Psalm 89:2

For I have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever: thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(2) Mercy . . . faithfulness.—These words, so often combined, express here, as commonly in the psalms, the attitude of the covenant God towards His people. The art of the poet is shown in this exordium. He strikes so strongly this note of the inviolability of the Divine promise only to make the deprecation of present neglect on God’s part presently more striking.

Shall be built up for ever—Better, is for ever being built up. Elsewhere figured as a “place of shelter,” a “tower of refuge,” God’s faithfulness is here presented as an edifice for ever rising on foundations laid in the heavens. (Comp. Psalm 119:89.) The heavens are at once the type of unchangeableness and of splendour and height. Mant’s paraphrase brings out the power of the verse:—

“For I have said, Thy mercies rise,

A deathless structure, to the skies;

The heavens were planted by Thy hand,

And as the heavens Thy truth shall stand.”

And Wordsworth has sung of Him:—

“Who fixed immovably the frame

Of the round world, and built by laws as strong

The solid refuge for distress,

The towers of righteousness.”

(Comp. Psalm 36:6.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

89:1-4 Though our expectations may be disappointed, yet God's promises are established in the heavens, in his eternal counsels; they are out of the reach of opposers in hell and earth. And faith in the boundless mercy and everlasting truth of God, may bring comfort even in the deepest trials.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For I have said - The Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate render this, "Thou hast said," which is more in accordance with what the connection seems to demand; but the Hebrew will not admit of this construction. The true meaning seems to be, that the psalmist had said; that is, he had said in his mind; he had firmly believed; he had so received it as a truth that it might be spoken of as firmly settled, or as an indisputable reality. It was in his mind one of the things whose truthfulness did not admit of a doubt.

Mercy shall be built up for ever - The mercy referred to; the mercy manifested in the promise made to David. The idea is, that the promise would be fully carried out or verified. It would not be like the foundation of a building, which, after being laid, was abandoned; it would be as if the building, for which the foundation was designed, were carried up and completed. It would not be a forsaken, half-finished edifice, but an edifice fully erected.

Thy faithfulness shalt thou establish - In the matter referred to - the promise made to David.

In the very heavens - literally, "The heavens - thou wilt establish thy faithfulness in them." That is the heavens - the heavenly bodies - so regular, so fixed, so enduring, are looked upon as the emblem of stability. The psalmist brings them thus before his mind, and he says that God had, as it were, made his promise a part of the very heavens; he had given to his faithfulness a place among the most secure, and fixed, and settled objects in nature. The sun in its regular rising; the stars in their certain course; the constellations, the same from age to age, were an emblem of the stability and security of the promises of God. Compare Jeremiah 33:20-21.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. I have said—expressed, as well as felt, my convictions (2Co 4:13).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I have said within myself. I have been assured in my own mind.

Mercy shall be built up for ever: as thou hast laid a sure foundation of mercy to David’s family, by that everlasting covenant which thou hast made and established with it; so I concluded that thou wouldst carry on the same project of mercy towards it; that thou wouldst build it up, and not destroy it.

Thy faithfuless shalt thou establish in the very heavens: so the sense may be this. Thou sittest in the heavens, and there thou didst make this everlasting and unchangeable decree and covenant concerning David and his house, and from thence thou beholdest and orderest all the affairs of this lower world, and therefore, I doubt not, thou wilt so order these matters as to accomplish thine own counsel and word. But thee Hebrew words are by some others, and may very well be, translated thus, with (as the Hebrew prefix beth is oft rendered) the very heavens, i.e. as firmly and durably as the heavens themselves; as with the sun, in the Hebrew text, Psalm 72:5, is by most interpreters rendered, as long as the sun endureth, as our translation hath it. And so this phrase in the last branch of this verse answers to for ever in the former; as it is also in the foregoing verse, and so in Psalm 89:4; in both which verses for ever in the first clause is explained thus in the latter, to all generations.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For I have said,.... That is, in his heart he had said, he had thought of it, was assured of it, strongly concluded it, from the Spirit and word of God; he believed it, and therefore he spoke it; having it from the Lord, it was all one as if he had spoke it:

Geneva Study Bible

For I have {b} said, Mercy shall be built up for ever: thy faithfulness shalt thou {c} establish in the very heavens.

(b) As he who surely believed in heart.

(c) As your invisible heaven is not subject to any alteration and change: so shall the truth of your promise be unchangeable.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. For I have said] ‘I have deliberately come to this conclusion.’ Thus emphatically the poet introduces the motive for his song. He is persuaded that one stone after another will continue to be laid in the building of God’s lovingkindness till it reaches to heaven itself, even though it may now seem to be a deserted ruin. Though for rhythmical reasons the verse is divided into two lines, its sense must be taken as a whole: ‘Lovingkindness and faithfulness shall be built up and established for ever in the heavens.’

For the metaphorical use of ‘build’ cp. Job 22:23; Jeremiah 12:16; Malachi 3:15. The choice of the word, as well as of ‘establish’ in the next line, is suggested by their use in Psalm 89:4.

in the very heavens] High as the heavens (Psalm 36:5); or in the region where it is beyond the reach of earthly vicissitudes (Psalm 119:89-90).

Many editors would read, Thou hast said … My faithfulness shall be established &c., a change partly supported by the LXX and Jer. But the structure of the Psalm is against the change, for the verses run in pairs, and Psalm 89:2 is clearly to be connected with Psalm 89:1 : moreover the emphatic ‘I have said’ is by no means superfluous.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 2. - For I have said, Mercy shall be built up forever. A time shall come when, out of whatever ruins, mercy shall be "built up" - raised from the ground like a solid edifice, and, when once raised up, shall stand firm forever. Thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens. At the same time, God's faithfulness to his promises will be established "in the very heavens," i.e. conspicuously (see ver. 37). Psalm 89:2

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The poet, who, as one soon observes, is a חכם (for the very beginning of the Psalm is remarkable and ingenious), begins with the confession of the inviolability of the mercies promised to the house of David, i.e., of the הסדי דוד הנּאמנים, Isaiah 55:3.

(Note: The Vulgate renders: Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo. The second Sunday after Easter takes its name from this rendering.)

God's faithful love towards the house of David, a love faithful to His promises, will he sing without ceasing, and make it known with his mouth, i.e., audibly and publicly (cf. Job 19:16), to the distant posterity. Instead of חסדי, we find here, and also in Lamentations 3:22, חסדי with a not merely slightly closed syllable. The Lamed of לדר ודר is, according to Psalm 103:7; Psalm 145:12, the datival Lamed. With כּי־אמרתּי (lxx, Jerome, contrary to Psalm 89:3, ὅτι εἶπας) the poet bases his resolve upon his conviction. נבנה means not so much to be upheld in building, as to be in the course of continuous building (e.g., Job 22:23; Malachi 3:15, of an increasingly prosperous condition). Loving-kindness is for ever (accusative of duration) in the course of continuous building, viz., upon the unshakeable foundation of the promise of grace, inasmuch as it is fulfilled in accordance therewith. It is a building with a most solid foundation, which will not only not fall into ruins, but, adding one stone of fulfilment upon another, will rise ever higher and higher. שׁמים then stands first as casus absol., and בּהם is, as in Psalm 19:5, a pronoun having a backward reference to it. In the heavens, which are exalted above the rise and fall of things here below, God establishes His faithfulness, so that it stands fast as the sun above the earth, although the condition of things here below seems sometimes to contradict it (cf. Psalm 119:89). Now follow in Psalm 89:4-5 the direct words of God, the sum of the promises given to David and to his seed in 2 Samuel 7, at which the poet arrives more naturally in Psalm 89:20. Here they are strikingly devoid of connection. It is the special substance of the promises that is associated in thought with the "loving-kindness" and "truth" of Psalm 89:3, which is expanded as it were appositionally therein. Hence also אכין and תּכין, וּבניתי and יבּנה correspond to one another. David's seed, by virtue of divine faithfulness, has an eternally sure existence; Jahve builds up David's throne "into generation and generation," inasmuch as He causes it to rise ever fresh and vigorous, never as that which is growing old and feeble.