1A maskil for Ethan the Ezrahite.
2Let me sing the LORD’s kindnesses forever.
For all generations I shall make known with my mouth Your
faithfulness.
3For I said: forever will kindness stand strong,
in the heavens You set Your faithfulness firm.
4“I have sealed a pact with my chosen one,
I have sworn to David My servant.
5Forevermore I shall make your seed stand firm,
and make your throne stand strong for all generations.”
selah
6And the heavens will acclaim Your wonder, O LORD,
Your faithfulness, too, in the assembly of the holy.
7For who in the skies can compare to the LORD,
who can be like the LORD among the sons of the gods?
8A God held in awe in the council of the holy,
mighty and fearsome above all His surroundings.
9LORD, God of Armies, who is like You,
powerful Jah, with Your faithfulness round You?
10You rule over the tide of the sea.
When its waves lift up, it is You who subdue them.
11It is You Who crushed Rahab like one slain—
with the arm of Your might You scattered Your enemies.
12Yours are the heavens, Yours, too, the earth.
The world and its fullness, You founded them.
13The north and the south, You created them.
Tabor and Hermon sing glad song in Your name.
14Yours is the arm with the might.
Your hand is strong, Your right hand raised.
15Justice and law are the base of Your throne.
Steadfast kindness and truth go before Your presence.
16Happy the people who know the horn’s blast.
O LORD, they walk in the light of Your presence.
17In Your name they exult all day long,
and through Your bounty they loom high.
18For You are their strength’s grandeur,
and through Your pleasure our horn is lifted.
19For the LORD’s is our shield,
and to Israel’s Holy One, our king.
20Then did You speak in a vision
to Your faithful and did say:
“I set a crown upon the warrior,
I raised up one chosen from the people.
21I found David my servant,
with My holy oil anointed him,
22that My hand hold firm with him,
My arm, too, take him in.
23No enemy shall cause him grief
and no vile person afflict him.
24And I will grind down his foes before him
and defeat those who hate him.
25My faithfulness and My kindness are with him,
and in My name his horn will be lifted.
26And I shall put his hand to the sea
and his right hand to the rivers.
27He will call me: ‘My father You are,
my God and the rock of my rescue.’
28I, too, shall make him My firstborn,
most high among kings of the earth.
29Forever I shall keep My kindness for him
and My pact will be faithful to him.
30And I shall make his seed for all time
and his throne as the days of the heavens.
31If his sons forsake My teaching
and do not go in my law,
32if they profane My statutes
and do not keep My commands,
33I will requite their crime with the rod,
and with plagues, their wrongdoing.
34Yet My steadfast kindness I will not revoke for him,
and I will not betray My faithfulness.
35I will not profane My pact
and My mouth’s utterance I will not alter.
36One thing I have sworn by My holiness—
that David I will not deceive.
37His seed shall be forever,
and his throne like the sun before Me,
38like the moon, firm-founded forever—
and the witness in the skies is faithful.”
selah
39And You, You abandoned and spurned,
You were furious with Your anointed.
40You revoked the pact of Your servant,
You profaned his crown on the ground.
41You broke through all his walls,
You turned his forts into rubble.
42All passersby plundered him,
he became a disgrace to his neighbors.
43You raised the right hand of his foes,
You made all his enemies glad.
44You also turned back his sword’s flint
and did not make him stand up in the battle.
45You put an end to his splendor,
and his throne You hurled to the ground.
46You cut short the days of his prime.
You enveloped him with shame.
selah
47How long, LORD, will You hide forever,
will Your wrath burn like fire?
48Recall how fleeting I am,
how futile You made all humankind.
49What man alive will never see death,
will save his life from the grip of Sheol?
selah
50Where are Your former kindnesses, Master,
that you vowed to David in Your faithfulness?
51Recall, O Master, Your servants’ disgrace,
that I bore in my bosom from all the many peoples,
52as Your enemies reviled, O LORD,
as Your enemies reviled Your anointed one’s steps.
53Blessed be the LORD forever, amen and amen.
PSALM 89 NOTES
Click here to advance to the next section of the text.
1. Ethan the Ezrahite. According to the list in 1 Chronicles 2:6, he would be the brother of Heman the Ezrahite mentioned in the superscription to Psalm 88.
2. Your faithfulness. The Hebrew word ʾemunah, “faithfulness,” “trustworthiness,” “dependability in fulfilling obligations,” is the key word of this psalm, repeated seven times in the poem, with an additional two occurrences in adjectival form. The reiteration of this term also suggests why those scholars who claim that this psalm is an amalgam of three different genres are unconvincing. This is a psalm about God’s pact with the House of David; if one prefers, it is a royal psalm. But it is clearly composed at a moment when the fortunes of the Davidic king have taken a disastrous turn in the face of victorious enemies. (Exactly when that might have been is difficult to determine, though many scholars set this text in the period of the First Commonwealth.) The psalmist insists on his belief in God’s faithfulness to His covenantal commitments in the face of present catastrophes. There is, then, a logical progression in the poem: first, a celebration of God’s cosmic power, by virtue of which He could easily rout all the enemies of the Davidic throne if He chose to do so; then the choice of David and his seed by this all-powerful and trustworthy cosmic deity; then the conditional nature of the covenant, which is contingent on the people’s adherence to God’s laws, and the consequent disaster that has befallen them; and, finally, a plea to God to remember how ephemeral man is and to relent from His seemingly endless wrath against His people and against His anointed king.
3. stand strong. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “be built.”
in the heavens You set Your faithfulness firm. The syntax and the Hebrew of this verset are ambiguous. The literal word sequence is “Heavens You set firm Your faithfulness in them.” Various emendations, none entirely convincing, have been proposed.
5. stand strong. Again, the Hebrew says, “build.”
8. A God held in awe in the council of the holy. The council envisaged is a council of the gods—still another instance in Psalms of the survival, at least in poetic imagery, of a pre-monotheistic mythology in which YHWH is not alone but reigns supreme over lesser gods. The same idea is reflected in the previous verse.
11. It is You Who crushed Rahab. Rahab is one of several names for the primordial sea beast of Canaanite mythology. Thus, this line is continuous with the more naturalistic image of God’s ruling over the tide and subduing the waves of the sea in the previous verse.
19. For the LORD’s is our shield. “Our shield” refers to the monarch, as the second verset makes clear.
20. I set a crown. The Masoretic Text says “help” (ʿezer), which does not sound idiomatic coupled with the verb used here. Many scholars read instead nezer, “crown,” as does this translation.
26. his hand to the sea / . . . his right hand to the rivers. This is an image of imperial dominion.
31. If his sons forsake My teaching. Here begins the emphatic set of conditions upon which the keeping of the covenant by God is contingent.
38. the witness in the skies is faithful. The idea, at least according to the formulation of the received text, is that the moon above will be eternal witness to the abiding pact between God and the House of David. An emendation yields “and as long as the skies, faithful.”
44. his sword’s flint. Some scholars emend tsur ḥarbo to mitsar ḥarbo, yielding “his sword from the foe.” But it is perfectly plausible that “flint” is an archaic linguistic survival from the period when knives and swords were actually made of flint and hence became a poetic designation for the blade of the sword.
45. his splendor. The anomalous form mithar transparently derives from tohar, “purity,” but in a few texts tohar is associated with brilliance, as pure substances shine brightly.
48. Recall how fleeting I am. The grounds for the plea for mercy resemble those that Job repeatedly invokes: If human life lasts but a moment, why should the eternal God persist in making man’s life so miserable?
how futile You made all humankind. Most translations follow the lead of the King James Version in understanding this as a question: “Wherefore hast thou made all men in vain?” But the structure of the line both semantically and syntactically is parallel (the first verset uses meh, “how,” the second, ʿal-mah, also “how”): Man’s life is ephemeral (first verset); it is without substance, empty, futile (second verset).
49. What man alive. The literal structure of the Hebrew is: what man will live and not see death.
51. from all the many peoples. Kol-rabim ʿamim in the Hebrew is intelligible but ungrammatical, and there is in all likelihood a textual problem here.
53. This verse is not part of the poem but rather a prose formula of conclusion that marks the end of the third book of the five into which Psalms is divided.