Now, however, You have spurned and rejected him; You are enraged by Your anointed one.
Parallel translations
- WEB But you have rejected and spurned. You have been angry with your anointed.
- KJV But thou hast cast off and abhorred, thou hast been wroth with thine anointed.
- NKJV But You have cast off and abhorred, You have been furious with Your anointed.
- NASB ¶But You have rejected and refused, You have been full of wrath against Your anointed.
- NLT But now you have rejected him and cast him off. You are angry with your anointed king.
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
The psalm turns to lament: it seems God has rejected and grown angry with His anointed king.
Overview
After rehearsing the glorious promises, the psalmist confronts present disaster, the apparent rejection of God's anointed. The sharp contrast frames the psalm's central crisis: how do the promises stand amid evident defeat? This honest lament models bringing covenant confusion before God, and finds its ultimate answer when God's true Anointed bears rejection yet is vindicated (Acts 2:36).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 19
- 1 Chr 28:9As for you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve Him wholeheartedly and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands the intent of every thought. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.
- Deut 32:19When the LORD saw this, He rejected them, provoked to anger by His sons and daughters.
- Ps 106:40So the anger of the LORD burned against His people, and He abhorred His own inheritance.
- Ps 89:51how Your enemies have taunted, O LORD, and have mocked every step of Your anointed one!
- Zech 11:8And in one month I dismissed three shepherds. My soul grew impatient with the flock, and their souls also detested me.
- Ps 60:10Have You not rejected us, O God? Will You no longer march out, O God, with our armies?
- Ps 78:59On hearing it, God was furious and rejected Israel completely.
- Ps 84:9Take notice of our shield, O God, and look with favor on the face of Your anointed.
- 2 Chr 12:1–12After Rehoboam had established his sovereignty and royal power, he and all Israel with him forsook the Law of the LORD.
- Ps 77:7“Will the Lord spurn us forever and never show His favor again?
- Lam 4:20The LORD’s anointed, the breath of our life, was captured in their pits. We had said of him, “Under his shadow we will live among the nations.”
- Hos 9:17My God will reject them because they have not obeyed Him; and they shall be wanderers among the nations.
- 2 Sam 15:26But if He should say, ‘I do not delight in you,’ then here I am; let Him do to me whatever seems good to Him.”
- Lam 2:7The Lord has rejected His altar; He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has delivered the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have raised a shout in the house of the LORD as on the day of an appointed feast.
- Ps 44:9–26But You have rejected and humbled us; You no longer go forth with our armies.
- Zech 13:7Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, against the man who is My Companion, declares the LORD of Hosts. Strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered, and I will turn My hand against the little ones.
- Jer 12:1Righteous are You, O LORD, when I plead before You. Yet about Your judgments I wish to contend with You: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?
- Ps 60:1For the choirmaster. To the tune of “The Lily of the Covenant.” A Miktam of David for instruction. When he fought Aram-naharaim and Aram-zobah, and Joab returned and struck down 12,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt. You have rejected us, O God; You have broken us; You have been angry; restore us!
- 2 Sam 1:21O mountains of Gilboa, may you have no dew or rain, no fields yielding offerings of grain. For there the shield of the mighty was defiled, the shield of Saul, no longer anointed with oil.
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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 89:38 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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