for evermore. Amen, and Amen." This is faith at its purest, worship offered in the dark, before the answer comes, on nothing but the character of God. Ethan cannot see how God will keep His word; he blesses God anyway, trusting that the God who swore cannot lie, and that somehow, someday, the fallen throne will rise.

Gospel Focus

"Where are thy former lovingkindnesses, which thou swarest unto David?", the question Ethan could not answer was answered centuries later at an empty tomb. The Davidic throne really had fallen; for long generations no son of David reigned in Jerusalem, and it must have looked as though God's oath had failed. But God had not forgotten His oath; He was keeping it in a way greater than the psalmist could see. Peter declared it at Pentecost: David, "being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne" (Acts 2:30). The very oath of Psalm 89, "which thou swarest unto David," was fulfilled when God raised up Jesus, the Son of David, and seated Him on an everlasting throne. The crown cast to the ground was lifted higher than the kings of the earth in the resurrection and ascension of Christ. So the psalm's closing "Amen, and Amen" was truer than Ethan knew, for "all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen" (2 Corinthians 1:20). The covenant that seemed void was never void; it waited for the Son of David, the Lord Jesus, in whom "Blessed be the LORD for evermore" is the only fitting word.