Bible Synapse
Would David’s throne endure for ever, when Psalm 89 says it was cast down?
Hard question · Prophecy and its fulfilment · raised by 2 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
If David’s sons forsake God’s law they will be punished “with the rod”, but God will not take away his lovingkindness or break his covenant.
If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.
God swears that David’s seed and throne will endure for ever, like the sun and the moon.
Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. Selah.
The psalmist laments that God has made the king’s glory cease and “cast his throne down to the ground”.
Thou hast made his glory to cease, and cast his throne down to the ground.
The psalmist appeals to the lovingkindnesses God swore to David.
Lord, where are thy former lovingkindnesses, which thou swarest unto David in thy truth?
The angel promises that God will give Jesus “the throne of his father David”, and that his kingdom will have no end.
He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and 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.
The objection
In Psalm 89 God swears that David’s throne will endure “as the sun before me” (verse 36). A few verses later the same psalm says God has “made void the covenant of thy servant” and “cast his throne down to the ground” (verses 39, 44). The promise seems to have failed.
The answer
The tension is not a slip by a careless editor; it is the subject of the psalm. Psalm 89 first rehearses God’s oath to David (verses 3–4, 19–37), then describes a disaster in which a king of David’s line has been defeated and his crown thrown down (verses 38–45), and then turns the two into prayer: “Lord, where are thy former lovingkindnesses, which thou swarest unto David in thy truth?” (verse 49). In his grief the psalmist even says that God has “made void the covenant of thy servant” (verse 39), for that is how it looks. But he does not leave it there: he holds God to his oath.
The promise itself had foreseen such a time. God said that if David’s sons forsook his law he would punish them “with the rod”, yet “my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him” and “my covenant will I not break” (verses 30–34). A royal line can be chastened, even brought low for a time, without the oath failing. The New Testament sees the oath kept in Jesus, of whom the angel said, “the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David” and “of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:32–33).
Still open
Scholars differ over which disaster the psalm laments. Some think of the invasion in Rehoboam’s day (1 Kings 14:25–26), others of the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 586 BC.
From the classic commentators
Sometimes, it is no easy thing to reconcile God's providences with his promises, and yet we are sure they are reconcilable; for God's works fulfil his word and never contradict it.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on Psalm 89:38–45
Sources
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible: Psalm 89, at Bible Hub
- Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: Psalm 89 (HelloAO)
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: Psalm 89 (HelloAO)