Psalm 89 is a royal Psalm. Pannenberg says it is an exilic Psalm. Some would make it apply to 587 BC, but there is no specific reference to this event. It may have been used at times of national distress. It was part of a worship festival. Dahood believes dynasty considerations predominate. If exilic, the psalm becomes a long meditation on the perplexing nature of the covenant of the Lord with Israel, specifically, the Lord’s covenant with David. Among the most difficult experiences for an individual, community, or nation occurs when everything is falling apart. The exile was that time for Israel, Judah, priests, royal family, and prophets. In this case, the issue was the love and mercy from the Lord which the covenant promised facing the harsh reality of exile.
For “Ethan” in the title, see I Kings 5:11, in which he is a sage whose wisdom only Solomon surpassed, and I Chronicles 2:6, in which he is one of the Levitical singers in the temple. At least a portion of Psalm 89 comes from his hand.
Psalm 89: 20-26 are part of a section in verses 19-37 that recapitulates the divine promise to David. The writer has offered a list of the magnalia Dei, the gracious acts of the Lord on behalf of Israel. The king responds to what the Lord has said by recalling another significant act of the Lord on behalf of Israel, the promise to David. He affirms that not even human sin will end the covenant. Such an intimate relationship as we see here between the Lord and the king become the basis for the intimate relation within the Trinity between Father and Son.[1] 20I have found (a word never elsewhere used to describe contact between the Lord and David) the servant of the Lord (II Samuel 3:18, 7:5, I Kings 11:13, etc.), David, and with my holy oil I have anointed him (Exodus 30:22-33, tent of meeting, the Ark, the altar, etc., but nowhere for the royal anointing referred to in I Samuel 16:13). Thus, this is the only passage to refer to sacral chrism as the oil used to anoint David. Of course, the oil did not possess holiness. Rather, the Lord bestowed holiness upon it. 21 My hand shall always remain 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. Even with steadfast love and faithfulness as a divine promise, we see here this covenant loyalty does not promise absence of danger, loss, or stress. Even David will have his enemies and wicked ones who seek him harm. The promise contained in divine love and faithfulness is that such opposition will not prevail. The path of a human life will have pain and sorrow. Yet, this covenant loyalty, such steadfast love and faithfulness, will accompany the human partner along a precarious journey. Human beings can count on this love, for this love is strong and true. 24 My faithfulness and steadfast love, often occurring together in the Old Testament because this turn in love toward the creatures the Lord has made reveals the identity and consistency of the eternal God,[2] shall be with him; and in my name his horn shall be exalted. In fact, 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, an idea found in Psalm 2:7 and II Samuel 7:14. Priests and prophets already claimed direct communication with the Lord, while royalty claimed this connection relatively late. Surrounding cultures made this a major theme, but the theme, important as it is, is relatively rare in the Old Testament. However, it was undoubtedly an important part of royal ideology. The king was hardly the only leader to whom the deity regularly communicated (and was the last of the three great leadership institutions to claim that privilege), so the divine parentage of the king never achieved in Israel the prominence it enjoyed elsewhere in the ancient world, as, for example, among the pharaohs of Egypt or the Roman emperors. Whatever the king's accomplishments on behalf of the chosen people and none were held in higher esteem than David's -- the king remained principally and finally the servant of the Lord. Further, the king shall cry that the Lord is the Rock of my salvation!
The type of love of which the psalmist writes is the mature and lasting love that stands the tests and trials of time. Such love is tough, enduring, and prepared to meet obstacles directly. Such love will offer armor and protection in order to see the partners in the covenant through the up and down of a human journey through life. Such love is humbling in its passion and amazing in its depth. On the divine side, such love does not fade or weaken.
Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in sight of all. Men will give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as if on the stage. But active love is labor and fortitude.[3]
In Psalm 89: 27-29, David continues to rehearse what the Lord said to him. 27 I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. 28 Forever I will keep my steadfast love for him, and my covenant with him will stand firm. Righteousness and faithfulness have a close relation because the identity and consistency of the eternal God shows itself in God turning in love toward the creatures God has made.[4] 29 I will establish his line forever and his throne as long as the heavens endure.
In Psalm 89: 30-35, part of a section that extends to verse 37, we read of a warning to the descendants of David of their punishment if they abandon the covenant, but a promise that the Lord will abrogate the covenant due to their disobedience. 30 If his children forsake my law and do not walk according to my ordinances, 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 scourges; 33 but I will not remove from him my steadfast love, or be false to my faithfulness. Righteousness and faithfulness have a close relation because the identity and consistency of the eternal God shows itself in God turning in love toward the creatures God has made.[5] 34 I will not violate my covenant, or alter the word that went forth from my lips. 35 Once and for all, I have sworn by my holiness; I will not lie to David. So, God might lie to someone else? Why would God even say such a thing? God is God. Of course, God will not lie to David. Right? The statement could make one nervous. Let us face it: Sometimes we feel that God has lied to us. Or at least we wonder how our present circumstances can possibly line up with what God has promised in his Word. The point is that this is what God will not do. Since truth and faithfulness are attributes of God, what God will not do is lie.
Love Among the Ruins
Robert Browning
I.
Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,
Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop--
Was the site once of a city great and gay,
(So they say)
Of our country's very capital, its prince
Ages since
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
Peace or war.
II.
Now,--the country does not even boast a tree,
As you see,
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
From the hills
Intersect and give a name to, (else they run
Into one)
Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires
Up like fires
O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
Bounding all,
Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed,
Twelve abreast.
III.
And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
Never was!
Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads
And embeds
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
Stock or stone--
Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
Long ago;
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.
IV.
Now,--the single little turret that remains
On the plains,
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
Overscored,
While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks
Through the chinks--
Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
Sprang sublime,
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
As they raced,
And the monarch and his minions and his dames
Viewed the games.
V.
And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve
Smiles to leave
To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey
Melt away--
That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
Waits me there
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
For the goal,
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb
Till I come.
VI.
But he looked upon the city, every side,
Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades'
Colonnades,
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,--and then,
All the men!
When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
Either hand
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
Of my face,
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Each on each.
VII.
In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and North,
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
As the sky,
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force--
Gold, of course.
Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
Earth's returns
For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!
Shut them in,
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
Love is best.
.
A portion of another poem speaks of an ever moving and confusing world.
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from the inner
And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving…
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