Ps. 89.35-37 (the oath; forever enacted)

Once for all / I have sworn / by my holiness
I do not lie / to David:
His offspring / will continue forever
and his throne / as the sun before me
as the moon / it will be established forever
and a witness in the clouds / will be faithful. 

These three verses conclude Yhwh’s speech. As such, they are important to reflect on both in regards to the ‘final note struck’ and in regard as to why these lines in particular fall at the end of the speech. In many ways these lines summarize much of what has come before. There is the repeated use of “forever” as well as well as the reference to the heaven (in the ‘sun and moon’). The ‘throne’ reappears as well as David’s offspring. The focus of these lines is, then, on Yhwh’s establishing of the ‘perpetuity’ of David’s line. They do not focus on what ‘Yhwh will do through David’ (which seems to be implied). There is a reason for this—the present of the psalmist is in the seeming twilight of this perpetuity. It seems as if the ‘line has run dry’ and, in fact, Yhwh has reneged on his promise. The psalmist and his people are, in other words, exposed; they are without their David, their Yhwh-empowered ruler of earth. Rahab (or, her children) are threatening. It in this context that we can see why the psalmist has chosen to couch these concluding lines in Yhwh’s ‘sworn oath’. Yhwh’s words conclude not with a description of what he will do, but his already sworn oath (by his holiness) to maintain David’s lineage. Yhwh binds himself by himself. In other words, for him to break this sworn obligation would be tantamount for him becoming a lie. For this much is clear: nothing can break Yhwh’s sovereign mastery over his own will; the Rahab-battle was a foregone conclusion and calling it a ‘battle’ is probably an overstatement. A guiding thread in this psalm is that Yhwh cannot be thwarted (and that power is what is put at David’s disposal as king). Which is why, when he swears an oath, he cannot bind himself by anything greater than himself. But we must emphasize: this sworn oath is for David. It is not an abstraction, but the historical establishment of Yhwh’s power on behalf of David and his lineage. Put another way, although this promise is sworn to, in a sense, ‘within Yhwh’ (he swears ‘by his holiness’), it is an oath of Yhwh to be for David, for Yhwh to be ‘external’ to himself forever. Yhwh will not, cannot, retreat from this. Perhaps in this we see why the oath and the forever are so intertwined—they are flip-sides of the same coin. The forever that Yhwh is, opens up to David (and, hence, to the earth), by his swearing to be forever external (to be for) to them. Seen in this light, David and his lineage are utterly amazing; they are the visible manifestations (enactment) of Yhwh’s forever-being-for-his-people. Heaven is not just ‘seen’ in them; heaven is accessible and enacted in them. They are, in a very real fashion, like the Temple itself—the place where Yhwh (heaven) and man (earth) meet; where Yhwh ‘makes his home’ and ‘forever-rests’.