Psalm 22:30 says that the people who come after us will serve the Lord, and that the good news of who He is will be passed on to those not yet born. In plain terms, the verse looks ahead: God’s faithfulness is not meant to end with one generation, but to be handed down from parents to children and from one age to the next. The words come from the closing movement of a psalm that begins in desperate anguish and ends in praise, and they are spoken by the psalmist, a worshiper who has been brought through suffering and now speaks to God and to the community gathered around him.
Posterity shall serve him. Future generations shall be told about the Lord.
Psalm 22:30 (WEB)
What Psalm 22:30 Means
The phrase “posterity shall serve him” uses a word that refers to descendants, the ones who will come after the present community has passed away. The psalmist is picturing a line of people who have not yet been born, and he says they too will serve the Lord. Serving here means worshiping and living under God’s rule, not merely knowing about Him. The verse expresses confidence that the faithfulness the psalmist has experienced will not die with him.
The second sentence, “future generations shall be told about the Lord,” describes how that faith travels. It is passed on by telling, by speaking, by stories and testimony repeated in homes and gatherings. The verse does not promise that every descendant will believe, nor does it guarantee a particular outcome for any family. What it offers is a clear hope that God’s deliverance will be remembered and proclaimed across time, and that the work of making Him known will continue after any single voice falls silent.
The Context of Psalm 22:30
Psalm 22 belongs to the Psalms, the collected songs and prayers of Israel that were used in worship. It is traditionally linked with David, though the psalm itself speaks in the voice of a suffering person who feels abandoned and surrounded by enemies. Its first half is raw lament, and the psalm shifts toward thanksgiving and public praise in its later verses. The audience is the worshiping community, the people who gather to sing these words and hear them read.
Just before verse 30, the psalm widens its view to “all the ends of the earth” and “all the families of the nations,” describing a day when the whole world turns to the Lord. Verse 30 narrows back to the next generations, which makes the picture concrete: the hope of the nations is carried forward through real families and real children. Read this way, the verse is not a distant abstraction but a promise about how God’s kingdom grows, one generation telling the next.
Key Phrases in Psalm 22:30
Psalm 78:4
We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, his strength, and his wondrous deeds that he has done.
(WEB)
This verse speaks directly of telling the next generation about the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, which echoes the handing down of faith described in Psalm 22:30. Reading the two together shows that passing on God’s works is a deliberate and ongoing task for each generation.
Deuteronomy 6:6-7
6 These words, which I command you today, shall be on your heart; 7 and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.
(WEB)
These verses instruct parents to teach God’s commands diligently to their children in daily life, at home and on the road. They show what it looks like in practice for future generations to be told about the Lord, through ordinary conversation woven into everyday routines.
A Short Prayer From Psalm 22:30
Lord, you have been faithful to the people who came before me, and I thank you for the ones who spoke of you when I was young. Help me to live in a way that makes you known, both in what I say and in how I treat the people around me. Where I feel my efforts are small or unseen, remind me that you are working across the generations and that nothing given in faith is wasted. Shape the children and friends who are watching me, and let them come to know you as their own God. Amen.
