Psalms 89:43 · Bible study
Psalms 89:43 Commentary: When God Turns Back the Sword
Hebrew · 9 what the commentators say
Meaning in one sentence
In this lament, the psalmist charges God with defeating His own king. Explore the covenant tension, the image of the bent sword, and what this means for faith.
Research Summary
- Meaning: God has made the king's sword useless and refused to support him in battle, a direct contradiction of the Davidic covenant.
- Key words: 'Turn back' / 'edge' (sharpness) / 'sword', the image of a weapon that cannot strike effectively.
- Main debate: Does God actively cause defeat (punishment for sin) or is this a lament expressing the appearance of covenant failure?
- Theological theme: The tension between divine sovereignty and covenant faithfulness; lament as legitimate prayer.
- Best use: A passage for teaching on lament, the problem of evil, and the honesty of the Psalms.
Translation Comparison
BSB Berean Standard Bible 2020
You have bent the edge of his sword and have not sustained him in battle.
WEB World English Bible 2000
Yes, you turn back the edge of his sword, and haven’t supported him in battle.
KJV King James Version 1769
Thou hast also turned the edge of his sword, and hast not made him to stand in the battle.
ASV American Standard Version 1901
Yea, thou turnest back the edge of his sword, And hast not made him to stand in the battle.
YLT Young's Literal Translation 1898
Also--Thou turnest back the sharpness of his sword, And hast not established him in battle,
Darby Darby Bible 1890
Yea, thou hast turned back the edge of his sword, and hast not made him stand in the battle.
Translations in other languages (9 available)
Embotaste asimismo el filo de su espada, y no lo levantaste en la batalla.
Também deixaste de afiar sua espada; e não o sustentaste na batalha.
Tu as élevé la droite de ses adversaires,
Auch hast du die Kraft seines Schwertes weggenommen und lässest ihn nicht siegen im Streit.
Gij hebt de rechterhand zijner wederpartijders verhoogd; Gij hebt al zijn vijanden verblijd.
Tu hai fatto ripiegare il taglio della sua spada, e non l’hai sostenuto nella battaglia.
Wywyższyłeś prawicę przeciwników jego; uweseliłeś wszysstkich nieprzyjaciół jego.
你叫 他的刀劍 捲 刃，叫他在爭戰之中 站立 不住。
His sword is turned back; you have not been his support in the fight.
Verse in Context
Scholars' Consensus
Commentators broadly agree that Psalm 89:43 belongs to a sustained lament in which the psalmist catalogues the military failures of the Davidic king and attributes them directly to God. The verse uses the image of a sword whose edge is turned back or blunted, leaving the king helpless in battle. Adam Clarke notes that the expression pictures a soldier whose sword is useless, comparing it to the Gauls whose iron weapons bent under Roman assault. Barnes explains that God has turned the edge away so that the sword does not strike its target. Keil and Delitzsch see it as God causing the blade to be forced back by the enemy. The consensus is that the psalmist is not describing a natural misfortune but an act of divine withdrawal: God, who promised to support David's house, has instead become the agent of its defeat. This creates the central theological tension of the psalm.
How settled is the interpretation?
Interpretive difficulty: Medium
Main views:
- Divine punishment: The language mirrors covenant curses (Leviticus 26, Joshua 7); the king's defeat is God's judgment for sin.
- Apparent contradiction: The psalmist is expressing how things look from a human perspective, not making a theological claim about God's character.
- Messianic typology: The anointed king points to Christ, whose sword was turned (his crucifixion) but who ultimately triumphed (Gill).
What is clear: The king failed in battle, and the psalmist attributes that failure to God's withdrawal of support, creating a crisis of faith regarding the covenant promises.
What Scholars Agree and Debate
| Topic | Agreed | Debated |
|---|---|---|
| Meaning of 'turned the edge of his sword' | All traditions agree it describes military defeat and helplessness. | Some see physical blunting of the sword; others see a broader metaphor for God withdrawing support. |
| Who is the king? | The king is the Davidic monarch of the psalmist's time. | Some traditions (e.g., Gill) read it messianically as Christ; others hold to a literal historical king. |
| God's role in defeat | The psalmist directly attributes the defeat to God's action or inaction. | Reformed traditions emphasize God's sovereignty in all events; others see this as the psalmist's emotional perception, not a doctrinal statement. |
| Relation to covenant promises | The verse highlights a stark contrast between God's promises and current experience. | Some see this as proof that the covenant was conditional on obedience; others as a mystery of God's timing. |
Historical & Cultural Context
Psalm 89 is a royal lament, likely written after a national calamity such as the division of the kingdom or the Babylonian exile. The poet begins by celebrating the Davidic covenant (2 Samuel 7), in which God swore to establish David's throne forever. Then, beginning at verse 38, the tone shifts sharply. The psalmist accuses God of renouncing that covenant, defiling the crown, and breaking down defenses. The image of the sword's edge being turned back is drawn from ancient warfare. Adam Clarke cites the Gallic experience of the Romans: the Gauls could not harden iron, so at each blow their swords bent, forcing them to stop and straighten the weapon, a fatal delay. The idiom conveys utter helplessness in battle. In Israelite thought, victory came from the Lord (Exodus 15:3), so military defeat was evidence of God's absence or opposition. The cross-references in Leviticus 26 and Joshua 7 show that God threatened to make His people powerless before their enemies if they broke the covenant. The psalmist is therefore using the language of covenant curse: God is acting as if the king has sinned, even though no specific sin is mentioned. This creates a raw theological problem: the promises seem broken.
Textual Notes
The supplied commentaries do not discuss textual variants for this verse. The Hebrew text appears stable across the manuscript traditions represented by the translations (KJV, ASV, BSB, YLT, Darby, WEB). No significant textual issues are noted in the consulted sources.
Reception History
Psalm 89:43 has been read primarily as part of the larger lament over the Davidic monarchy. Early Christian interpreters often saw the psalm as pointing to Christ, the ultimate Anointed One, whose apparent defeat on the cross was understood as a turning of the sword's edge, only to be reversed in the resurrection. Gill makes this connection explicit. In the Reformation, Calvin and Matthew Henry treated the verse as an honest complaint from the believing community, struggling to reconcile God's promises with painful reality. Modern scholarship focuses on the psalm's place in Israel's worship, where lament was a vehicle for expressing doubt without abandoning faith. Across eras, the verse has been used to give voice to those who feel abandoned by God, validating their pain while pointing them toward the hope that follows in the psalm's final verses.
Preaching This Verse
Three-point outline
- God withdraws His support. The king's sword is turned back, God is no longer fighting for him. This pictures the terrifying reality of divine absence in battle.
- The covenant seems broken. Verse 43 sits inside a list of complaints that directly contradict the promises of 2 Samuel 7. The psalmist dares to say that God has failed to keep His word.
- Lament is the language of faith. The psalmist does not stop with accusation but moves to pleading (vv. 46, 51). He holds onto the covenant even while questioning it.
Five-point outline
- The sword of the anointed. The king's sword represents his military power and divine mandate.
- The turned edge. God has made the weapon useless, a vivid image of futility.
- No support in battle. The king cannot stand his ground because God has not sustained him.
- The crisis of covenant. This defeat contradicts the promise of enduring support.
- The prayer that follows. The psalmist refuses to let go of God, even when God seems to have let go.
Illustration hooks
- A soldier whose rifle jams in combat, leaving him defenseless, panic and helplessness in a moment of life or death.
- A parent who has faithfully raised a child, only to watch that child walk away from everything they were taught, a painful contradiction between promise and reality.
- A cure that stops working for a chronic illness, the treatment that once brought hope now does nothing.
Questions your congregation is asking
- If God promised to be with His people, why do we experience defeat?
- Is it okay to tell God that He seems to have broken His promises?
- How do we keep faith when our prayers seem unanswered and our efforts fail?
Leading a Discussion
Psalm 89:43 forces us to sit with an uncomfortable truth: sometimes life feels as if God has turned against us. The psalmist does not explain away the tension; he names it. For small groups, this passage invites honest lament and honest hope.
Discussion questions
- Observation: What does the image of a sword with its edge turned back communicate about the king's situation?
- Observation: Read verses 38, 45 together. What specific things does the psalmist say God has done to the king?
- Interpretation: Why would the psalmist attribute defeat to God rather than to the enemy or to chance?
- Interpretation: How does this verse fit with the covenant promises in verses 1, 4 and 19, 37?
- Interpretation: The cross-references (Leviticus 26, Joshua 7) connect defeat to sin. Does the psalmist imply the king sinned?
- Application: Have you ever felt that God was not supporting you in a battle you were fighting? How did you respond?
- Application: What can we learn from the psalmist's honesty about doubt and faith?
Cross-References
Source: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (TSK, public domain)
| Leviticus 26:36 | “‘As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword. They will fall when no one pursues. |
| Leviticus 26:37 | They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues. You will have no power to stand before your enemies. |
| Numbers 14:42 | Don’t go up, for Yahweh isn’t among you; that way you won’t be struck down before your enemies. |
| Numbers 14:45 | Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites who lived in that mountain, and struck them and beat them down even to Hormah. |
| Joshua 7:4 | So about three thousand men of the people went up there, and they fled before the men of Ai. |
| Joshua 7:5 | The men of Ai struck about thirty-six men of them. They chased them from before the gate even to Shebarim, and struck them at the descent. The hearts of the people melted, and became like water. |
| Joshua 7:8 | Oh, Lord, what shall I say, after Israel has turned their backs before their enemies? |
| Joshua 7:12 | Therefore the children of Israel can’t stand before their enemies. They turn their backs before their enemies, because they have become devoted for destruction. I will not be with you any more, unless you destroy the devoted things from among you. |
Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0). Commentaries are public domain.
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What the Commentators Say
9 public-domain commentaries, condensed into plain language.
Adam Clarke's Commentary Methodist/Wesleyan 1826
Clarke uses the historical example of the Gauls, whose soft iron swords bent in battle and had to be straightened underfoot while the Romans struck, to illustrate a spiritual point. When God opposes his people, their strongest weapons become useless, leaving them helpless before their enemies.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible Protestant 1832
Barnes explains the defeated king's experience in starkly physical terms: God turned the enemy's sword so its blow never landed, and the king could not hold his ground. These are images of total military failure — the king lost the battle and his forces were driven back.
Calvin's Commentaries Reformed 1564
Calvin traces the psalmist's deliberate movement: he first grounds his prayer in God's covenant with David, then recalls God's power and redemption, only to return to the covenant and finally lament that God seems to have forgotten it. For Calvin, the psalm's point is
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges Anglican 1880
Cambridge Bible notes the jarring contrast between God's glorious promise and the king's present defeat: he is rejected, dethroned, his kingdom overrun. The phrase "turnest back the edge of his sword" does not mean God blunts the weapon, but that the sword gives way in battle, failing to protect him.
Geneva Bible Notes Reformed 1599
The note observes that God actively turns the edge of the enemy's sword, making it blunt and ineffective. God also withholds the strength needed to hold their ground in battle, so they fail to stand. Both actions show God's direct hand in the enemy's defeat, not merely allowing it but causing it.
Gill's Exposition of the Bible Baptist 1748
Gill sees the blunted sword as the disciples' weapon turned from a literal one to the Spirit's sword, the Word. That sword lost its edge among Jews but cut deeply among Gentiles. Christ's failure to stand in battle means He fell in death, yet by falling He conquered sin, Satan, and death itself.
Keil & Delitzsch OT Commentary Protestant 1876
Keil-Delitzsch note the psalm's sharp turn at But You, contrasting God's promises with present rejection. They read You have rejected as absolute, needing no supplied object. Uniquely, they interpret rock as a blade, meaning God turned back the king's sword. The king's shame comes from premature aging under sorrow, not an early death.
Lange's Commentary Reformed 1857
Lange treats the psalm as a deliberate confrontation between God's unshakable covenant with David and the king's present collapse. The tension is not meant to accuse God but to drive the believer from despair into prayer, grounded in the certainty that the promise will prevail despite all visible contradiction.
Matthew Henry's Commentary Reformed/Presbyterian 1710
Henry notes that God's present treatment of David's line appears to flatly contradict the covenant promises. He acknowledges the real difficulty of reconciling providence with promise, yet insists they are consistent: God's works always fulfill His word and never truly contradict it. For Henry, what looks like contradiction is only apparent, and faith must hold both together.