Psalm 89 English Standard Version I Will Sing of the Steadfast Love of the LORD A Maskil of Ethan the Ezrahite. 89 I will sing of the steadfast love of the LORD, forever; with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations. 2 For I said, “Steadfast love will be built up forever; in the heavens you will establish your faithfulness.” 3 You have said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one; I have sworn to David my servant: 4 ‘I will establish your offspring forever, and build your throne for all generations.’” Selah 5 Let the heavens praise your wonders, O LORD, your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones! 6 For who in the skies can be compared to the LORD? Who among the heavenly beings is like the LORD, 7 a God greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones, and awesome above all who are around him? 8 O LORD God of hosts, who is mighty as you are, O LORD, with your faithfulness all around you? 9 You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them. 10 You crushed Rahab like a carcass; you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm. 11 The heavens are yours; the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in it, you have founded them. 12 The north and the south, you have created them; Tabor and Hermon joyously praise your name. 13 You have a mighty arm; strong is your hand, high your right hand. 14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you. 15 Blessed are the people who know the festal shout, who walk, O LORD, in the light of your face, 16 who exult in your name all the day and in your righteousness are exalted. 17 For you are the glory of their strength; by your favor our horn is exalted. 18 For our shield belongs to the LORD, our king to the Holy One of Israel. 19 Of old you spoke in a vision to your godly one, and said: “I have granted help to one who is mighty; I have exalted one chosen from the people. 20 I have found David, my servant; with my holy oil I have anointed him, 21 so that my hand shall be established with him; my arm also shall strengthen him. 22 The enemy shall not outwit him; the wicked shall not humble him. 23 I will crush his foes before him and strike down those who hate him. 24 My faithfulness and my steadfast love shall be with him, and in my name shall his horn be exalted. 25 I will set his hand on the sea and his right hand on the rivers. 26 He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’ 27 And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. 28 My steadfast love I will keep for him forever, and my covenant will stand firm for him. 29 I will establish his offspring forever and his throne as the days of the heavens. 30 If his children forsake my law and do not walk according to my rules, 31 if they violate my statutes and do not keep my commandments, 32 then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes, 33 but I will not remove from him my steadfast love or be false to my faithfulness. 34 I will not violate my covenant or alter the word that went forth from my lips. 35 Once for all I have sworn by my holiness; I will not lie to David. 36 His offspring shall endure forever, his throne as long as the sun before me. 37 Like the moon it shall be established forever, a faithful witness in the skies.” Selah 38 But now you have cast off and rejected; you are full of wrath against your anointed. 39 You have renounced the covenant with your servant; you have defiled his crown in the dust. 40 You have breached all his walls; you have laid his strongholds in ruins. 41 All who pass by plunder him; he has become the scorn of his neighbors. 42 You have exalted the right hand of his foes; you have made all his enemies rejoice. 43 You have also turned back the edge of his sword, and you have not made him stand in battle. 44 You have made his splendor to cease and cast his throne to the ground. 45 You have cut short the days of his youth; you have covered him with shame. Selah 46 How long, O LORD? Will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire? 47 Remember how short my time is! For what vanity you have created all the children of man! 48 What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah 49 LORD, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David? 50 Remember, O LORD, how your servants are mocked, and how I bear in my heart the insults of all the many nations, 51 with which your enemies mock, O LORD, with which they mock the footsteps of your anointed. 52 Blessed be the LORD forever! Amen and Amen. The "steadfast love" of the LORD is something so rich and deep that it can't be translated with just one word in English, so we will see words like "mercy," "lovingkindness," "goodness," and "favor" (and other forms of these words). It can also have a negative connotation in some places and will be translated as "pity," "reproach," or "wicked thing," in those few contexts, but most of the time it is translated as one of the first list of words that I gave. It is one of David's favorite themes in the book of Psalms for God is love and to know the loving things He has done is to know more about who He is. It is His steadfast love that leads us to repentance and is at the center of the story of salvation. We see parts of that story through the history of Israel, but it comes in focus clearly at the cross where we see God's lovingkindness and HIs justice and wrath meet and Jesus becomes the object of God's wrath so that we might be the objects of God's grace and mercy. John 15:13 English Standard Version 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. Romans 5:7-8 English Standard Version 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Now back to the text of the psalm we are studying today. This love is a covenant love, so of course the psalmist starts off reminding those singing this song of the covenants that the LORD made to David and to Abraham--promises of Messiah, to dwell with His people, to increase the descendants of Abraham to an uncountable multitude, to bless them so that they would become the envy of the world, to bless those who bless them and curse those who curse them, that they would become a blessing to the other nations of the world, that He would give a Land to Abraham's descendants which they did not really work for, but that they would obtain by faith (yes, there were some battles they fought, but ultimately the battle belonged to the LORD and He was the One who secured their victory by destroying their enemies and making them run in fear). We then go back even further to the very beginning of time. The LORD is the Creator of heaven and earth and all that is in them, including all the angelic hosts of heaven, the earth, the skies, the seas, and all that is in them. The psalmist calls on all creatures of our God and King to praise Him and worship Him with gladness. Then there is a recounting of some of mighty acts of the LORD, both in establishing and tearing down of nations. Don't miss the statement that is kind of in the middle of verse two though, "You have a mighty arm; strong is your hand, high your right hand. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you." The phase "with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm" takes the people back to the time of the Exodus and the Ten Plagues, as this is the phrase the LORD uses Himself to describe how He saved His people, and it is part of the story they retell year after year at Passover. Yet, there is more to the LORD than just that He is a mighty warrior to be feared because He crushes His enemies. He also saves His people and gives them blessings. We switch to that theme of salvation as we focus in on David. Surprising to some, but not to me, is that the story of salvation here starts with a statement of God's sovereignty and the doctrine of Election. God is the one who decides who to give help to, and He chose David to be a prince over His people and showed His selection and approval by having the prophet Samuel anoint David with oil--a symbol of God's Spirit being poured out on a person for a specific time and purpose (in the New Testament Church, things have been different since the Spirit fell on various groups of believers in Acts 2, 8, 10, 11 and 19. When the Spirit came upon these various people groups for the first time it was done with power and signs and wonders that confirmed to all who were present that these people received the same Promise (the Holy Spirit) and salvation as everyone else and they were baptized with the same baptism as the others and they were part of the same Body of Christ, the Church, as the other believers. The LORD promised David that He would save Him and defeat his military enemies for Him, but the LORD also promised David that someone would always be a King that was from his descendants. Saul has just lost his right for anyone from his family to be king, and David likely feared that there would be a blood feud between the house of Saul and the house of David for the throne (or that someone else might rise up and be powerful enough to take the throne by force). The LORD not only said that there would always be one of David's sons on the throne, but there would be one called The Son of David, who, once His throne was established, would reign forever and ever and His kingdom and dominion would be without end in both time and space. We look forward to the days of King Jesus ruling from the throne of David in Jerusalem. It is promised that the kingdom of the Jews will stretch from the River (that is the Euphrates River) to the Sea (that is the Mediterranean Sea). The Anti-Semitic chant "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free" is a lie from the Father of Lies, Satan, the perverts and twists this promise that the LORD made to His people by eternal covenant. That Land belongs to the descendants of Abraham and is to be ruled over by the descendants of David from now to eternity future no matter what any President of the United States or the United Nations resolution might say. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords has spoken. Now we will look at the Mosaic Covenant--a conditional covenant unlike the rest. It is a promise of blessings if God's people would obey His commandments and a promise of loving punishment and correction (up to and including being taken out of the Land and subjugated by the pagan nations around them) if they willfully disobeyed His commandments. Being His people who were called by His name came with certain expectations. They were ambassadors of a King and a Kingdom, so they had a code of conduct established for them that defined their culture and helped them best represent their King and His Kingdom to the other nations of the world. The closer they followed the rules, the easier it would be for them to share the gospel with other people and have them understand it. People would clearly see the contrast between the Kingdom of Light (God's Kingdom) and the Kingdom of Darkness (the kingdom of this world, the flesh and the devil). God punishes punishment for their iniquity, but what we see this side of the cross is that God is describing the beatings and torture that Jesus would take to pay for our sins. " Then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes, but I will not remove from him my steadfast love or be false to my faithfulness. " God tells us that we need to do to be sure that He will fulfill the Davidic covenant is look up at the sky and see that the moon is there. The moon's not going anywhere and as surely as the moon is there night after night, so is God's eternal covenant with David--giving light and hope in the darkest of times that we may go through. While the next verse partially speaks of what happened with David and many of the other kings, it ultimately speaks of Jesus when the Father did not prevent His enemies from having their way with Him. It is only by His stripes that we are healed (see Isaiah 53). If the Father had protected His son from suffering in the same way that many "helicopter parents" try to keep their children for experiencing anything bad (and the Father could have been the perfect "Helicopter Parent" if He wanted to be), then none of us would have ever been saved. In fact, this is one of the ways in which the devil tried to tempt Jesus--we even hear the mocking scoffers at the cross repeating this temptation, "If/Since you are the Son of God, come down off the cross." "He says He can save others, but He cannot even save Himself." The selfish sinners could not understand a love that was so others-focused that it would allow an innocent man to die so that the guilty might be declared just and be able to be a part of the family of God by Adoption. The next line seems to be a cry for the Resurrection. How long will God let is appear that evil has won? How long with the Gave have apparent victory? The answer to that question is "Three days and three nights." Just like Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man would be in the belly of the earth for three days and three nights, but He would rise again on the third day. The psalm asks the LORD to remember the covenants He made with his people, because it appears to us sometimes that He has forgotten (take the current situation in Israel where it seems they are constantly being attacked from the north, south, and now even the east with rockets, ICBMs and guided and unguided missiles and drones). All the Jewish people have to cling onto at this time is the history of how the LORD saved them in the past and His promise that He will continue to save them in the present and the future. God is not finished with the people of Israel yet (and never will be, for they are part of His eternal plan). Even when we don't see the LORD fulfilling His covenant promises, He is. This is reason to bless the LORD and praise His holy Name forever! Comments are closed.
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Daniel WestfallI will mostly use this space for recording my "journal" from my daily devotions as I hope to encourage others to read the Bible along with me and to leave a legacy for others. Archives
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