Ps. 89.19 (Pt. 1; heaven and history)

Once you spoke / in a vision / to your loyal people
and you said, / I have set a boy / over warriors
I have raised up  / a chosen one / from the people. 

There are several interesting aspects to this verse. The first thing to note is that we are entering a different portion of the psalm, as now Yhwh speaks directly. It is likely that this is (by far) the longest speech of Yhwh that we have encountered. This shift is important on another level as well. The first portion of the psalm has, by and large, been an almost heavenly vision of Yhwh’s power. Much of it has, in fact, taken place in heaven. The Rahab-battle in verses __, falls in line with this. It is less of a historical recounting than a theological one. Further, when earth enters into the picture it is directed toward Yhwh in heaven. The opening did, of course, briefly recount the Davidic covenant, but its brevity proves the point. As we have argued throughout, the first portion of the psalm, focusing on the heavenly kingship of Yhwh was portrayed to, at least in part, establish the source of power that would be invested in David in this portion of the psalm. It is with that observation in mind that this verse creates such a contrast: we are now squarely within history—“I have set a boy over warriors…”. 

If we combine these two observations (the speech of Yhwh and the introduction of history) something important emerges: that this portion of the psalm is not ‘less profound’ than the first even though it does not partake of the same heavenly (almost ‘mythic’) quality. It looses nothing precisely because Yhwh—who was the one who was carefully not pictured in the first portion—now emerges from his glory and speaks directly. The source of the tremendous power of the first half has now asserted himself in speech. It is as if Yhwh has been biding his time until this moment. He is not operating through an intermediary, but has come ‘in a vision’. In the context of this psalm, this speech is profoundly important—Yhwh emerges in speech at precisely the moment of the Davidic covenant. It is almost as if the “fire” from which Yhwh spoke in Zion is now turned into a “vision” from which Yhwh speaks, and instead of delivering the ‘ten words’, Yhwh now speaks the covenant-with-David. The speech-in-covenant is Yhwh’s unalterably entering into covenant with his people, in history, through David. In David, heaven (the first portion of the psalm) has wed itself to Yhwh’s people. For this psalm, it is here, in David, when ‘history’ really begins. 

And this leads to our final point—the final portion of the psalm is a lament, and it begins in verse 38 with “But now you have rejected…your anointed.” The lament will continue, without interruption, up to the very end of the psalm, at verse 51. What is crucial to see is that verse 37 concludes Yhwh’s speech and Yhwh never speaks again in the psalm. The lament portion is a deafening silence of Yhwh toward his adopted son, David. What I think is important, in light our reflections above, is that this lament is fully ‘historical’. It laments the particular act in history of the downfall of the Davidic house. This is the ‘cost’ of the covenant and the wedding of heaven to earth through David. No longer can the psalmist recount the first ‘heavenly’ portion of the psalm without regard to the Davidic covenant. In other words, when Yhwh covenants himself to David, Yhwh has woven his faithfulness into David’s history. And it can’t be ‘pulled apart’ (heaven can not retreat) without a consequent lament arising from earth that calls into question Yhwh’s faithfulness and promise. The Davidic covenant engenders the lament of this psalm because it weds heaven to history. After this ‘wedding’, the silence of Yhwh takes on a profoundly disturbing quality.