Psalms Through the Centuries, Volume 3. Susan Gillingham
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with unique knowledge of both the Father and creation.275
The different readings of this psalm by *Luther and *Calvin provide good examples of their distinctive modes of exegesis: Calvin reads verse 27 (‘I will make him the firstborn.’) as a reference to David, who is a type of Christ, i.e. preparing the way for the Messiah.276 Luther, in the Dictata, reads Psalm 89 as a whole as about ‘the perpetuity and stability of the reign of David’—i.e. assuming this means the spiritual reign of Christ.277 Hence verse 29 (‘I will establish his line forever’) Luther sees as an unfulfilled promise if this was about the literal David: but the promises have been fulfilled, in Christ and his Church.278
In Jewish liturgy, the ceremony of the Blessing on the Moon’s Reappearance (Birkat Levanah), praising God for sustaining the world through its seasons, has implicitly been linked to verse 38 (Eng. v. 37) of this psalm: ‘It (i.e. the Davidic covenant) will be established like the moon forever’. From this link between the moon and the Davidic dynasty, the Blessing on the Moon’s Reappearance has also linked to the coming of the Messiah at the time of the new moon.279 A near parallel is found in Christian liturgy: because the first part of this psalm speaks of the descendants of the king and the promise of a covenant ‘forever’, it has been used as early as the *Roman Rite for the liturgy for Christmas Day, celebrating the arrival of the ‘Messiah’. The latter part of the psalm (verses 38–51), on the sufferings of the king, is associated with Easter.280 Many hymnic versions of this psalm focus on one part or another. For example, the *Genevan Psalter (1562) takes up the more positive aspects of the psalm; a recent version is found in the Anglo-Genevan Psalter of the Canadian Reformed Church.281 Isaac *Watts wrote at least seven metrical versions of this psalm, taken from verses 1–6; 7–14; 15–18; 19–37; 38–41; and 42–52. Of the two on 42–52, one has intriguing correspondences with Watts’ ‘O God our Help in Ages Past’, from Psalm 90.282 A more recent Methodist version, of verses 1–4, 19–37 (again, the positive parts), is ‘O Lord Your Love is Constant’, arranged by Don Saliers.283
Musical performances for a concert audience are also mostly from verses in the first part of the psalm. *Handel, for example, used verses 13–14 in his ‘Let Thy Hand be Strengthened’, a coronation anthem (1727) for mixed chorus and orchestra, which was sung as George I was presented to the people, ending with a triumphant alleluia.284 Handel’s composition ‘My Song shall be Alway’ (1717–1718) is also taken from selections of the first part of this psalm, using a chorus for verse 5, tenor for verse 6, soprano, tenor and bass for verse 9, bass for verse 11, chorus for verse 14, cantor for verse 15, and a final triumphant chorus for verse 17.285 Other choral settings include da *Palestrina’s settings of verse 25 and of verses 12, 15 in Latin, and *Purcell’s arrangement of verses 1, 5–10 and 14–15 in English.
Its use in liturgy, as well as its narrative about the promises and broken promises to the king, have resulted in a number of poetic imitations.286 The eighteenth-century writer Christopher *Smart has a work attributed to him called A Song to David, which is about the relationship between David and Christ; it is a lengthy poem in imitation of Psalm 89. Each verse is a four-line stanza, set in 6–8–6–8 with the rhyme a-b-a-b; unlike Mary *Sidney’s version, this loses some of the composite complex nature of the psalm, yet at the same time creates a simple directness in its account of God’s dealing with his people: the Christian overlay is only implicit. Verses 34–37, on the promises to David and his descendants, read:287
But yet I will not wholly take
My kindness from his seed;
Nor void that blessed promise make
To which my truth agreed.
I will for my own glory care
Nor change the word I past;
Once by my holiness I swore
That David’s house should last.
The line of his descent shall run
With deathless heroes crowned;
Before my presence, as the sun,
His throne shall be renowned.
Illuminated psalters usually ‘Christianise’ this psalm. Byzantine examples, such as *Theodore (fol. 118r), use verse 12 (‘Tabor and Hermon joyously praise your name’) as an inspiration for an image of Jesus’ transfiguration.288 This is also taken up in *Khludov (fol. 88v), *Bristol (fol. 147v), and *Barberini (fol. 152r). *Carolingian psalters record different Christian episodes. The *Utrecht Psalter, for example, has two images of Christ which conform to the two parts of the psalm. One is set in heaven, in a globe-*mandorla, and the other on earth, depicted by a scene of his crucifixion. To the left of the crucifixion is a nude David, anointed by an angel: kings are seen bearing gifts (the seas are represented at the bottom of the image) illustrating verse 25 (‘I will set his hand on the sea’) and verse 27 (‘I will make him… the highest of the kings of the earth’).289 By contrast, one of the images in the *Stuttgart Psalter (fol. 103v) focusses on verse 5 (‘your faithfulness… in the assembly of the holy ones’) and has a scene of Christ in glory (not his transfiguration) with Saint Peter, Saint Paul and another saint.290
Two very different contemporary artists illustrate well the differences between Jewish and Christian readings of this psalm: Moshe *Berger’s image is of a bright white central orb out of which emanates Hebrew calligraphy, amidst deep blue rays; a crown is visible above the orb, and above that, the blue rays turn to red. The reference is from verse 29 (Eng. v. 28), translated here as ‘I was kind to David when I made him King. This kindness will endure for ever. I entered into covenants with Abraham and David and I shall keep them forever.’ This accords very much with the more positive reading of the psalm as a whole in Jewish tradition, which was discussed earlier.291
The second image is by Roger *Wagner, who, at the very end of Book Three of his Book of Praises illustrates verse 39 with an image of Christ on the cross, as the rejected Messiah, fitting with the tone of despair at the end of psalm, and giving it some correspondences with the visual exegesis of the end of Psalm 88 earlier (Figure 6). 292 This resonates with the more traditional view in reception history that the psalm ends on a negative note of despair.
FIGURE 6 Roger Wagner, Ps. 89:44–45: The King and the Cross.
Source: Wagner, R. 2013. The Book of Praises: A Translation of the Psalms. Book Three. Oxford: The Besalel Press.
Like Psalms 2, 45 and 110, the reception of this psalm points to key differences of Jewish and Christian reception, and their different interpretations of the everlasting or temporal nature of the Davidic covenant, and of the identity of the one who is to inherit the promises of an everlasting throne.
Before moving on to assess the reception history of the psalms in Book Four, it is important to finish with some observations about Book Three. One is to note a very different tenor than that in Books One and Two, which through the collections of laments, thanksgiving and didactic psalms performed a prayerful and ethical guide to obedience and piety. Very few psalms in Book Three have been used in this way: other than Psalm 73, the only other obvious exceptions are Psalm 86, a ‘Psalm of David’, and perhaps also Psalm 84. Following from this, a second observation is that the reception history of Book Three, through the rich resources of liturgy, illumination, music and poetry, has been more concerned with theological questions about the character of God and his dealings with his entire people. A persistent concern, especially in Jewish reception, has been about making sense of a broken past in order to face the future. This ‘backwards look’ has been the key feature of Book Three: only in Books Four and Five is there a more decisive future perspective. Finally, because of this interest in the fate of the whole community,