For I have said, “Loving devotion is built up forever; in the heavens You establish Your faithfulness.”
Parallel translations
- WEB I indeed declare, “Love stands firm forever. You established the heavens. Your faithfulness is in them.”
- KJV For I have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever: thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens.
- NKJV For I have said, “Mercy shall be built up forever; Your faithfulness You shall establish in the very heavens.”
- NASB For I have said, “Graciousness will be built up forever; In the heavens You will establish Your faithfulness.”
- NLT Your unfailing love will last forever. Your faithfulness is as enduring as the heavens.
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
Ethan declares that God's love stands firm forever and His faithfulness is as established as the heavens. God's covenant love is utterly secure and unshakable.
Overview
The psalmist affirms that God's steadfast love is eternally established, fixed like the heavens themselves. This confidence in God's faithfulness grounds the whole psalm. Such unshakable love is the foundation of the believer's hope, sealed in Christ in whom all God's promises are yes and amen.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Ps 36:5Your loving devotion, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the clouds.
- Neh 9:31But in Your great compassion, You did not put an end to them; nor did You forsake them, for You are a gracious and compassionate God.
- Ps 103:17But from everlasting to everlasting the loving devotion of the LORD extends to those who fear Him, and His righteousness to their children’s children—
- Ps 89:5The heavens praise Your wonders, O LORD—Your faithfulness as well—in the assembly of the holy ones.
- Ps 119:89Your word, O LORD, is everlasting; it is firmly fixed in the heavens.
- Neh 1:5Then I said: “O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps His covenant of loving devotion with those who love Him and keep His commandments,
- Ps 89:37like the moon, established forever, a faithful witness in the sky.” Selah
- Ps 146:6the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them. He remains faithful forever.
- Neh 9:17They refused to listen and failed to remember the wonders You performed among them. They stiffened their necks and appointed a leader to return them to their bondage in Egypt. But You are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in loving devotion, and You did not forsake them.
- Heb 6:18Thus by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged.
- Ps 42:1For the choirmaster. A Maskil of the sons of Korah. As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul longs after You, O God.
- Eph 1:6–7to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the Beloved One.
- Num 23:19God is not a man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?
- Luke 1:50His mercy extends to those who fear Him, from generation to generation.
- Matt 24:35Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 89:2 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.