0 Chapters0 Books0 People0 Places

The Song That Turned Into a Question.

Psalms 89 — A covenant, a king, and the hardest question faith can ask

11 min read

Key Takeaways

Psalm ends 45 verses of devastation with "Blessed be the Lord forever" — not denial, but a deliberate decision to worship when nothing makes sense.

God's covenant with David is built almost entirely on 'I will' statements — the whole arrangement depends on what God does, not human performance.
When the kingdom collapses, every accusation is addressed directly to God — not enemies, not bad luck — which is what honest faith actually sounds like.
The climax of God's portrait isn't raw power; it's that his strength is inseparable from his justice, love, and faithfulness.

📢 Chapter 89 — The Song That Turned Into a Question 🎵

This starts like a celebration. A singer named the Ezrahite lifts his voice and declares he's going to sing about God's faithful forever. He traces God's power across the cosmos, recounts a breathtaking made to King , and paints a picture of a throne that was supposed to last as long as the sun and moon.

Inside this Chapter

Hope Love Doubt Faith Grief Prayer Suffering

Share this chapter

Link copied!

But then the song turns. Something devastating happened — the throne is in the dirt, the crown is defiled, the walls are broken. And the singer doesn't look away. He takes every he just celebrated and holds it up against what he's actually seeing. The tension between those two realities is the heartbeat of this psalm.

A Song That Can't Stay Quiet 🎶

doesn't ease into this. He opens with a declaration — a commitment before a single argument has been made. He knows what he's going to sing about, and he's not going to stop:

"I will sing about the Lord's faithful love forever — with my own voice I will make your faithfulness known to every generation.

I've said it and I mean it: your love is being built to last forever. Your faithfulness is as fixed as the heavens themselves."

Then he quotes what God himself declared:

"I have made a covenant with the one I chose. I gave my sworn word to David, my servant: 'I will establish your line forever and build your throne through every generation.'"

"Forever" shows up three times in four verses. That's not a casual word. In a world where everything has an expiration date — relationships, careers, platforms, — the psalmist plants his flag on the one thing he believes will never expire. Everything that follows in this , including the devastating questions at the end, hangs on whether "forever" actually means forever.

Nobody Even Comes Close 🌌

Now the camera pans upward — past the earth, past the sky, into the heavenly realm itself. calls on the highest beings in existence to back up what he's saying:

"Let the heavens praise your wonders, Lord — let the assembly of holy ones celebrate your faithfulness!

Because who in the skies can compare to the Lord? Who among the heavenly beings is anything like him?

God is deeply revered in the council of the holy ones — more awe-inspiring than everyone surrounding him.

Lord God of heaven's armies, who is as mighty as you? Your faithfulness wraps around you on every side."

Here's what makes this so striking: Ethan isn't comparing God to the other gods people worshipped on earth. He's looking at the heavenly court — the spiritual beings closest to God's own presence — and saying even they don't come close. Imagine being in a room full of brilliant, powerful figures — heads of state, philosophers, generals, artists — and then someone enters who makes every one of them step back and go quiet. That's what's happening here, except the gap between them is infinite.

Storm-Breaker, World-Maker 🌍

continues building his case, but now he shifts from to earth. He traces God's fingerprints across creation itself:

"You command the raging sea — when its waves surge, you silence them.

You crushed Rahab like a carcass; you scattered your enemies with your powerful arm.

The heavens belong to you. The earth belongs to you. The world and everything in it — you laid its foundation.

North and south — you created them. Tabor and Hermon shout for joy at your name.

Your arm is mighty. Your hand is strong. Your right hand is lifted high.

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; faithful love and trustworthiness go ahead of you wherever you go."

Here's what's remarkable about this portrait. It doesn't end with raw power. Ethan could have stopped at "you crushed sea monsters and own the universe" and it would have been impressive enough. But the climax isn't strength — it's character. The foundation of God's throne isn't that he's powerful enough to silence storms. It's that his power is inseparable from his and his . Those aren't accessories. They're the foundation everything else on.

The People Who Know the Shout ✨

From God's cosmic power, zooms in to something personal — what it's actually like to be close to this God:

"Blessed are the people who know the shout of celebration — who walk, Lord, in the light of your presence.

They rejoice in your name all day long, and through your righteousness they stand tall.

You are the glory of their strength. By your favor, our power is raised high.

Our shield belongs to the Lord, our king to the Holy One of Israel."

" are the people who know the shout." Not the people with the best strategy. Not the ones with the biggest following or the deepest pockets. The ones who know how to . That's where real strength comes from — not self-improvement, not grinding harder, but being close enough to God that his presence is what you walk by. Everything else flows from proximity.

Every Detail of the Promise 👑

Now reaches the heart of it — the actual content of God's with . This is God speaking directly, and the specificity is staggering. He recalls what God said long ago in a vision to his faithful one:

"I have granted help to one who is mighty — I've raised up someone chosen from among the people.

I found David, my servant. With my holy oil I anointed him.

My hand will be steady with him; my arm will make him strong.

No enemy will outmaneuver him. No wicked person will bring him low.

I will crush his foes in front of him and strike down anyone who hates him.

My faithfulness and my love will be with him, and through my name his strength will rise.

I will extend his reach to the sea, his authority to the rivers.

He will call out to me, 'You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.'

And I will make him the firstborn — the highest of all the kings of the earth.

My faithful love I will keep for him forever. My covenant with him will never waver.

I will establish his line forever — his throne will last as long as the heavens."

Count the "I will" statements. God isn't asking David to earn any of this. Every single is rooted in what God will do. My hand. My arm. My . My . My covenant. David's role? Call out "You are my ." God's role? Everything else. That ratio matters — especially for anyone who lives under the weight of feeling like everything depends on them. The whole point of covenant is that it doesn't.

Discipline, Not Abandonment ⚖️

God continues — and now he addresses the question nobody asked yet but everybody was thinking. What happens when descendants fail? Because they will. God spoke plainly:

"If his children abandon my law and refuse to walk by my instructions —

if they break my rules and don't keep my commands —

then I will discipline their rebellion with a rod and their wrongdoing with punishment.

But I will not strip my love away from him, and I will not be unfaithful to my promise.

I will not break my covenant or change a single word that left my lips.

Once and for all I have sworn by my own holiness — I will not lie to David.

His line will endure forever, his throne as enduring as the sun.

Like the moon it will stand firm forever — a faithful witness in the sky."

This passage reveals something essential about how God's works. He doesn't pretend failure won't happen. He doesn't say "if they mess up, the deal is off." He says: there will be real consequences. But my love isn't going anywhere. , not abandonment. Correction, not cancellation. In a culture that writes people off permanently for a single failure, God builds consequences into the relationship without ever walking away from it. You can fail and still be held. That distinction changes everything about how you relate to God.

Then Everything Fell Apart 💔

Two words change the entire : "But now."

After thirty-seven verses of soaring and iron-clad , the floor drops out. Something catastrophic happened — the Davidic has fallen, the crown is in the dirt, and isn't softening the language. He addresses every accusation directly to God:

"But now you have rejected and cast off your anointed. You are full of fury against him.

You have thrown out the covenant with your servant. You have defiled his crown in the dust.

You have torn down all his walls. You have left his strongholds in ruins.

Everyone who passes by takes what they want from him. His own neighbors treat him with contempt.

You have strengthened his enemies. You have given his opponents reason to celebrate.

You have dulled the edge of his sword and refused to hold him up in battle.

You have ended his splendor and thrown his throne to the ground.

You have cut short the days of his youth. You have covered him in shame."

Every line is addressed to God. Not to the enemy. Not to bad luck. Not to circumstances. To God himself. "You did this." The psalmist isn't blaming outside forces — he's staring at the gap between what God promised and what God appears to have done. And he isn't looking away. This is what honest faith sounds like when the evidence doesn't match the .

How Long? 🕯️

doesn't wrap it up neatly. He presses in further. The questions get more personal, more raw, more urgent:

"How long, Lord? Will you hide yourself forever? How long will your anger burn like fire?

Remember how short my life is. Did you create everyone just to face emptiness?

Who can live and never see death? Who can rescue themselves from the grave?

Lord, where is your faithful love from before — the love you swore to David on your own faithfulness?

Remember, Lord, how your servants are ridiculed. Remember how I carry the mockery of the nations in my heart —

how your enemies mock, Lord — how they mock every step your anointed one takes."

Life is short. The seem broken. The enemies are laughing. The psalmist has nothing left but the question itself. And then, after all of it — after the that collapsed into devastation, after confronting God with his own words, after asking point-blank "where did your go?" — the very last line:

"Blessed be the Lord forever. Amen and Amen."

That one sentence — arriving after all that grief and silence — is what makes this psalm worth returning to. It's not denial. It's not pretending the pain isn't real. It's a decision. Ethan chose to bless the Lord when the evidence was stacked against him. He never got his answer. The psalm doesn't resolve. The tension just sits there — held together by a man who decided that doesn't require understanding. And maybe that's what faith actually looks like. Not when everything makes sense, but when nothing does, and you praise anyway.