Ps. 89.44 (throne to the ground)

You have made / his glorious ruleship cease
and thrown / his throne to the ground. 

These lines begin the final notes that will be struck as the psalmist begins to turn toward his petitioning-questions. As such, they are the denouement. What we witness in these lines is the ending of the ‘forever’ that has rang throughout the psalm and constituted its very center. The ‘forever’ of Yhwh that was opened up to Israel (and the world), in David, is now cut off. Yhwh has made David’s rule “cease”—the precise reversal of his ‘forever’. The ‘forever’ that both marks his heavenly character, sung by the angelic ‘holy ones’, and the ‘forever’ that is made accessible through the David covenant. In other words, the ‘on earth as it is in heaven’. Heaven is now sealed off from earth; that which had been ‘torn open’ in and through David and made to stream down upon Yhwh’s people, is now eclipsed and withdrawn. This is not just the cessation of David, but the closing of heaven. This sense is portrayed in the following line as Yhwh ‘throwing down’ (casting out?) David’s throne to the ground. The ‘ground’ has figured prominently in the lament section. When David’s throne is established it “continues forever as the sun before me; as the moon established forever” (vs. 36). Now, however, within the gaze of his anger, David’s crown is “defiled in the dirt” (vs. 39); his fortifications are broken and reduced to ruins (vs. 40). This contrast between the heavenly bodies and the earth is clearly deliberate. When David’s throne stood within the covenantal gaze of Yhwh it took the features of a heavenly throne; it mediated heavenly power to earth (making it…Eden). Now, by contrast, that throne is not merely ‘abandoned’, but ‘thrown’ to the ground. As we have said before, this ‘fall of David’s house’ is not merely a ‘failure’, but a ‘casting down’. David throne falls with a greater thunderous bang than any other throne because it was raised up higher than any other throne could be raised. The ‘glory’ of his throne is not merely eclipsed; it is blown out. 

A concluding remark: I think there is latent in these lines something a resurrection core. What I mean is this: when we put the lament section in the context of the entire psalm, specifically when we compare this ‘cessation’ of David’s throne with the ‘forever’ that is promised to David, we witness the psalmist conviction that, in fact, the forever covenant has come to an end but that, also, it can be restored. The whole point of the lament is it being a prayer of redemption. To the psalmist the forever covenant has died. This, however, is not the final word. We see this in many other psalms, especially those of sickness—even when the body is shattered and beyond repair; even when it is ‘in Sheol’; it can, in Yhwh, be ‘remade’. There is a glimpse of this in Abraham himself, who was physically ‘dead’ but made alive ‘in Yhwh’. Up to Abraham all men were ‘fruitful and multiplied’, but in Abraham Yhwh made him fruitful, even though he was long past the age of childbearing (as was Sarah). What we see then is that even in the vision of something that is shattered and dead (not dying, but dead and beyond earthly ability to rise), Yhwh can still be appealed to in order to bring life. This psalm is, in this way, a type of the vision Ezekiel sees of the ‘valley of bones’. The Davidic house is ‘in the dirt’ and utterly ‘profaned’, just as the bones of Ezekiel are not buried and utterly devoid of life. What Ezekiel witnesses however (and what Abraham and Sarah experience) and what this psalmist cries out for, is the power of Yhwh that lies both beneath and above every darkness. In this, what we come to see is that the ‘sovereignty’ of Yhwh that has been stressed over and over throughout this psalm, is one that is sovereign even over the chaos of death (vs. 9). 

One might say that, continuing the Abraham analogy, that the cessation of the Davidic house is like the ‘binding of Isaac’. Isaac and David both came from and were established by Yhwh’s power. They both were ordered to be killed—these ‘sons of Yhwh’. In Isaac, the knife was withheld; in David, it appears as if the knife has fallen. In both, there is a conviction (in Abraham; and in the psalmist) that they will ‘return from the mountain’, even after the death of the ‘son’. It is telling, therefore, that this psalm ends on a question—as it could not have been foreseen that the final resurrection was one that would not be accomplished over death but through the death of the only son (the Isaac, the David, the Christ). When Yhwh returned to his temple and become king on earth as in heaven, the thrones would be unified through the conquering of death, and thereby the earthly forever would be resurrected into the heavenly one, the ‘bones’ of the shattered king would receive flesh, and the son of David would be made the eternal king and the eternal ‘son of the sacrifice’ (the akedah).

Ps. 89.43 (David into Saul)

You have even turned back on himself / the edge of his sword
and failed to support him in battle. 

The previous verse contemplated the ‘external’ act of Yhwh in relation to the king’s enemies—he ‘strengthened’ their hands. Here, that aggression in turned ‘inward’ on the kings themselves. They are made to fail ‘in themselves’—their own swords are turned back upon themselves. Again what we are finding is the utter vulnerability—the absolute vulnerability—of the kings as they now begin to implode. They are not merely ‘surrounded’ by Yhwh’s aggression; they are consumed by it. There is nowhere to turn as every aspect of their authority and power is now being turned against them. This is not just a vision of the-king-without-Yhwh, but the king who is being assaulted by Yhwh, as he extends his sovereign control over the king into the king’s own inner ability to fight his enemies. 

It is as if what we have here is Yhwh’s treating of David as he treated Saul. One wonders, in fact, whether this ‘turning of the sword’ could be a reference to Saul’s falling on (or being driven through with) his ‘own sword’ as he stood on the failed battlefield, in the presence of the aggressively absent Yhwh.

Ps. 89.42 (injustice, duality and deliverance)

You have raised / the right hand / of his foes
you made all his enemies rejoice.

Our previous reflection focused on the utter powerlessness of David now that Yhwh has repudiated his covenant. He is not even able to protect himself from those ‘passing by’. It must be said that the state of vulnerability there was/is absolute. In these verses, the focus shifts slightly, but remains entirely centered on David’s powerlessness. Here, the psalmist turns his gaze to David’s enemies and what he sees is not the fact that David cannot defend himself from them in their own power, but he sees Yhwh himself ‘raising their right hand’. In a sense, Yhwh is now at war with David through David’s enemies. But the ‘problem’ goes much deeper. The psalmist has employed descriptions of rejoicing up to this point of the psalm, but always in the context of rejoicing over Yhwh’s faithfulness. Importantly, verse 16-17 speak of Yhwh’s people “rejoicing in your name all day long…for you are the glory of their strength…”. What we see there is that ‘rejoicing’ occurs in the ‘glory of Yhwh’s strength’, his divine backing of his people against their enemies. It is, in other words, a militaristic joy. In our verses, that rejoicing is not given to David’s enemies (“you raised their right hand - you made all his enemies rejoice”). This is also what happens with ‘the hand’. In verse 25, Yhwh says, “I will put his right hand on the rivers.” Now, he ‘raises the right hand’ of David’s enemies. The point seems unmistakable—the ‘blessings of the covenant’ (‘hand empowerment’ and rejoicing) are being given to David’s enemies, the agents of chaos he was empowered to quell as Yhwh’s regent on earth (his ‘image’ on earth). However, this is clearly not a ‘reporting’ but a lament; the point is not to ‘tell Yhwh how they feel’ but to almost demand that Yhwh change the present reality. By playing off the first portion of the psalm against the enemy/lament portion, the psalmist is attempting to ‘argue his case’ to Yhwh for him to reignite his covenant with David. In other words, his portrayal of the transfer of covenant blessings is rooted in the incredible sense of injustice that this entails. We need to emphasize again: this is a covenant lament in that it rises from and within the covenant.  The covenant both causes the lament and is the reason for the hope contained in the lament. 

What both of these realities point to—even perhaps more than the ‘transfer of blessing’—is the fact that Yhwh is now portrayed as actively against David. No longer is there a suspicion of simply abandonment. Yhwh is not merely standing aside passively. This may point to a further, more subtle reality—that in the light of Yhwh’s gaze there can be no true ‘neutral’ space of Yhwh’s pure passivity. What I mean is this—there is a constant ambiguity in the psalms when it comes to Yhwh’s wrath between activity and passivity. On the one hand, it often appears in the guise of Yhwh’s abandonment such that his wrath is most evident by his avoiding, or refusing, his protection. On the other hand, the imagery is often of his activity (as here when he ‘raises the right hand’). This ambiguity may stem from the psalmist’s conviction of Yhwh’s complete sovereignty over his creation. We need to keep the logic of this psalm in view to understand this—the first portion of the psalm demonstrates the fact that Yhwh is entirely without equal. His mastery over Rahab can only very leniently be called a ‘battle’. There is never any doubt that he has the authority over her to utterly subdue and control her. This utter mastery then plays into the covenant itself, especially in light of the fact that its perpetuity does not depend on David (or his sons’) faithfulness. If the covenant flounders it is not due to an enemy of Yhwh threatening him, nor to David---it can only be attributed to Yhwh’s ‘turning’ or ‘repudiation’. As such, Yhwh becomes the absolute center (or, lord) of both creation (mastery over Rahab) and covenant (with David). His sovereignty is not ‘one among many’. For this reason, his ‘wrath’ is not something that occurs in the same dynamic as other beings or gods. Why? Because for Yhwh to ‘turn away’ is not to leave the person in some ‘other sphere’. There is no ‘space’ other than in Yhwh’s sovereign control. Yhwh is the only sphere of activity. 

Now, rather than fully fleshing this out, we need to put down a marker in this reflection: the fact that there is something resembling ‘passivity’ and ‘activity’ in Yhwh’s wrath/anger does highlight the fact that these two realities cannot simply be collapsed into each other. We must always remember that for the psalmist Yhwh is not simply the ‘absolute sovereign’ but he is also the ‘absolute good’. For that reason, when Yhwh is angry something like the duality inherent in anger becomes apparent; he is simultaneously ‘for’ and ‘against’ the offender. But these are clearly not equal to each other. He is not ‘equally’ for and against the offender. Rather, his anger is always penultimate to his pleasure. What is the point of this for our reflection? I think that in the face of injustice, the psalmists often enter into this realm of duality and they oscillate between their portrayals of Yhwh’s involvement (passivity, or activity). This duality, however, does not point to a type of infinite ground of sovereignty where they are equal to each other. Quite the opposite—because it originates from and within the face of injustice, the duality itself is premised on Yhwh’s ‘prior’ goodness and ability to heal the division. In other words, were these realities ‘equal’ in Yhwh, there would be no lament, but a type of profound and overwhelming perception that, in Yhwh, light and darkness are but two perspectives on the same sovereign ‘ground’ of authority and power. That is not the experience of the psalmist. Injustice engenders lament because the psalmists are utterly convinced that in Yhwh his sovereignty is perfectly manifested in his goodness. And they are likewise convinced that the experience of duality is a penultimate experience of Yhwh, and not an ultimate one. As we will see, this is why (I would argue) these laments can end on a question and not resolve themselves.  Because Yhwh is utterly sovereign and because he is utterly good, there can be no ‘resolution’ of injustice short of the enactment of deliverance. We can repeat what we have said before—the psalmist is looking for deliverance, not answers. In other words, injustice is always met (in the end) not with philosophy or contemplation, but with lament and prayer.