Psalms 118:89
For ever, O Lord, thy word standeth firm in heaven.
Open Psalms 118:89 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Lamed In æternum, Domine, verbum tuum permanet in cælo.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, Κύριε, ὁ λόγος σου διαμένει ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 119:89
- לְעוֹלָ֥ם יְהוָ֑ה דְּ֝בָרְךָ֗ נִצָּ֥ב בַּשָּׁמָֽיִם
Haydock's commentary
In heaven. In the faithful angels, (St. Augustine) or Jesus Christ. (Bellanger.)
The promises seem not to have their effect here; but they will in heaven. (Berthier)
The word of God is as unchangeable as heaven. (Calmet)
The psalmist praises God's works, which observe the order established by him. (Worthington)
How then can we doubt but his law and promises shall be accomplished? (Haydock)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Lamed
89. The man who speaketh in this Psalm, as if he were tired of human mutability, whence this life is full of temptations, among his tribulations, on account of which he had above said, “The wicked have persecuted me;” and, “They have almost made an end of me upon earth” ( ver. 89 ); burning with longings for the heavenly Jerusalem; looked up to the realms above, and said, “O Lord, Thy word endureth for ever in heaven;” that is, among Thy Angels who serve everlastingly in Thine armies, without desertion.
St John Chrysostom Homilies on First Corinthians, Homily XXXIX
And this manner of speech one might find also in the Old Testament; as when it is said, “But the word of the Lord abideth for ever;” ( Ps. cxix. 89 .) and, “Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.” ( Ps. cii. 27 .) Now these and such-like things the Prophet saith, when he is telling of things which a long space of time must achieve and which must by all means come to pass; casting out the fearfulness of the duller sort of hearers.
St Athanasius Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.), Texts Explained; Sixthly, Proverbs viii. 22, Continued. Our Lord not said in Scripture to be 'created,' or the works to be 'begotten.' 'In the beginning' means in the case of the works 'from the beginning.' Scripture passages explained. We are made by God first, begotten next; creatures by nature, sons by grace. Christ begotten first, made or created afterwards. Sense of 'First-born of the dead;' of 'First-born among many brethren;' of 'First-born of all creation,' contrasted with 'Only-begotten.' Further interpretation of 'beginning of ways,' and 'for the works.' Why a creature could not redeem; why redemption was necessary at all. Texts which contrast the Word and the works
62. But if He is also called ‘First-born of the creation,’ still this is not as if He were levelled to the creatures, and only first of them in point of time (for how should that be, since He is ‘Only-begotten?’), but it is because of the Word’s condescension to the creatures, according to which He has become the ‘Brother’ of ‘many.’ For the term ‘Only-begotten’ is used where there are no brethren, but ‘First-born’ because of brethren. Accordingly it is nowhere written in the Scriptures, ‘the first-born of God,’ nor ‘the creature of God;’ but ‘Only-begotten’ and ‘Son’ and ‘Word’ and ‘Wisdom,’ refer to Him as proper to the Father. …
St John Damascene An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Concerning the Holy Spirit, a reasoned proof
But should the Jew refuse to accept the Word and the Spirit, let the divine Scripture confute him and curb his tongue. For concerning the Word, the divine David says, For ever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven . And again, He sent His Word and healed them . But the word that is uttered is not sent, nor is it for ever settled. And concerning the Spirit, the same David says, Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created . And again, By the word of the Lord were the heavens made: and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth . Job, too, says, The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life . Now the Spirit which is sent and makes and stablishes and conserves, is not mere breath that dissolves, any more than the mouth of God is a bodily member. For the conception of both must be such as harmonizes with the Divine nature.
St Ambrose On the Holy Spirit, Chapter XII. After proof that the Spirit is the Giver of revelation equally with the Father and the Son, it is explained how the same Spirit does not speak of Himself; and it is shown that no bodily organs are to be thought of in Him, and that no inferiority is to be supposed from the fact of our reading that He hears, since the same would have to be attributed to the Son, and indeed even to the Father, since He hears the Son. The Spirit then hears and glorifies the Son in the sense that He revealed Him to the prophets and apostles, by which the Unity of operation of the Three Persons is inferred; and, since the Spirit does the same works as the Father, the substance of each is also declared to be the same
135. But if you contend that this is an argument for the weakness of the Holy Spirit, and for a kind of likeness to the lowliness of the body, you will also make it an argument to the injury of the Son, because the Son said of Himself: “As I hear I judge,” and “The Son can do nothing else than what He seeth the Father doing.” For if that be true, as it is, which the Son said: “All things which the Father hath are Mine,” and the Son according to the Godhead is One with the Father, One by natural substance, not according to the Sabellian falsehood; that which is one by the property of substance certainly cannot be separated, and so the Son cannot do anything except what He has heard of the Father, for the Word of God endures forever, nor is the Father ever separated from the operation of the Son; and that which the Son works He knows that the Father wills, and what the Father wills the Son …
St Ambrose Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter X. Christ's eternity being proved from the Apostle's teaching, St. Ambrose admonishes us that the Divine Generation is not to be thought of after the fashion of human procreation, nor to be too curiously pried into. With the difficulties thence arising he refuses to deal, saying that whatsoever terms, taken from our knowledge of body, are used in speaking of this Divine Generation, must be understood with a spiritual meaning
63. Thou canst not, then, heretic, build up a false doctrine from the custom of human procreation, nor yet gather the wherewithal for such work from our discourse, for we cannot compass the greatness of infinite Godhead, “of Whose greatness there is no end,” in our straitened speech. If thou shouldst seek to give an account of a man’s birth, thou must needs point to a time. But the Divine Generation is above all things; it reaches far and wide, it rises high above all thought and feeling. For it is written: “No man cometh to the Father, save by Me.” Whatsoever, therefore, thou dost conceive concerning the Father, yea, be it even His eternity, thou canst not conceive aught concerning Him save by the Son’s aid, nor can any understanding ascend to the Father save through the Son. “This is My dearly-beloved Son,” the Father saith. “Is” mark you, He Who is, what He is, forever. …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).