Biblion Bible Commentary
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But You Have Cast Off
Psalms 89:38-52
38 But you have rejected and spurned. You have been angry with your anointed. · WEB
The oath quoted at length is set against the wreckage, and the psalm ends without an answer and with a blessing.
But you have rejected and spurned. You have been angry with your anointed Psalms 89:38.
The turn is the sharpest in the Psalter, and it is deliberate. Thirty-seven verses have established the promise in God's own words; the second half describes the state of the monarchy, and the two are simply laid side by side.
You have renounced the covenant of your servant. You have defiled his crown in the dust Psalms 89:39.
The accusation is direct. The psalm says God has renounced the covenant, which is precisely what verse thirty-four said he would not do. The writer knows this. That is the point of quoting it at such length first.
You have broken down all his hedges. You have brought his strongholds to ruin. All who pass by the way rob him Psalms 89:40–41.
The same image as the eightieth psalm's vineyard: what makes something defensible is its boundary, and the boundary is gone.
Yes, you turn back the edge of his sword, and haven't supported him in battle. You have ended his splendor, and thrown his throne down to the ground Psalms 89:43–44.
Every verb is God's. Not the enemy's success but God's withdrawal is named as the cause, and the throne that was to be like the sun is on the floor.
How long, Yahweh? Will you hide yourself forever? Will your wrath burn like fire? Psalms 89:46.
Remember how short my time is, for what vanity you have created all the children of men! What man is he who shall live and not see death, who shall deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Psalms 89:47–48.
The argument shifts to mortality, and it is the sixth psalm's plea widened to the whole race. He is not asking for an explanation that will satisfy history. He is saying that he personally will not last long enough to see the promise kept, which is the actual grievance of anyone who prays this psalm.
Lord, where are your former loving kindnesses, which you swore to David in your faithfulness? Psalms 89:49.
The two covenant words of verse one, now in a question. The psalm has come the whole way from singing about them to asking where they went.
Remember, Lord, the reproach of your servants... with which they have mocked the footsteps of your anointed one Psalms 89:50–51.
The mockery follows the anointed wherever he goes. It is the last thing the psalm says about the situation, and nothing is resolved.
Blessed be Yahweh forever more. Amen, and Amen Psalms 89:52.
The doxology closing the third book, and it belongs to no psalm. That it falls here, immediately after the most unanswered complaint in the collection, is the arrangement's most eloquent decision: the editor put a blessing at the end of the book that ends in the dark, and did not attempt to make the psalm itself say it.
settled What this mark means