CHAPTER 89

PROBABLY WRITTEN BY ETHAN: PRAISE FOR THE LORD

¹I will sing of the Mercies of the LORD for ever: with my mouth will I make known Your Faithfulness to all generations. (Williams says, The Messiah, in the confidence of Coronation and of the fulfillment of the sure Promises made to Him as David [Acts 13:34], recites these Promises, voices the lament of His people at their seeming breach, and then closes the Psalm as He began it, with praise to Jehovah.

Thus, during His life of sorrow, His death of shame, and His arrest in Sheol, nothing is seen in Him but perfection perfection of faith toward God and of love toward man.)

²For I have said, Mercy shall be built up forever: Your Faithfulness shall You establish in the very heavens. (The Law came by Moses, but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ [Jn. 1:17].)

³I have made a Covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant.

⁴Your seed will I establish forever, and build up your throne to all generations. Selah. (II Sam., Chpt. 7, records the Davidic Covenant, promising David an Eternal Seed and Throne. Jesus Christ is the Root of David and will reign supremely forever. That was the intention of the Davidic Covenant, and it will yet be realized.)

⁵And the heavens shall praise Your wonders, O LORD: Your Faithfulness also in the congregation of the Saints. (This Chapter is replete with the faithfulness of God. The word occurs seven times [Vss. 1, 2, 5, 8, 24, 33, 49]. Actually, the word lovingkindness in Verse 49 could have been translated faithfulness.)

⁶For who in the heaven can be compared unto the LORD? who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the LORD? (These sons of the mighty are Angels, plainly stating that no Angel in the heaven can be compared unto the Lord. So, both on Earth and in Heaven, there is nothing to compare with the Lord Jesus Christ.)

⁷God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the Saints, and to be had in reverence of all them who are about Him. (Sadly, there is not much reverence for Christ in this present world. Shortly, this will change.)

⁸O LORD God of Hosts, who is a strong LORD like unto You? or to Your Faithfulness round about You? (Quite possibly, Jesus had this Scripture in mind when He talked about the stronger man [Himself] overcoming the strong man [Satan] and spoiling his house [Mat. 12:29].)

⁹You rule the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, You still them. (The spirit world of darkness is likened to the raging of the sea. Only Jesus can still them. How foolish it is for poor fallen man to think that pitiful humanistic psychology, or such like, can still these waves!)

¹⁰You have broken Rahab (Egypt) in pieces, as one that is dead; You have scattered Your enemies with Your strong Arm. (Rahab is a poetic name for Egypt, and means boastful or arrogant. The Lord, in delivering the Children of Israel from Egyptian bondage, broke Rahab.)

¹¹The heavens are Yours, the Earth also is Yours: as for the world and the fulness thereof, You have founded them. (This declares that the heavens and the Earth and all in them are the creation of God, and not a product of evolution.)

¹²The north and the south You have created them: Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in Your Name. (As Verse 11 refers to the entirety of the Earth, Verse 12 refers to Israel. As the battle has raged for the world in general, it has raged even more regarding Israel. In the Abrahamic Covenant, God promised the Land to Abrahams descendant, Isaac. Instead, Ishmael, a product of the flesh, has attempted to wrest this Land from Isaac. The contest rages even today. This Verse is a statement that says, in effect, that Isaac will be the recipient of the Land, according to the Covenant. This means that it will not go to the Arabs.)

¹³You have a mighty Arm: strong is Your Hand, and high is Your Right Hand. (In the Twelfth Verse, the Promise is made that Satan will not obtain the Land of Israel, and in this Thirteenth Verse, the statement is made that God has a mighty Arm and a strong Hand to carry out that which He has promised. High is Your Right Hand means that there is no one stronger.)

¹⁴Justice and Judgment are the habitation of Your Throne: Mercy and Truth shall go before Your Face. (The Lord is strong because of four qualities: 1. Justice; 2. Judgment; 3. Mercy; and, 4. Truth.)

¹⁵Blessed is the people who know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O LORD, in the light of Your Countenance. (The joyful sound in this instance concerns the people who live in the Millennium and hear the joyful sound of the trumpet on the morning of Jubilee, which will proclaim deliverance to the captives and restoration of their forfeited estates. Then the Davidic Covenant will be fulfilled in all its totality. Israel will be the supreme nation on the face of the Earth. Its people will be blessed.)

¹⁶In Your Name shall they rejoice all the day: and in Your Righteousness shall they be exalted. (There are many names given to our Lord in the Old Testament; however, the greatest name ever is that which was spoken by the Angel Gabriel, You shall call His Name JESUS: for He shall save His people from their sins [Mat. 1:21].)

¹⁷For You are the Glory of their strength: and in Your favour our horn shall be exalted. (The word horn in the Scriptures refers to kings [Dan. 7:78, 1924; Rev. 17:1217]. This refers to David ruling over Israel in the coming Kingdom Age, but even more so to the King of kings, the Lord Jesus Christ.)

¹⁸For the LORD is our defence; and the Holy One of Israel is our King (the Lord Jesus Christ).

¹⁹Then You spoke in vision to Your Holy One, and said, I have laid help upon One Who is mighty; I have exalted One chosen out of the people. (The vision that is spoken of here concerns the many Prophecies that are given concerning the coming of the Redeemer, beginning with Gen. 3:15. Jesus spoke of these in Lk. 24:27.)

²⁰I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him. (This refers to Samuel anointing David with oil as the future king of Israel, even while Saul was then king [I Sam., Chpt. 16]. Christ would come through Davids family [II Sam., Chpt. 7].)

²¹With whom my hand shall be established: my arm also shall strengthen him (and the Lord did exactly that!).

²²The enemy shall not exact upon him; nor the son of wickedness afflict him. (In many ways, Satan endeavored to kill David, but this Passage tells us that the Lord protected him.)

²³And I will beat down his foes before his face, and plague them who hate him. (The struggle lasted for nearly 15 years, but ultimately Saul was killed on Mount Gilboa. Sauls mission to destroy David, inspired by Satan, was a fruitless effort because God was on Davids side.

Likewise, those who oppose Christ, which has been and will be.)

²⁴But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him: and in my name shall His Horn be exalted. (His Horn refers to the Messiah, Who would come through David [II Sam. 7:1217; Rev. 22:16].)

²⁵I will set his hand also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers. (This refers to David conquering all from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates. Powerful armies opposed him; none succeeded.)

²⁶He shall cry unto me, You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my Salvation. (David referred to the Lord by three titles: my Father, my God, and the Rock of my Salvation.)

²⁷Also I will make Him my Firstborn, higher than the kings of the Earth. (After these statements concerning David, the next prediction is that Davids Son, the Messiah, shall also be the Son of the Heavenly Father the Firstborn and only truly Begotten Son of God, Whom God is to exalt higher than all kings of the Earth.)

²⁸My mercy will I keep for him forevermore, and my Covenant shall stand fast with him. (The Text now reverts back to David and the Davidic Covenant, which is unconditional, because it is anchored in the Greater Son of David.)

²⁹His seed also will I make to endure forever, and his throne as the days of Heaven. (After referring to the Messiah in Verse 27, God resumes His predictions concerning David and the Davidic Covenant. This means that the throne of David will exist forever. Even though Israel ultimately lost her way, still, God will bring her back and restore her with the throne of David once again becoming supreme and lasting forever.)

³⁰If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments;

³¹If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments;

³²Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes (in other words, God will chastise those He loves).

³³Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. (The Lord means that even though David or particular individuals in his lineage would sin, and even though He would have to visit their transgression with the rod, still, He would follow the lineage through to Christ, which He did. Gods faithfulness did not fail, as it cannot fail.)

³⁴My Covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. (This was the Promise that was given approximately a thousand years before Christ. Satan did everything within Hells power to break this Covenant. At one time, the only person in the lineage who was left was baby Joash, with all the others of the lineage being killed by the wicked queen, Athaliah [II Chron. 22:10]. However, this little baby boy survived and became the king of Judah, with the lineage continuing until the Birth of Christ.)

³⁵Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. (This Passage refers to the events that transpired in II Sam., Chpt. 7. Gods Promises are sure.)

³⁶His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before Me. (God guarantees this Covenant with David, as He guaranteed the Solaric Covenant.)

³⁷It shall be established forever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in Heaven. Selah. (This means that, at the Second Coming of Christ, David, and every Saint of God who has ever lived, will come back to reign on Earth forever. At that time, David will once again be established as king over Israel. He will serve under Christ, along with all the Glorified Saints. This will be during the one-thousand-year Millennial Reign, and then in the New Heaven and the New Earth forever.)

³⁸But You have cast off and abhorred, You have been wroth with Your anointed. (This speaks of David. Verses 38 through 46 refer back to Verses 31 through 32. David sinned greatly [Bath-sheba and Uriah] and so did Solomon and all of his kingly descendants. As a result, God did exactly what He said He would do, as He always will [Vs. 32].)

³⁹You have made void the Covenant of Your Servant: You have profaned his crown by casting it to the ground. (If Ethan the Ezrahite actually wrote this Psalm, then his statement here is prophetic, because it refers to the dispersion of Israel to Babylon, and then even to the final dispersion, after Titus the Roman General destroyed Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

The statement, Made void the Covenant of Your Servant, is not a contradiction of the Thirty-fourth Verse, where is says, My Covenant will I not break. It means this:

Even though Israel was totally dispersed in A.D. 70, actually ceasing to be a nation for nearly 2,000 years, still, the Covenant will be brought back to fruition at the conclusion of the Great Tribulation. For this length of time it has been made void; however, it has not been broken, and will be reestablished at the Second Coming of Christ.)

⁴⁰You have broken down all his hedges; You have brought his strong holds to ruin. (This came to pass in the Babylonian dispersion, as well as the total destruction in A.D. 70.)

⁴¹All who pass by the way spoil him: he is a reproach to his neighbours. (During the dispersion to Babylon, the Prophet Ezekiel mentioned these nations that would spoil Israel. They were Ammon, Edom, Moab, Philistia, Tyre, and others [Ezek., Chpts. 2526].)

⁴²You have set up the right hand of his adversaries; You have made all his enemies to rejoice. (Whereas God so many times in the past had fought for Israel, now He fights against Israel, and all because of sin.)

⁴³You have also turned the edge of his sword, and have not made him to stand in the battle.

⁴⁴You have made his glory to cease, and cast his throne down to the ground. (Jeremiah refers to this in his Lamentations [Lam. 2:17].)

⁴⁵The days of his youth have You shortened: You have covered him with shame. Selah. (The meaning of this Verse pertains to both David and Judah. The glory of David and the power of Judah were cut short in comparison to what they might have been. Sin was the cause; consequently, they were covered with shame.)

⁴⁶How long, LORD? will You hide Yourself forever? shall Your wrath burn like fire? (It has now been nearly 2,000 years since the Lord has hidden His Face from Israel. They have suffered untold agony, and all because they rejected their Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, and accepted a worldly king [Jn. 19:15].)

⁴⁷Remember how short my time is: wherefore have You made all men in vain? (The Psalmist now laments the present status of Israel. In this Passage, we see that man is more concerned with his own circumstances than with Gods Glory and how he has been offended. Gods interests are generally last. True Repentance little laments our plight, but, instead, our terrible sin against God and how we have defrauded Him.)

⁴⁸What man is he who lives, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave? Selah. (The Psalmist seems to be asking, in view of the fact that men sin and die, how is it that God can keep His Covenant with David?)

⁴⁹Lord, where are Your former Lovingkindnesses, which You swore unto David in Your Truth? (The plea is for the Lord to bring Israel back to her place of greatness.)

⁵⁰Remember, Lord, the reproach of Your servants; how I do bear in my bosom the reproach of all the mighty people (truly Israel has definitely suffered terrible reproach; however, the fault is that of Israel alone, and not at all of God; they desired Caesar, and that proved to be a very unwise choice);

⁵¹Wherewith Your enemies have reproached, O LORD; wherewith they have reproached the footsteps of Your anointed. (The Holy Spirit, due to Gods great Promises to Israel, still refers to them as Your anointed. They have been away from God for a long time, but the Scripture says they are coming home.)

⁵²Blessed be the LORD forevermore. Amen, and Amen. (This closes the Leviticus Book of Psalms, with the Holy Spirit saying that regardless of the way the situation looks, the Lord is blessed. As well, the suffering spoken of in Verses 50 through 51 are those suffered by Christ as High Priest in sympathy with the sufferings of His People. This is an effective picture of the identification of a True Advocate with the miseries and sorrows of those He represents.)