Ethan's Psalm
Samuel Cox, D.D. Psalm 89:49 Lord, where are your former loving kindnesses, which you swore to David in your truth? Of Ethan the Ezrahite we may form a much more complete conception than of Heman, his colleague and friend. Like Heman, he was born in the age of David, but moulded chiefly by the influences, literary and religious, which characterized the time of Solomon. Like Heman, he was one of the four pages who were deemed so wise that it was held a compliment to pay of Solomon himself that he was even wiser than they (1 Kings 4:31). Like Heman, too, he was one of the three singers set over the service of song in the house of the Lord (1 Chronicles 6:44), one of the leaders, or conductors, of the Temple orchestra, who marked time for the singers and players on instruments, not with a baton, but, as the fashion then was, by the clash of his brazen cymbals (1 Chronicles 15:19). He must have been, therefore, a man of high culture, of large and varied experience, of trained and practised wisdom, as well as a poet, and a musician of the most approved skill. In his psalm he gives us the last results of a long life of observation and experience. This psalm could not have been written until the fifth year of Rehoboam's reign. The occasion which prompted it was, probably, that memorable invasion of Palestine by Shishak, the reigning Pharaoh of Egypt, which is recorded in 2 Chronicles 12, and to the result of which allusion has been found in the sculptures of Karnac. If you read the psalm with the facts of this invasion, and its effect on Rehoboam, full in mind, it will become wholly new to you. The King of Judah, the Lord's anointed, the psalmist wails (vers. 38-45), has been dishonoured, his crown has been hurled to the ground and defiled in the dust; his frontier-fortresses have been broken down; all his strongholds reduced; his glory has passed away; a haggard old age has come upon him in early manhood; he is covered with shame. Ethan meditates on these facts; he sets himself to understand them, to get at their inmost meaning, their Divine intention, and to learn the lesson with which they are fraught. He raises this problem — the apparent opposition between faith and fact, between the events of human life and the declarations of Divine will. He remembers the assurance given to David, "Thy seed will I establish for ever," and yet David's grandson lost ten of the tribes — lost, indeed, his own kingdom, and became a vassal of Egypt. What ground was left for faith and hope? He asks himself, Is not God able, is He not strong enough to keep His word, and to carry out the purposes of His love and compassion? And then he asks, Is He not good enough, is He not true and faithful to the word He has spoken, to the purpose He has framed and announced? His answer is untinged by doubt or hesitation (ver. 8). Obviously Ethan is a man of more robust temperament than Heman. As meditative, as experienced, as wise, but not fretted into pessimistic misgivings by doubt, he can face the facts of life unalarmed, and the contradictions of thought which those facts are apt to breed in those who reflect on them. On what ground did he take his stand? One refuge, in which many take shelter, was closed against him. He could not admit, with Mill, that God was limited in goodness or in power. Nor could he admit that men have no claim on the God who made them. Ethan found ground for trust and hope by cherishing the conviction that God had sent these calamities in mercy, for correction, for discipline, and not in anger, for destruction. He cherished the belief and hope that God was keeping His covenant with the seed of David, not breaking it. Hence he could plead with God: "How long, O Lord? Wilt Thou hide Thyself for ever?" It is this indomitable trust in the power and goodness of God; it is this resolute and unyielding conviction that all the apparent contradictions between the facts of experience and the declared will of God are only discords which will make the ultimate harmony more profound and sweet. This conviction we, too, need. We have to face the problem which pressed on the mind of the Hebrew sage. God has declared His will to us; He has entered into covenant with us. And yet is the world saved? The wise and much-experienced Ethan steps in to our help. Without in any manner seeking to abate our sense of sin, or our shame for sin, he teaches us that all our sorrow and shame, so far from proving that God has forgotten to be gracious to us, is a proof that He is correcting us for our transgressions and purging us from our iniquity. He affirms that by this discipline God is once more drawing us to Himself. (Samuel Cox, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Lord, where are thy former lovingkindnesses, which thou swarest unto David in thy truth? WEB: Lord, where are your former loving kindnesses, which you swore to David in your faithfulness?