Is his unfailing love gone forever? Have his promises permanently failed?
Parallel translations
- WEB Has his loving kindness vanished forever? Does his promise fail for generations?
- KJV Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore?
- BSB Is His loving devotion gone forever? Has His promise failed for all time?
- NKJV Has His mercy ceased forever? Has His promise failed forevermore?
- NASB Has His favor ceased forever? Has His promise come to an end forever?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
He wonders whether God's steadfast love has vanished forever and His promise failed for all generations.
Overview
Asaph probes the very foundations of his faith, questioning God's covenant love and faithfulness. The fear that God's loving kindness and promise might fail strikes at Israel's deepest hope. The implied answer, drawn from God's revealed character, is no, for His covenant love endures, ultimately confirmed and sealed in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Num 23:19God is not a man, that he should lie, nor the son of man, that he should repent. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good?
- Rom 9:6But it is not as though the word of God has come to nothing. For they are not all Israel, that are of Israel.
- 2 Pet 3:9The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some count slowness; but is patient with us, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
- Num 14:34After the number of the days in which you spied out the land, even forty days, for every day a year, you will bear your iniquities, even forty years, and you will know my alienation.’
- Jer 15:18Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? Will you indeed be to me as a deceitful brook, like waters that fail?
- Luke 16:25–26“But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you, in your lifetime, received your good things, and Lazarus, in the same way, bad things. But now here he is comforted and you are in anguish.
- Isa 27:11When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off. The women will come and set them on fire, for they are a people of no understanding. Therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 77:8 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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