Study

a Bible passage

Click a verse to see commentary
Select a resource above

89. Psalm 89

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.’” The Hebrew has Selah (a word of uncertain meaning) here and at the end of verses 37, 45 and 48.

    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.

    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 favor you exalt our horn. Horn here symbolizes strong one.
18 Indeed, our shield Or sovereign belongs to the LORD,
   our king to the Holy One of Israel.

    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 Horn here symbolizes strength. 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 Savior.’
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.”

    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 neighbors.
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 splendor
   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 Or your servants have been mocked,
   how 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.

    52 Praise be to the LORD forever! Amen and Amen.

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

51. With which thy enemies, O Jehovah! have reproached thee. What the Psalmist now affirms is, not that the wicked torment the saints with their contumelious language, but that they revile even God himself. And he makes this statement, because it is a much more powerful plea for obtaining favor in the sight of God, to beseech him to maintain his own cause, because all the reproaches by which the simplicity of our faith is held up to scorn recoil upon himself, than to beseech him to do this, because he is wounded in the person of his Church; according as he declares in Isaiah,

“Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed; and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel.” (Isaiah 37:23)

That wicked robber Rabshakeh thought that he scoffed only at the wretched Jews whom he besieged, and whose surrender of themselves into his hands he believed he would soon witness; but God took it as if he himself had been the object whom that wicked man directly assailed. On this account also, the prophet calls these enemies of his people the enemies of God; namely, because in persecuting the Church with deadly hostility, they made an assault upon the majesty of God, under whose protection the Church was placed.

In the second clause, by the footsteps of Messiah or Christ is meant the coming of Christ, even as it is said in Isaiah 52:7,

“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace!” (Isaiah 52:7)

The Hebrew word עקב, akeb, sometimes signifies the heel; but here, as in many other passages, it signifies the sole of the foot. Others translate it the pace or step, but this gives exactly the same sense. There can be no doubt, that footsteps, by the figure synecdoche, is employed to denote the feet; and again, that by the feet, according to the figure metonomy, is meant the coming of Christ. The wicked, observing that the Jews clung to the hope of redemption, and patiently endured all adversities because a deliverer had been promised them, disdainfully derided their patience, as if all that the prophets had testified concerning the coming of Christ had been only a fable. 560560     “De la revelation faite a Samuel.” — Fr. And now also, although he has been once manifested to the world, yet as, in consequence of his having been received up into the glory of heaven, he seems to be far distant from us, and to have forsaken his Church, these filthy dogs scoff at our hope, as if it were a mere delusion.
VIEWNAME is study