a compact (because made by passing between pieces of fl… · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
break
אֲחַלֵּ֥ל'a.cha.Lel
H2490
properly · verb, piel imperfect, 1st person common singular
alter
אֲשַׁנֶּֽה'a.sha.Neh
H8138
to fold · verb, piel imperfect, 1st person common singular
out
וּמוֹצָ֥אu.mo.Tza'
H4161
a going forth · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct
lips
שְׂ֝פָתַ֗יSe.fa.Tai
H8193
the lip (as a natural boundary) · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Numbers 23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken…
Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shado…
Malachi 3:6 For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
Romans 11:29 For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
Jeremiah 14:21 Do not abhor us, for thy name’s sake, do not disgrace the throne of thy glory: remember, break not thy covenant with us.
Leviticus 26:44 And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utter…
Jeremiah 33:20 Thus saith the LORD; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in the…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 89:19-37
The covenant God made with David and his seed was mentioned before (Psa 89:3, Psa 89:4); but in these verses it is enlarged upon, and pleaded with God, for favour to the royal family, now almost sunk and ruined; yet certainly it looks at Christ, and has its accomplishment in him much more than in David; nay, some passages here are scarcely applicable at all to David, but must be understood of Christ only (who is therefore called David our king, Hos 3:5), and very great and precious promises they are which are here made to the Redeemer, which are strong foundations for the faith and hope of the redeemed to build upon. The comforts of our redemption flow from the covenant of redemption; all ou…
My covenant will I not break,.... Not the covenant at Sinai, as Aben Ezra, but the covenant of grace made with Christ, and which stands fast with him, Psalm 89:3, which is firm, sure, and stable, and as immovable as mountains and hills, and more so, 2 Samuel 23:5 or "profane" (m) it, though his people profane his statutes, Psalm 89:31, he will not profane his covenant; though they violate his laws, he is a God keeping covenant with them, and will not break his word with them:
nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips; any promise of his, respecting either the temporal, spiritual, or eternal welfare of his people: or "not change" (n); as he changes not in his nature and perfections, no…
Psalm 89:30-37
30. If his children shall forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; 31. If they violate [545] my ordinances, and keep not my statutes; 32. Then will I visit their transgression with my rod, [546] and their iniquity with stripes. 33. But my loving-kindness will I not withdraw from him; nor suffer my faithfulness to fail, [literally, nor will I lie in my truth.] 34. My covenant will I not break, nor alter that which hath proceeded from my lips. 35. Once have I sworn by my holiness, That I will not lie [547] to David. 36. His seed shall endure for ever; and his throne as the sun before me. 37. It shall be established for ever as the moon, and a faithful witness in the heaven…
The Church Fathers
"My covenant will I not profane, nor reject the thing that is gone out of my lips" [Psalm 89:34]. Because his sons sin, I will not on this account be found false: I have promised; I will do. Suppose they choose to sin even as past hope, and so fall into sins as to offend their Father's countenance, and deserve to be disinherited; is it not still God Himself, of whom it is said, "From these stones" He "will raise up sons to Abraham"? [Matthew 3:9] Therefore I tell you, brethren, many Christians sin venially, many are scourged and so corrected for their sin, chastened, and cured; many turn away altogether, striving with a stiff neck against the discipline of the Father, even wholly refusing God as their Father, though they have the mark of Christ, and so fall into such sins, that it can only be announced against them, "that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." [Galatians 5:21] Nevertheless, Christ shall not be destitute of an inheritance on their account: not for the chaff's sake shall the wheat also perish: [Matthew 3:12] nor on account of bad fish shall nothing be cast into the vessels from that net. [Matthew 13:47] "The Lord knows them that are His." [2 Timothy 2:19] For He who predestined us before we were born, promised undoubtingly: "For whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified." [Romans 8:29-30] Let desperate sinners sin as far as they choose: let the members of Christ reply, "If God is with us, who shall be against us?" God will not therefore do hurt in His truth, nor will He "profane His Testament." His Testament remains immovable, because in His foreknowledge He predestined His heirs; and "He will not reject the thing that is gone out of His lips."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Ezrahite — A title given to Ethan (1 Kings 4:31; Ps. 89, title) and Heman (Ps. 88, title). They were both sons of Zerah (1 Chr. 2:6).
Hermon — A peak, the eastern prolongation of the Anti-Lebanon range, reaching to the height of about 9,200 feet above the Mediterranean. It marks the north boundary of Palestine (Deut. 3:8, 4:48; Josh. 11:3,…
Covenant, The · Is unalterable — Is unalterable
David · .Anointed king, while a youth, by the prophet Samuel, and inspired — .Anointed king, while a youth, by the prophet Samuel, and inspired
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Now follows the paraphrase of Sa2 7:14, that the faithlessness of David's line in relation to the covenant shall not interfere with (annul) the faithfulness of God - a thought with which one might very naturally console one's self in the reign of Rehoboam. Because God has placed the house of David in a filial relationship to Himself, He will chastise the apostate members as a father chastises his son; cf. Pro 23:13. In Ch1 17:13 the chronicler omits the words of Sa2 7:14 which there provide against perverted action (העוות) on the part of the seed of David; our Psalm proves their originality. But even if, as history shows, this means of chastisement should be ineffectual in the case of indivi…
The Lord disciplines but does not reject his erring children. He foresees violation of trust and subsequent punishment, but he commits himself to uphold the covenant. His fidelity to David corresponds to his faithfulness to the created order.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 89:34
My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.
My covenant will I not break. It is his own covenant. He devised it, drew up the draft of it, and voluntarily entered into it: he therefore thinks much of it. It is not a man's covenant, but the Lord claims it as his own. It is an evil thing among men for one to be a "covenant breaker", and such an opprobrious epithet shall never be applicable to the Most High. Nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Alterations and afterthoughts belong to short sighted beings who meet with unexpected events which operate upon them to change their minds, but the Lord who sees everything from the beginning has no such rea…
