When God’s Promises Feel Broken
What’s Psalm 89 about?
This psalm starts as one of the most beautiful celebrations of God’s faithfulness you’ll ever read, then crashes into one of the most honest complaints about feeling abandoned. It’s like watching someone’s faith journey in real time – from worship to wrestling.
The Full Context
Psalm 89 was written during one of Israel’s darkest hours – likely after Jerusalem fell to Babylon in 586 BC, when the Davidic dynasty collapsed and everything God had promised seemed to crumble. The psalmist Ethan the Ezrahite (one of Solomon’s wise men) penned this during the exile, when the covenant with David appeared utterly broken. The people were scattered, the temple destroyed, and no descendant of David sat on the throne. For a nation whose entire identity was built on God’s unbreakable promise to David, this felt like cosmic betrayal.
The psalm sits strategically in Book III of the Psalter, which focuses heavily on the crisis of exile and the apparent failure of the Davidic covenant. What makes this psalm so powerful is its literary structure – it deliberately moves from soaring praise (verses 1-37) to devastating lament (verses 38-51). This isn’t accidental; it’s the psalmist using the very promises of God as the foundation for his complaint. The theological challenge is profound: How do you maintain faith when God’s most fundamental promises seem to have failed?
What the Ancient Words Tell Us
The Hebrew word hesed appears seven times in this psalm – that’s no accident. This word carries the weight of covenant loyalty, the kind of love that doesn’t quit even when things get messy. When the psalmist opens with “I will sing of the Lord’s great love (hesed) forever” in verse 1, he’s not just talking about warm feelings. He’s declaring that God’s covenant faithfulness will be his song for all generations.
But here’s where it gets interesting. The word emunah (faithfulness) also threads through this psalm like a golden cord. In verse 2, the psalmist declares that God’s faithfulness reaches to the skies. The Hebrew literally says God’s emunah is “established” – it’s not wishful thinking, it’s rock-solid reality built into the fabric of creation itself.
Grammar Geeks
The Hebrew verb kun (to establish/make firm) appears repeatedly in verses 2, 4, 21, and 37. When the psalmist says God’s faithfulness is “established” in the heavens, he’s using the same word used for laying a foundation. God’s promises aren’t just spoken – they’re architecturally embedded in reality.
The most striking word choice comes in verse 39 where the psalmist says God has “renounced” the covenant. The Hebrew na’ar literally means “to shake off” or “reject with disgust.” This isn’t gentle disappointment – this is feeling like God has violently thrown away his promises like something repulsive.
What Would the Original Audience Have Heard?
Picture yourself as an Israelite in Babylon, hearing this psalm for the first time. Your entire worldview was built on one unshakeable truth: God made an eternal covenant with David. Your great-grandparents told stories about 2 Samuel 7:16 where God promised David’s throne would be established forever. Forever! That word echoed through generations like a family motto.
Now Jerusalem is ash. The temple where God’s presence dwelt? Rubble. David’s royal line? Scattered or dead. When you first heard verses 3-4 recounting God’s covenant promises, your heart would have swelled with hope. Yes! This is what we believe! God cannot lie!
But then verse 38 hits like a punch to the gut: “But you have rejected, you have spurned, you have been very angry with your anointed one.” The Hebrew switches tenses dramatically here – from celebrating eternal promises to describing present devastation. An Israelite hearing this would feel the whiplash between what God promised and what they’re experiencing.
Did You Know?
Archaeological evidence from Tel Dan confirms that the “House of David” was a recognized royal dynasty even outside Israel. This makes the psalmist’s crisis even more poignant – even foreign nations acknowledged David’s lasting legacy, yet here’s Israel feeling completely abandoned.
The original audience would have heard this as more than a personal complaint – it was a communal cry that voiced what everyone was thinking but was afraid to say out loud. How do you worship a God whose promises seem broken?
Wrestling with the Text
Here’s what keeps me awake at night about this psalm: the psalmist doesn’t resolve the tension. Most psalms that start with complaints end with praise, but Psalm 89 ends with a question mark. Verse 46 cries out, “How long, Lord? Will you hide yourself forever?” And then… silence.
Some scholars try to soften this by pointing to the final “Amen” in verse 52, but that’s actually a doxology closing Book III of the Psalter, not part of Psalm 89 itself. The psalm genuinely ends in unresolved anguish, and that’s theologically significant.
But here’s what I find fascinating: the psalmist’s complaint isn’t weak faith – it’s sophisticated theology. He’s essentially saying, “God, I’m holding you accountable to your own character and promises.” He quotes God’s words back to him! That takes incredible faith, not doubt. Doubt would have simply walked away. Faith stays and fights.
Wait, That’s Strange…
Why does the psalmist spend 37 verses celebrating God’s faithfulness before launching into his complaint? It’s not poor editing – it’s strategic. He’s essentially saying, “Based on everything you’ve revealed about yourself, this current situation makes no sense.” His complaint gains power from his theology, not despite it.
The structure itself becomes part of the message. Sometimes faith doesn’t mean having answers – sometimes it means holding onto God’s character even when circumstances seem to contradict everything you believe about him.
How This Changes Everything
Here’s what revolutionizes my understanding of faith: Psalm 89 teaches us that honest complaint can be an act of worship. The psalmist doesn’t abandon his faith in God’s hesed – he uses it as the very foundation for his lament. This isn’t faith that denies reality; it’s faith that brings reality into conversation with God’s promises.
Modern believers often think we need to choose between trust and honesty about our pain. Psalm 89 shows us a third way: radical honesty that’s rooted in even more radical trust in God’s character. When the psalmist says in verse 49, “Lord, where is your former great love, which in your faithfulness you swore to David?” he’s not giving up on God’s faithfulness – he’s demanding it.
This psalm also transforms how we read the entire biblical story. The crisis it describes isn’t a detour from God’s plan – it’s part of it. The “forever” promises to David weren’t broken; they were preparing for something bigger. When we get to the New Testament and read about Jesus as the Son of David, we understand that God’s faithfulness sometimes works through apparent failure, not around it.
“Sometimes the most profound act of faith is refusing to let God off the hook for being God.”
The psalm teaches us that faith isn’t about having all the answers – it’s about knowing the right questions to ask and the right Person to ask them to. The psalmist’s raw honesty creates space for something deeper than easy answers: it creates space for real relationship with a God big enough to handle our hardest questions.
Key Takeaway
True faith doesn’t deny the gap between God’s promises and our current experience – it uses that gap as a reason to press deeper into God’s character, trusting that his faithfulness is bigger than our ability to see it clearly.
Further Reading
Internal Links:
External Scholarly Resources:
- The Message of the Psalms by Walter Brueggemann
- Psalms 73-150 by John Goldingay
- The Psalms as Christian Lament by Brooke Trentham
- The NIV Application Commentary: Psalms Volume 2 by Gerald Wilson
Tags
Psalm 89:1, Psalm 89:39, Psalm 89:46, 2 Samuel 7:16, covenant faithfulness, Davidic covenant, divine promises, lament, exile, hesed, emunah, faith and doubt, honest prayer, covenant theology
