Have you ever wondered why some of God’s promises seem as though they have failed? What do you do when you wonder, “has God forgotten His promise”? This was the problem Ethan the Ezrahite had. He even asked God how long He would forget His promise. However, the one thing he did throughout this psalm was to praise God even though he was frustrated and disappointed.
Ethan pointed back to the events of 2 Samuel 7. After David had captured Jerusalem, he set about to bring the Ark of the Covenant there. David wanted the Ark there so he could continually seek God and worship Him. David looked at the fine house he had built for himself but was convicted because the Ark was in a tent. He told Nathan the prophet, who had replaced Samuel as advisor to the king, that he wanted to build a house for God. And “Nathan replied to the king, ‘Go ahead and do whatever you have in mind, for the Lord is with you’.” But that night, the Lord spoke to Nathan and told him to return to David with a different message. And that is the message Ethan referred to in this psalm.
We don’t know when Ethan wrote this psalm, but I can easily see it being written after 586 B.C. That was the last year a descendant of David was king. Why was that? Because the earthly promises God made to David and the Israelites was always contingent on their obedience to God’s law.
God was very patient with the Israelites over the years. First, Solomon began building places for his foreign wives to worship, and God split the kingdom after Solomon died because of it. The descendants of David then ruled the kingdom of Judah until 586 B.C. when the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, destroyed Jerusalem and took almost all the remaining people off to Babylon until 536 B.C.
So, Ethan’s problem was twofold. First, he didn’t understand why a descendant of David was not returned to the throne. Second, he did not understand God’s promise and plan. The plan was “your house and your kingdom will continue before Me all the time, and Your throne will be secure forever”. The promise was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, a descendant of David through his son Nathan and down to Mary. Ethan could not know how God would keep His promise, and we cannot always know how God will keep His promises to us. That is what it means to live by faith!