NOTES for Psa 21

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¹The king shall joy in thy strength, O LORD; and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice!

²Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips. Selah.

³For thou preventest him with the blessings of goodness: thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head.

⁴He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him, even length of days for ever and ever.

⁵His glory is great in thy salvation: honour and majesty hast thou laid upon him.

⁶For thou hast made him most blessed for ever: thou hast made him exceeding glad with thy countenance.

⁷For the king trusteth in the LORD, and through the mercy of the most High he shall not be moved.

⁸Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies: thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee.

⁹Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger: the LORD shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them.

¹⁰Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men.

¹¹For they intended evil against thee: they imagined a mischievous device, which they are not able to perform.

¹²Therefore shalt thou make them turn their back, when thou shalt make ready thine arrows upon thy strings against the face of them.

¹³Be thou exalted, LORD, in thine own strength: so will we sing and praise thy power.

Of course, this psalm does not speak only about the king. Were the feelings that filled the royal psalmist experienced by crowned heads alone? Could not everyone who feels grateful to the Lord for His gifts repeat the psalmist's words?

And yet a king has a special ministry. David, who knew both the taste and the temptations of power as well as the responsibility of public service, experienced this too. Many of his subjects repeatedly had to pay for a king's sins and wrongful deeds. But the blessing received by a king also benefited the whole country more than once. It is therefore important that the living bond between a king and the Lord should not be broken or degenerate into empty ritualism.

Other notes

For

²Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips. Selah.

³For thou preventest him with the blessings of goodness: thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head.

⁴He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him, even length of days for ever and ever.

⁵His glory is great in thy salvation: honour and majesty hast thou laid upon him.

⁶For thou hast made him most blessed for ever: thou hast made him exceeding glad with thy countenance.

⁷For the king trusteth in the LORD, and through the mercy of the most High he shall not be moved.

⁸Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies: thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee.

⁹Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger: the LORD shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them.

¹⁰Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men.

¹¹For they intended evil against thee: they imagined a mischievous device, which they are not able to perform.

¹²Therefore shalt thou make them turn their back, when thou shalt make ready thine arrows upon thy strings against the face of them.

¹³Be thou exalted, LORD, in thine own strength: so will we sing and praise thy power.

A prophetic psalm, astonishing in its detailed description of the coming sufferings of the Son of David. It is no accident that its words will be heard on Golgotha.... Read more

A prophetic psalm, astonishing in its detailed description of the coming sufferings of the Son of David. It is no accident that its words will be heard on Golgotha.

What inspired the psalmist to compose this psalm? Was it direct prophetic insight, or did the bitter experience of his own calamities and humiliations suggest to him wholly unexpected images that became reality centuries later?

But the psalm speaks not only of the coming sufferings and crucifixion of the persecuted Righteous One. Amid the pain, praise of the Lord rings out unexpectedly yet naturally. It contains not only a wish for earthly suffering to cease and for the poor to be fed, but also a prophetic wish of eternal life for those who seek the Lord. And there is another prophecy, one that began to be fulfilled after Golgotha: that at all the ends of the earth the Gentiles will come to know the Lord and will come to Him.

It is hardly an accident that the beginning of the psalm contains the note “at the appearance of the dawn.” Although this is an ordinary instruction to the psalm’s performers, these words allow us to imagine not only early morning in Jerusalem, but also the dawn of the Resurrection.

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