Psalms 119:89

EVEN in those Psalms which are not associated with any particular chapter of history, we can often trace out the trail of the writer's experience and track his soul through its wanderings. His reflections become vivid with intense reality. The meditation now before us is evidently prompted by some event deeply carved on the writer's memory. "Unless Your Law had been my delights, I should then have perished in my affliction."

EVEN in those Psalms which are not associated with any particular chapter of history, we can often trace out the trail of the writer's experience and track his soul through its wanderings. His reflections become vivid with intense reality. The meditation now before us is evidently prompted by some event deeply carved on the writer's memory. "Unless Your Law had been my delights, I should then have perished in my affliction." We know nothing of the time or circumstance when the heart was terrified, when the nerves were shaken, when the weakness of nature asserted itself—the veil is wisely drawn over the sharp pains or sullen griefs that bowed the sufferer down and we are simply solaced with a song celebrating his deliverance out of all his troubles and fears. Possibly his affliction was long, but certainly it reached a crisis so perilous that his life then trembled in the balance! He was then ripe for destruction, ready to have perished. Moreover, it is noteworthy that whatever his trial may have been, whether it was a sickness or a disaster, or any other manner of adversity, he refers to it as his own—he calls it, "my affliction." It would ill become us, therefore, to pry into the cause or fashion of his grief, or to ask any further questions. Quite likely I may be addressing some dear child of God who is vexed with an affliction so personal and so peculiar that he feels it to be "his own," and would deem it an intrusion for another to interfere. Let us not intrude, for we should only increase the grief by our enquiries. "My affliction" is an expression that bears a marked emphasis and has a tone entirely its own. I do not know whether I am more struck with its pathos or its reticence.

"For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven." The strain is more joyful, for experience has given the sweet singer a comfortable knowledge of the word of the Lord, and this makes a glad theme. After tossing about on a sea of trouble the Psalmist here leaps to shore and stands upon a rock. Jehovah's word is not fickle nor uncertain; it is settled, determined, fixed, sure, immovable. Man's teachings change so often that there is never time for them to be settled; but the Lord's word is from of old the same, and will remain unchanged eternally.

For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven - Thy purposes are all settled above, and they shall all be fulfilled below.

Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven - This commences a new division of the psalm, indicated by the Hebrew letter Lamed (ל l), or “l.” On the meaning of the passage, see the notes at Psa 89:2. The word rendered “settled” means properly “to set, to put, to place;” and then, to stand, to cause to stand, to set up, as a column, Gen 35:20; an altar, Gen 33:20; a monument, 1Sa 15:12. The meaning here is, that the word - the law - the promise - of God was made firm, established, stable, in heaven; and would be so forever and ever. What God had ordained as law would always remain law; what he had affirmed would always remain true; what he had promised would be sure forever.