The Bible Says
Psalm 89:35-37 Meaning

In Psalm 89:35-37, the psalmist records God’s unwavering commitment when He says that “Once I have sworn by My holiness; I will not lie to David” (v. 35). These words highlight the absolute seriousness and purity of God’s promise-making. Swearing by His holiness reveals that the LORD’s very character-His perfection and moral purity-stands behind every word. Because God is incapable of lying (Titus 1:2), this solemn oath assures us that His covenant with David cannot be broken. Historically, David ruled Israel from approximately 1010 to 970 B.C. Despite his ordinary beginnings as a shepherd in Bethlehem, he was chosen by the LORD to reign as king in Jerusalem. As He said in Psalm 89:3,

“I have made a covenant with My chosen;
I have sworn to David My servant.”

There, God calls David both His chosen and His servant. David was plucked from obscurity by the will of God, to be king. It was God’s doing that David became monarch over Israel. David never would have been king otherwise; he was not the son of King Saul, he was not in line for the throne. God chose him. David was also God’s servant, “a man after [God’s] own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14). He did as God commanded. He delighted in obeying God. His concerns were for what God wanted, not what men wanted.

By emphasizing “I will not lie to David,” the text underscores the foundation of Israel’s hope: that the promise God made to David in 2 Samuel 7:12-16 remains steadfast. This promise was more than a personal favor to a single king; it was the unfolding of God’s redemptive plan. Israel’s prophets and psalmists continually returned to this covenant, knowing that God’s reputation for holiness stood behind it. David’s life was not perfect, yet the LORD’s oath persisted through the triumphs, failures, and exiles of the Israelites.

This verse ties directly to the announcement the angel Gabriel made to Mary (Luke 1:26-33), where he proclaimed that her Son, Jesus, would sit on David’s throne. In that angelic message, we see how God was not lying to David: through Christ, a descendant of David’s line, the promise began its fulfillment. Jesus partially fulfilled the Davidic covenant in His first coming, and the future completion of that covenant awaits His return to earth, where He will rule over all peoples in glory forever (Revelation 19:11-16).

God’s steadfastness for David’s lineage shines through the next verse, which states that “His descendants shall endure forever and his throne as the sun before Me” (v. 36). The enduring existence of David’s line is tied directly to God’s eternal perspective. In ancient cultures, few things were seen as constant as the daily rising of the sun; it symbolized life, light, and dependability. By comparing David’s throne to the sun before Me, the psalmist exalts the royal line’s permanence under God’s watchful eye. It would be no fading dynasty, eventually dying out or suffering usurpation by an enemy. This was a lineage upheld by the Almighty.

Because Israel understood God’s promises in the context of His faithfulness, this picture of David’s throne as the sun before Me promised that the kingdom’s truest foundation was God Himself, not political alliances or military might. God created the sun; He ordained its constant rising and setting, its predictability. In the same way, God ordained David’s throne to endure. He fulfilled this by sending His Son to be born of the line of David.

In Luke 1:32-33, Gabriel again echoes this idea of an unending throne when he proclaims that Mary’s Son “will be called the Son of the Most High” and that “the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David.” Jesus’s birth in Bethlehem-David’s native city-is part of the unfolding of that eternal plan. Though Israel later saw its kingdom crumble at the hands of the Romans in 70 A.D., the heavenly plan never failed. Jesus lives. He was resurrected to eternal life (Romans 6:9) as the rightful heir, seated beside His Father in heaven (Hebrews 12:2, Philippians 2:9-11), and will one day establish His kingdom on earth (Revelation 11:15).

Finally, “It shall be established forever like the moon, and the witness in the sky is faithful” (v.37) concludes this trio of illustrations by pointing to the moon as a second heavenly sign of God’s steadfast promise. Like the waxing and waning of the moon, the Davidic throne would remain a fixed feature in God’s design. In the ancient Near East, the moon was a visible reminder of the divine order, showing up night after night without fail. It is programmed into reality and does not change. Similarly, the throne of David is part of God’s redemptive program. By paralleling David’s throne to this nightly appearance of the moon, the psalmist magnifies the throne’s permanency.

Referring to the witness in the sky as faithful underscores that God’s covenant cannot be muffled or undone by human failings. In Israel’s later history, its rulers did suffer collapses, exiles, and slavery to foreign conquerors. Yet the promise lingered like the moon overhead, a beacon that the Davidic line still had a divinely promised future. For generations, believers in Israel read this psalm and clung to the belief that the Lord’s oath would outlast every earthly setback.

The New Testament clarifies this enduring witness through Jesus, the “bright morning star” (Revelation 22:16). Just as the moon reflects the sun’s light, the Messiah’s kingdom reflects the Father’s glory. At His first coming, Jesus endured the rejection of the world and the humiliation of the cross in obedience to His Father, earning the reward of rulership of the earth (Hebrews 1:5, 1:8, 1:13). In His second coming, He will establish this everlasting rule in the Messianic kingdom, and then in the new heavens and new earth (Revelation 21:1-3). Thus, Psalm 89:35-37 links the unbreakable Davidic covenant with the faithful testimony of the sun and moon-steadfast beacons that mirror God’s own faithfulness-and finds its glorious partial fulfillment in Christ’s first coming, with its final fulfillment secured in His victorious return.