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The UK Bible Students Website Christian Biblical Studies |
PSALM TWENTY-ONE
By W.R.
This chapter is quoted from the NIV-UK edition of
1984.
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THIS PSALM IS attributed to King David, and though written from his point of view, its meaning and import goes beyond his own opinions. On the established principle that David is a type of the Messiah-King, it is therefore in its highest application expressive of the sentiments of Christ. Indeed, it forms an introduction into the subsequent Psalm (22), in which Christ’s agony on the cross is presented in all its pathos and hopes for final victory. The complete Psalm appears below, each verse followed by comments on it.
Whenever LORD is in block letters it denotes the Tetragrammaton, the four-letter transliteration of YHWH or JHVH, the sacred name of the Almighty, articulated respectively as Yahweh or Jehovah. Note that the speech is indirect: that is, Christ refers to the LORD as ‘you’ and to himself as ‘he’, showing both separation of identity and also hierarchy (higher vs. lower). The psalm is a paean by the anointed king to the omnipotent king. The same separateness of Jehovah and Christ is illustrated by Psa. 110: 1 (written from David’s point of view as an observer): ‘The LORD says to my Lord . . .’, wherein Jehovah promises to enlarge Christ’s authority and bring him victory over his enemies.
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Addressing Jehovah, Christ simultaneously identifies himself as ‘the king’ and subordinates himself to the LORD Almighty, of whom there is and can ever be only one. It is in the strength of Jehovah that Christ finds his own needed strength, especially during his crucifixion experiences, the time of his greatest test.
2. You have granted him the desire of his heart and have not withheld the request of his lips.
Jehovah denied nothing to his only-begotten Son. He anoints him with the holy spirit ‘without limit’ and ‘placed everything in his hands’ (John 3: 34, 35). The relationship between the Father and the Son lies at the heart of the divine plan of the ages, in which God sets forth Christ as the Saviour, faith in whom brings the prospect of salvation.
3. You welcomed him with rich blessings and placed a crown of pure gold on his head.
The Father raises the Son from death and bestows on him the crown of life, the ultimate mode of existence, which is the divine nature: death-proof and self-sustaining, without need of external support, and with an unimaginable array of powers and privileges, second only to the Almighty. In this act, God is the Giver and Christ is the Receiver. (‘You [God] . . . placed . . . on his head.’)
4. He asked you for life, and you gave it to him length of days, for ever and ever.
This verse reinforces the statement of the preceding. It is a pre-echo of the assertion that Jesus makes in John 5: 26: ‘As the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.’ Thus does Christ the King receive life without end.
5. Through the victories you gave, his glory is great; you have bestowed on him splendour and majesty.
Christ’s victories in his first advent were not those expected of him by the disciples or the many hangers-on who yearned for a triumph over the Romans. ‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’ (Acts 1: 6). Those who prayed for a restoration to nationhood were doomed to be disappointed; no doubt many of them were angry that the one in whom they put their trust in this respect had turned out to be a fraud, for selfishness always lashes out when it is frustrated. Perhaps these putative warriors were among those who bellowed ‘crucify him’, when he was presented to them by Pilate, bloodied and bruised. What use was he to them now? Like most people throughout history, they could not see the real ‘splendour and majesty’ of a king who rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. As Isa. 53: 2 puts it, ‘he had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him’. Christ’s greatest triumph, accorded him by the LORD, was his victory over death — the paying of the ransom-price by which he would yet save his people and all humanity from sin and death.
6. Surely you have granted him eternal blessings and made him glad with the joy of your presence.
The eternality of Christ is confirmed by the LORD, the one who had been willing to put him jeopardy, in order that Christ might be exalted: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son . . .’ (John 3: 16). This was not without risk for Christ himself, for in the flesh he was mortal (die-able) and the successful accomplishment of his mission depended on his steadfastness. We catch only a glimpse of this profound mystery of the vast love of the Son, in that he was willing to risk all in order to please the Father, in ‘reverent submission’, as Isaac submitted to Abraham on the altar (Heb. 5: 7). Although we are told in the Scriptures that Christ did indeed suffer, we will never fully comprehend his inner anguish. At his resurrection he was exalted to the right hand of the Father, by the Father, into the eternal ecstasy of his presence, ‘the highest place’ (Phil. 2: 9).
7. For the king trusts in the LORD; through the unfailing love of the Most High he will not be shaken.
Christ’s faith in the Heavenly Father was strong and victorious. Only at his being deserted by God at the cross did he express alarm: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (or ‘left me behind?’) (Matt. 27: 46). He had not anticipated this trauma, but quickly recovered, apparently realising that he must die under the sinner’s (Adam’s) guilt and condemnation as a sinner though not himself a sinner. Shortly after, he declared ‘it is finished’ (John 19: 30). His ransom-sacrifice was paid, its saving merit deposited into the Father’s keeping.
8. Your hand will lay hold on all your enemies; your right hand will seize your foes.
Now a shift in the scene, as Christ looks to the time when the LORD will bring judgements to bear against all who wilfully and scornfully reject him and his anointed King, who will then reign over the earth in righteousness, an event still future.
9. At the time of your appearing you will make them like a fiery furnace. In his wrath the LORD will swallow them up, and his fire will consume them.
In Hebrew parallelism similar thoughts are repeated in similar words: ‘like a fiery furnace’ equals ‘his fire will consume them’. ‘Them’ refers to the incorrigibly wicked. The burning fire refers to the future trouble which will come upon the world in advancing degrees of intensity, which will separate those who can be salvaged from those who cannot.
10. You will destroy their descendants from the earth, their posterity from mankind.
Those who wilfully and persistently refuse to submit to Jehovah’s righteous rule as exercised through Christ in his earthly kingdom will cease to exist (no descendants); they will be cut off in the Second Death, unconscious oblivion (no posterity), for ever. There is no burning hell reserved for anyone.
11. Though they plot evil against you and devise wicked schemes, they cannot succeed.
When Christ walked the earth, the wicked plotted against the LORD by plotting against Jesus. ‘He who hates me hates my Father as well’ (John 15: 23). When Christ died, they then persecuted his followers of the early Church and then on into the Gospel Age, when they continued their persecutions. The LORD himself is inaccessible and therefore unconquerable, but he allows sufficient ambiguity and inscrutability in his methods (such as permitting suffering, evil, and death) as to mislead the reprobate into blaspheming his righteous character, or denying even his existence, as if to goad him into showing himself to answer his accusers (Job 9: 32, 33).
12. For you will make them turn their backs when you aim at them with drawn bow.
The enemies of the LORD will flinch at his every move against them, when he condemns them for their unrighteousness and smites them in their conscience. ‘[Y]ou thought I was altogether like you. But I will rebuke you and accuse you to your face’ Psa. 50: 21).
13. Be exalted, O LORD, in your strength; we will sing and praise your might.
This closing verse rounds out the glorification of the Father by the Son
and his people (‘we’). The strength and might of the LORD will not be measured
in terms of spiteful vengeance, nor in how many people he can destroy, like some
imaginary cosmic warfare, but in how many he will save in the name of
Christ the King. ‘[God] wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of
the truth’ (1 Tim: 2: 4).
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May 2015. You are free to reproduce this commentary without express permission; please acknowledge the source