Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.
Psalm 89 retells the covenant God made with David, and verse 32 says what happens if his descendants abandon God's law: the promise stands, but the rod and the stripes fall. How can God punish His own people and still keep His word to them for ever?
The rod is not an afterthought, added when things went wrong. It belonged to the promise from the day God gave it.
God had guaranteed that throne with a promise that no human failure could ever set aside. In fact, in giving it, God had already taken the failure into account, and declared what He would do.
God had said the same thing to David about his son Solomon. The son in view is a man who can fail.
After this God speaks to David about Solomon, no longer as a picture of Christ, but as a fallible man who, as such, would carry responsibility. He can fall under God's discipline and correction. "When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men" (v. 14). But God will establish his line for ever.
This was not a threat left on paper. The history of Judah's kings shows God carrying it out.
God's promises about His people Israel did not depend on how they behaved. But in His governmental ways they could not escape punishment for their sins… Read the history of the kings of Judah, and you learn how necessary it was for God, in His ways, to carry out this discipline. God had to discipline even the best of the kings who sat on David's throne. In the end the nation was carried into captivity because it had turned away from the Lord.
The rod is not how God treats an enemy. It falls on the people He has bound Himself to — and that is why it falls.
God would punish their transgressions with a rod, and their iniquity with stripes. But He would not completely take His loving-kindness from David and his nation (Ps. 89:33). Correction is always within covenant love. "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities" (Amos 3:2). To walk comfortably and without interruption, as on a level path, we must walk watchfully, as with the Lord.
One writer applies the verse to God's people today.
"I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes" is one of the covenant dealings of Psalm 89:32. God cannot pass over the sins of His saints the way He passes over those of the world. He brings them under present discipline. Sin in a saint of God is far more serious than in an unbeliever, since the glory of God suffers so much more at our hands.
Commentators differ on how far this verse reaches. One reads it as finished in the kings of Judah. That side of the promise rested on the faithfulness of David's children, and it "was lost by them and to them, as generation after generation, in the history of the kingdom of Judah, witnessed" (J. G. Bellett). Another sees the same discipline still at work in the age to come.
Verses 30 to 32 show that the millennium is in view here, not the eternal state… this verse in Psalm 89 clearly shows there may be cases of disobedience in Israel that will call for discipline from God. So they may be unfaithful to some degree. Not so with the Lord Jesus, from whom God will not take His loving-kindness.
Verse 32 does not stand alone. The next line limits it, and the limit rests on God's own character.
With the seed there is the possibility of failure and the governmental consequences that follow (vv. 30-32). Still, God will not completely take His loving-kindness from them, or let His faithfulness fail… The holiness of God is a witness that God cannot alter His word — and that word secures blessing for David and his seed.
- Foreseen. God built the rod into the covenant from the start. He promised the throne knowing His people would fail.
- Fatherly. The stripes are "the rod of men" laid on sons, not the sentence of a judge on strangers.
- Costly. God will not overlook sin in His own people. Being known by Him is the very reason He acts.
- Historical. Disciplined kings and a nation in captivity show the verse at work, not just on paper.
- Limited. The rod reaches the conduct, never the covenant. God's faithfulness outlasts every failure it corrects.
Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor belie my faithfulness;
Psalm 89 sets out God's covenant with David, and the lines just before warn of the rod if David's sons abandon God's law. Then comes the turn — "but" — can God punish His people and still keep every promise?
This mercy was not an afterthought. One writer looks back at the centuries when David's throne lay empty.
So the throne of David came to an end for many centuries. Yet God had guaranteed that throne with a promise, and no failure of man could set it aside. In fact, when He gave the promise, God had already taken the failure into account and said what He would do.
The Hebrew word for "steadfast love" runs like a thread through this psalm. One writer traces it.
It is the same word used in verse 1: "I will sing of the steadfast love of the LORD, forever." The mercies of the Lord are concentrated in one person — the man chosen out of the people, David His servant. He is able to carry all the attributes of the Lord. He was spoken of before as the channel of them, and He makes them all mercy towards His people. It is the same word in verses 24, 28 and 33.
The rod of verse 32 and the mercy of verse 33 are not in conflict. They belong to two different lines that run together through this part of the psalm.
Psalm 89:28-37 also sets the two things before us very plainly. The first is the certainty of God's counsels, His fixed purpose. The second is the way He governs, in view of man's responsibility.
One writer ties the rod to the love behind it.
God would punish their transgressions with the rod and their iniquity with stripes. But He would not take His loving-kindness away completely from David and his nation (Ps. 89:33). Correction is always in covenant love… If David had walked in integrity, and humbly with his God, God would have spared him this discipline. But now "he must bear the rod."
The same writer puts the two halves of the verse together — love and faithfulness:
In this psalm we can see mercy and faithfulness joined together… Our mercies are covenanted mercies — pledged, promised, undertaken, sealed, and in a great sense purchased. So discipline is not forgetfulness. It is a sign that God remembers. David's throne lies in the dust for a time because of transgression, but God has not forgotten it.
One writer takes the promise past Israel's history and applies it to every child of God.
Let the weak-hearted believer notice this, for his comfort. God's unchangeable purpose of salvation is held safe for him for ever in the changeless character of God. And one written clause of the covenant of blessing is this: the Father of spirits graciously disciplines every son He brings near to Himself in Jesus… He has undertaken to bless us. In true faithfulness, He uses whatever discipline He sees will lead us to fuller joy in Him.
That is why the Bible can record the sins of its best men without embarrassment.
It is a great comfort to see that God can record the failures of His saints in His word. He does not hesitate to record them. These failures were written down to teach us. In them, and through them, God shows that His faithfulness never fails, despite man's failure… He cannot let His truth fail; He cannot deny Himself. (2 Tim. 2:13.)
Where does this promise finally rest? One writer follows it to Christ.
The "everlasting covenant" assured David of this: through his seed, God would establish his kingdom and throne for ever (see 2 Samuel 7:12-17; Ps. 89:34-37; Jer. 33:19-32). Acts 13:34 shows that the Spirit of God points to Christ as the promised seed of David. It also shows that God secures the sure mercies of David through Christ risen from the dead.
- Foreseen — God made the promise knowing the failure would come. Man's breakdown was written into the terms, not a surprise that cancels them.
- Both — the rod and the steadfast love stand side by side. God keeps His fixed purpose and still governs man's responsibility.
- Correction — the stripes prove covenant love, not forgetting. A throne in the dust is still a throne God remembers.
- Comfort — for the believer, discipline is one clause of the covenant of blessing. The Father who uses it has already promised to bless.
- Secured — the mercy never rested on David's sons keeping their side. It rests in David's risen Son, where it cannot fail.