Read
Psalm 89:40
You have broken down all his hedges. You have brought his strongholds to ruin.
38But you have rejected and spurned. You have been angry with your anointed.
39You have renounced the covenant of your servant. You have defiled his crown in the dust.
40You have broken down all his hedges. You have brought his strongholds to ruin.
41All who pass by the way rob him. He has become a reproach to his neighbors.
42You have exalted the right hand of his adversaries. You have made all of his enemies rejoice.
Notice
Broken hedges and ruined strongholds make this lament unsettling: the king’s defenses have fallen, and the speaker names God as the one who broke them.
Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.
What feels exposed in your life when you read about the king’s broken defenses?
Write on thisWhat is hard for you about hearing God addressed as the one who brought ruin?
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Where else Scripture says this
10 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.
This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
Psalm 80:12Why have you broken down its walls, so that all those who pass by the way pluck it?Both prayers address God over broken protective boundaries, describing the exposure that follows when walls or hedges are torn down.
Lamentations 2:5The Lord has become as an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces. He has destroyed his strongholds. He has multiplied mourning …Both passages attribute the destruction of strongholds to God, making that destruction the subject of lament.
Lamentations 2:2The Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob without pity. He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He has brought …Both passages describe God bringing down strongholds, with the surrounding psalm and Lamentations also naming the humiliation of royal authority.
Isaiah 5:5–6Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge, and it will be eaten up. I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled …Both texts describe God removing protective boundaries: the psalm laments broken hedges, while Isaiah announces the removal of a vineyard’s hedge.
Job 1:10Haven’t you made a hedge around him, and around his house, and around all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his substance …A hedge represents protection in both texts: Job describes God establishing it, while the psalm laments God breaking it down.
Psalm 60:2You have made the land tremble. You have torn it. Mend its fractures, for it quakes.Both prayers address God as the one responsible for destruction; Psalm 60 adds a plea for repair.
2 Chronicles 15:5In those times there was no peace to him who went out, nor to him who came in; but great troubles were on all the inhabitants of the lands.The shared thread is insecurity: the psalm describes ruined defenses, while Chronicles describes widespread trouble and the absence of peace.
2 Chronicles 12:2–5In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, because they had trespassed against the LORD,The psalm laments ruined royal defenses; Chronicles records an attack on Jerusalem, without identifying it as the psalm’s event.
Lamentations 2:6He has violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were a garden. He has destroyed his place of assembly. The LORD has caused solemn assembly and Sabbath to …Both passages describe God destroying structures, with their surrounding language also naming his anger toward a king.
Revelation 13:1–7Then I stood on the sand of the sea. I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads. On his horns were ten crowns, and on his heads, …The shared thread is limited to royal imagery in the surrounding psalm and the beast’s crowns; the supplied Revelation verse describes no ruined defenses.
Where this verse fits
Feeling distant from God. doubt. fear for the future.
One step
Something small to carry out of this verse
Encouragement
The king’s ruined defenses remain part of a prayer addressed to God. Faith has room for lament that names devastation without offering an explanation.
Now put it in your words.
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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).