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Psalm 89: Turreted in Mercies

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INTRODUCTION:

In the previous psalm, Heman the Ezrahite poured out his complaint with seemingly no argument at all. In this psalm, another Ezrahite, a man named Ethan, has a strong complaint as well, but hemounts it on top of an unshakeable foundation of covenant promises.

THE TEXT:
“I will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever: With my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations. For I have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever: Thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens. I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant, Thy seed will I establish for ever, And build up thy throne to all generations. Selah . . .” (Ps. 89:1–52).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT:
Foundationally, we know that God will be absolutely faithful to His covenant with the house of David (vv. 1-4). Ethan then expands his vision, and spends some time praising the power, justice, and mercy of God (vv. 5-14). When a people have a God like this, then they are truly blessed (vv. 15-18). Covenants have terms, and Ethan delights to go over those terms in some detail (vv. 19-37). Having laid the groundwork for his petition, he then pours out his desire and petition (vv. 38-51). And with that, the psalm ends on a double amen.

TURRETED MERCIES:
The psalm begins with the mercies of God, and Ethan’s desire to sing of them forever (v. 1). Mercy and faithfulness go together, and so he will make God’s faithfulness known to all generation (v.1). Ethan said, and said truly, that mercy shall be built up forever (v. 2), and faithfulness will be established in the very heavens (v. 2). What kind of mercies are we talking about? We are talking about covenant mercies (v. 3). God has sworn two things to David. One is that he will have a seed forever, and secondly that he will have a throne forever (v. 4).God will not break His own covenant (v. 34). He will not alter or adjust it (v. 34). To anchor this beyond any possibility of doubt, God put His left hand on His own holiness, raised His right hand, and swore by that holiness (v. 35). And what did He swear? “I will not lie unto David.”

HE DISCIPLINES HIS OWN . . .
God scourges every son that He receives (Heb. 12:5-7). Despite what we are about to argue, we begin by recognizing that when there is true fault, the fault lies with us. God’s mercy is constant, but our experience of it is not constant. This is because the psalmist recognizes that true covenant members can truly sin. When this happens, God chastises them, but does not forsake them. “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” (vv. 31-33). God will visit out transgressions with a rod, and will lay on many stripes. He may break the rod on us, but He will never break the covenant. We are receiving the chastisement because of the covenant. Look at what he says in the next breath—“my covenant will I not break” (v. 34).

BURNING DAYLIGHT:
Time is nothing to You, God, and so You can afford to postpone a deliverance. It is all one to You. But God, remember that we are only here for a couple more minutes. “Remember how short my time is: Wherefore has thou made all men in vain?” (v. 47). All men will die, and we who are now praying to You are going to die soon. You may have forever, but we don’t. If we are to see the great reformation, if we are to see the great deliverance, You will have to move quickly.

THE FORMER DAYS:
And why do previous generations get to see all the wonderful interventions? “Lord, where are thy former lovingkindnesses, which thou swarest unto David in thy truth?” (v. 49). I have taken what You did for them, and laid it out as part of my argument earlier. But now I take it back. Why do we have to read about these wonderful things in books? Why can’t we read about them in newspapers?

GREATLY TO BE FEARED:
Absolute confidence that God will never alter or abolish His covenant is fully consistent with fearing Him as well. Absolute faith and profound fear go well together. “God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him” (v. 7). At the same time, fearing the Lord greatly is also fully consistent with arguing with Him, like a trusted counselor in His heavenly council. Where did You go? What are You doing? “How long, Lord. Wilt thou hid thyself forever?” (v. 46). In short, the fear of the Lord is not craven. The fear of the Lord is not shy. The fear of the Lord is not ashamed. The fear of the Lord stands on the everlasting rock of the covenant, and there wrestles with the God of the covenant.

A RETURN TO THE MERCIES:
We must return to the fortress. The fortress is the everlasting covenant, and the foundation of this everlasting covenant is the blood of the covenant (Heb. 13:20). If God has said He will not lie to David, and if God has sent the Son of David to writhe on a cross in fulfillment of that Word, what on earth makes us think He would walk away from His declared purposes now? Why, when the difficulty is all past, would He throw it in? He is not one who undertakes to build a tower without considering the cost. That cost was the blood of the God/man, and it is a cost that has already been paid. It has happened, once for all. Why would God purchase all the nations of men in this way and then not take home what He purchased?

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Psalm 88: The Black Psalm

Ben Zornes on

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INTRODUCTION:

In a certain sense, all the psalms are Messianic, all of them point to Jesus. Because this psalm is
particularly dark, some might want to argue that perhaps it is less the case here. But I think we
should go the other way. This psalm is dark, but consider the darkness Jesus went through for us.
There may be lesser applications for us—wherever the Head is, the body is not far away—but we
will consider this psalm as preeminently fulfilled in the moment when Christ was abandoned for
our sake.
THE TEXT:
“O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee: Let my prayer come before
thee: Incline thine ear unto my cry; For my soul is full of troubles: And my life draweth nigh unto
the grave . . .” (Ps. 88:1–18).
SUMMARY OF THE TEXT:
This dark psalm begins with the cry of faith—“God of my salvation” (v. 1). He is in great anguish,
crying out day and night (v. 1). He wants his cry to come before the Lord because his soul is full
of trouble and he is on the brink of death (v. 2). He is reckoned among those who descend to
Sheol, or the pit (v. 3). He is counted among the dead (vv. 4-5). He is in the pit because God has
put him there (v. 6). The wrath of God rests upon him, and all the waves of God wash over him
(v. 7). His friends and acquaintances have scattered (v. 8). He has called out to God daily, but to
no effect (v. 9). Will the dead praise God (v. 10)? Will God’s lovingkindness and faithfulness be
declared in the grave and underworld (v. 11-12)? He continues to cry out to God (v. 13). Lord,
why do you cast me off? Why have you forsaken me (v. 14)? He has been ready to die from his
youth on (v. 15). The fierce wrath of God overwhelms him (v. 16). God’s terrors envelop him like
water (v. 17). God has ripped away from him those who are dear to him (v. 18).
THE CENTRAL DARKNESS:
At the creation of the world, darkness was on the face of the deep and the Spirit moved on the
face of the waters (Gen. 1:2). At the dying of Jesus, darkness covered all the land for three hours
(Matt. 27:45), and at the death of Jesus the veil in the Temple was ripped in two (Matt. 27:51). Jesus
cried out in utter abandonment, “My God, my God . . .” (Matt. 27:46). In this moment, there was
nothing attractive about Him (Is. 53:2). “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin;
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). This is the mystery
of propitiation, where the wrath of God is fully poured out—and anticipated here in this psalm.
LORD GOD OF MY SALVATION
The only words of hope in this psalm are in the very beginning of it. There is this expression of
hope at the start, and it is all downhill from there. The psalm ends by driving into the brick wall
of black despair. The first verse is Jesus setting His face to do what must be down. He sets His
face like flint to go to Jerusalem (Is. 50:7). Lord God of my salvation. He prays that the will of
the Father be done, and not His own (Matt. 26:39). Lord God of my salvation. He, for the joy
that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame (Heb. 12:2). Lord God of my
salvation. What the Lord Jesus knew in the light, He held onto in the darkness.
DOWN TO THE PIT:
A number of words are used to describe the realm of shadows, the realm of the dead. One He-
brew word for it is Sheol (v. 3), with the Greek equivalent as Hades. Another word is bor, or pit (v.
4). Then there is qeber, or burial chamber (v. 5). And the deeps (v. 6), also associated with Sheol.
Another word is destruction, or Abaddon (v. 11). The cry here is one of rhetorical despair, with the
implied answer of “no one will hear in the land of forgetfulness.”
But even here, God answered prayer. Jesus descended to the lower parts of the earth (Eph. 4:9).
He preached to the spirits who had been disobedient at the time of Noah (1 Pet. 3:18-19). God
did not abandon His soul to Hades (Ps. 16:10; Acts 2:27, and so when He came back from the
dead, the righteous dead came with Him (Matt. 27:51-53). He then led captivity captive and gave
gifts to me (Eph. 4:8).
TRUE PROPITIATION:
Jesus experienced the full wrath of God (Rom. 3:25; 1 John 4:10). It was all poured out upon
Him. And as we see from the expressions of this psalm, He did not experience it as a “theologi-
cal truth.” Jesus cried out in actual despair, and in that cry of despair He reconciled the world to
God. “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their
trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:19). “Thy
wrath lieth hard on me” (v. 7). “suffer thy terrors” (v. 15). “Thy fierce wrath goeth over me” (v. 16).
And why? All for you.
TRUE FRIENDS:
Jesus calls us His friends ( John 15:15), and He felt the abandonment by his disciples acutely (Luke
22:61). It is a significant part of this lament as well. God as put away His acquaintance far from
Him (v. 8). God has made Him an abomination to them (v. 8). Lover, and friend, and acquaintance
have been removed (v. 18). They have gone into blackness.
And what was it all for? Why did this psalm have to end in this way? So that we would not end
in this way. “I will declare thy name unto my brethren: In the midst of the congregation will I
praise thee” (Ps. 22:22).
He died in shame so that He might receive eternal glory. He died without a people so that He
might have a people. Jesus died friendless so that He might have friends forever.

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