(To the chief Musician. A Psalm of David.) The king shall joy in thy strength, Jehovah; and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice.
The psalm before this one was a prayer for a King under pressure. This one opens with the answer already in hand.
In this psalm we have the full answer to the desires expressed by the godly in Psalm 20. There we see Christ as the faithful witness for God among His enemies. Here we see Him as the witness for God, exalted over all His enemies (v. 1). Christ in exaltation becomes a witness to the power and salvation of the LORD.
One writer maps the whole psalm in outline.
Psalm 21 — the answer to Psalm 20. (Part 1 is addressed to the LORD.) Verses 1-7: the joy of the faithful in what the king is. (Part 2) Verses 8-12: what you, the king, will do in judgment on men, your enemies. Verse 13: our joy.
The strength the King rejoices in is the LORD's, not His own. One writer marks what that does and does not say about Him.
They look at the Messiah — a wonderful sight — as in the trouble, but only as entering into it. They ask that the desires of His heart be granted Him. So we have the King rejoicing with the LORD's strength — not the Son who is one with the Father. We have them looking at the LORD's dealings with the King, not us in Him... It is "the LORD saves His Messiah," that is, known in resurrection.
The salvation named here is God's answer to One who asked for life with death in front of Him.
He had asked life of the LORD (compare Hebrews 5). He gave it Him, but it was length of days for ever and ever, the abiding eternal life of the risen, glorified man. That was the answer to the cry of the suffering Messiah when death was before Him... His glory is great in this deliverance by the LORD's delight. He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father.
One writer marks the moment that answer came.
The answer to His cry for deliverance did not come in the garden before the cross. God heard Him from the cross, when the work of redemption was finished. How blessed are the words of Psalm 21, spoken prophetically of the Lord Jesus.
The verse reads like a settled fact, yet its full display is still ahead.
Since the Lord Jesus has become true Man in every proper respect, the strength of God is His. In this He rejoices, and in the accomplished salvation of God, which will be shown in full in "the age to come" (v. 1). This is plainly prophetic. It reads as though His heart's desire were already given Him (v. 2). But only when He reigns will it be completely fulfilled.
This gladness belongs to a Man who reached it through the cross and who went ahead of His people.
Jesus now has His heart's desire. For the joy that was set before Him He endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God... Grief once filled the heart of the Man of sorrows until it broke, and His affliction was for our sakes. That grief is now forgotten in the great gladness of the LORD's presence. To know these things is the believer's chief delight. For it is his Saviour and forerunner whom he sees crowned like this.
- Asked — Psalm 20 prayed for the King in trouble. Psalm 21 opens with the answer, so this joy rests on a prayer already granted.
- Received — the King rejoices in strength that is the LORD's. Here He is the Man dealt with by God, not the Son who is one with the Father.
- Raised — the salvation He exults in is life given back when death stood before Him. It is length of days for ever and ever: the life of the risen, glorified Man.
- Reigning — the words read as settled fact. Yet the full display waits for the age when He reigns.
- Shared — the One whom God heard from the cross now wears the crown. To see our Saviour and forerunner there is the believer's chief delight.
Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips. Selah.
Psalm 21 stands as the reply to Psalm 20, where the godly had prayed that God would grant the King the desire of his heart. Here that prayer comes back answered. So who is this King, what did He ask for, and what did He receive?
This verse is not a fresh request. It is a receipt. The people who asked in Psalm 20 now speak of the thing as done.
In Psalm 21 we get the full answer to Psalm 20 and its desires, in the exaltation of Christ. That answer throws light back on the true character of Psalm 20. The faithful remnant longed for one thing: that Jehovah would give the suffering Messiah what His own heart wanted, and would fulfil His requests. Now that Christ is exalted they can say — the Spirit says it for them — You, Jehovah, have given Him His heart's desire, and have not withheld the request of His lips.
The verse closes with "Selah." One writer names the King and gives the word's plain sense:
"The king" here is the subject of Psalm 2… "Selah" means 'pause' or 'meditate'.
The psalm goes on to name what He asked for: life. The answer to that request came after death, not instead of it.
Jesus had asked life in the days of His flesh, and the resurrection was the answer to the request of His lips. Length of days for ever and ever is the portion awarded to Him. In dying obedience He committed His spirit into the Father's hands.
The answer did not take the form most readers expect.
If we compare Hebrews 5:7 and Gethsemane's cry, I think the force of the Psalm will be clear. The answer in the Psalm is not that He was kept from dying. It is life as risen in glory above, made most blessed for ever. God did not spare His life for a time here; He laid honour and great majesty on Him as man, in a higher and more glorious condition.
If everything was already settled in God's purpose, why pray for it?
Christ as a man, though mighty to do all things, asked everything of His Father. Dependence was His perfection. At Lazarus' tomb He asked, knew His Father heard Him always; asked in John 12; asked that the cup might pass. The necessity of an event does not stop asking. Everything in God's purpose will certainly come to pass. Yet He leads people's hearts to ask, and that asking morally fills out their relationship with Him. In Christ, as man, this was perfect.
Why was nothing refused Him? Look at the One who was doing the asking.
His exaltation is a witness that every desire of the heart of Christ agreed with the thoughts of God. That is why the godly say, "You have given Him His heart's desire, and have not withheld the request of His lips."
Set what men did to Him beside what God has done for Him.
At the hands of men His days were shortened; at the hands of God He is given length of days for ever and ever. They heaped upon Him shame and dishonour; God has given Him glory, honour and majesty. Men filled His path with trial and sorrow. God has blessed Him for ever, and made Him glad beyond measure with His own favour.
The verse sets His asking beside His answer. That makes it a model of prayer that works.
But here is One fully proved and perfectly trustworthy — "You have given Him His heart's desire, and have not withheld the request of His lips." Nothing could be simpler! "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you" (John 15:7). That is definite enough, and simple — a perfect account of prevailing prayer. His words form the desires and govern the heart; the will is perfect and so the prayer prevails. Christ the Lord, even upon the throne, is an Example for us, exceptional only as His perfection is exceptional.
One writer follows the same asking and answering into what the Son asked for His own people.
In John 17:24, the Son presents to the Father His desires for those whom the Father had given Him: "Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world." The Son knows that His Father's eternal love would give Him His heart's desire, and would not withhold the request of His lips.
- Asked — He asked life, and the request was not withheld. His dependence in asking was His perfection as a man, though God's purpose was already certain.
- Answered — not rescue from dying, but resurrection. He received length of days for ever and ever, having committed His spirit into the Father's hands.
- Accepted — nothing was refused Him because nothing in His heart was out of step with God's thoughts. His exaltation proves it.
- Applied — the same principle works in us: when His words shape our desires, our asking prevails. He is our Example, exceptional only in His perfection.
- Extended — His heart's desire reached past Himself. He asked that His own be with Him where He is, to see His glory.
For thou hast met him with the blessings of goodness; thou hast set a crown of pure gold on his head.
Psalm 21 answers the prayer of Psalm 20. What that psalm asked for the King, God has now granted. Verse 3 stands at the centre of that answer — God does not merely reply to the King, He comes out to meet Him, and crowns Him.
Older translations read the first half of the verse as "you prevent him with the blessings of goodness." That word "prevent" once meant something different:
"To go before," to anticipate (from the Latin praevenio), "to come before."
So God arrives before He is even asked. One writer sees more here than a granted request:
In Psalm 21 we get the full answer to Psalm 20 and its desires: the exaltation of Christ. That exaltation throws its light back on the true character of that psalm... More than that — Jehovah met Him with free and willing love, with the blessing of goodness, and crowned Him in glory.
The blessings are not just pleasant things handed over. They carry the character of the One giving them:
You cannot measure the "goodness of God" in human terms. It holds all that is generous, joyful and loving. It expresses what He Himself is — for God is good... In the same way, our portion is centred in One who is always the Object of God's pleasure and delight — the One the Psalmist spoke of in advance in this verse.
Commentators differ on what the gold pictures. Where the ESV reads "fine gold," these writers use an older translation reading "pure gold." One takes the purity as moral, and ties it to how long the reign lasts:
His crown is one of "pure gold" (v. 3); that is, of unsullied righteousness; and therefore His kingdom such as will last (Heb. 1:8-9); "length of days for ever and ever" (v. 4).
Another reads it as the glory of God itself, and makes the crown a statement about why this King reigns at all:
God meets Him with blessings that are truly blessings: He sets a crown of pure gold on His head. What is this but the glory of God, which He, now enthroned, is to bring about? For this was the desire of His heart... This is the very meaning of His reign. Sin entered by man, to God's dishonour; so by man also the evil shall be undone, to His eternal praise.
One writer sets this crown against another crown:
The desire of His heart is fulfilled, as it will be when God sets the royal crown of pure gold on His head — the head that was once crowned with thorns. He had gone down into the jaws of death, and then received life — yes, eternal life. He received it as the head of the new creation, which shares this life He has received.
The crowning is God's public answer to what men did to Him:
In resurrection He is granted His heart's desire. He is sitting at God's right hand with "a crown of pure gold on His head." He has received what He asked of God, "even length of days for ever and ever."... Men took His life from the earth. But God has answered men by raising Him from the dead, and there He lives in the power of an endless life (Heb. 7:16).
The verse is not only about Him. Those who trust Him are looking at the One who went ahead of them:
The blessings of goodness come out to meet, with perfect favour, the acceptable Man who rests on the Father's throne. Grief once filled the heart of the Man of sorrows until it broke, and His suffering was for our sakes. That grief is now forgotten in the overwhelming gladness of Jehovah's face. To know these things is the believer's chief delight. For the One he sees crowned is his Saviour and forerunner.
- Met — God does not wait to be asked. The older word "prevent" means to go before, to anticipate. God comes out to meet the King with blessings before He asks.
- Goodness — the blessings carry what God is: generous, joyful and loving, because God is good. The gift and the Giver have the same character.
- Gold — one writer reads the pure gold as unsullied righteousness, so the kingdom lasts for ever. Another reads it as the glory of God, which this King reigns to bring about.
- Thorns — the head that wears this crown is the head men once crowned with thorns. The crowning is God's answer to the cross, given in resurrection.
- Forerunner — the sorrow that broke His heart is now forgotten in gladness. The believer's delight is that the crowned Man is his own Saviour, gone on ahead of him.
He asked life of thee; thou gavest [it] him, length of days for ever and ever.
The King asked God for life. What came back was not a few more years but days without end. Who is this King, and what life is He given — rescue from dying, or something on the far side of death?
The One speaking here does not take life by right. He asks for it. One writer sets that asking beside Gethsemane's cry and follows it through Christ's life.
If we compare Hebrews 5:7 and Gethsemane's cry, I think the force of the Psalm will be clear. The answer in the Psalm is not that He was kept from dying. It is life as risen in glory above, made most blessed for ever. God did not spare His life for a time here. Instead He laid honour and great majesty on Him as man, in a higher and more glorious condition. Christ as a man, though mighty to do all things, asked everything of His Father. Dependence was His perfection. At Lazarus' tomb He asked, and knew His Father heard Him always; He asked in John 12; He asked that the cup might pass. The certainty of an event does not stop the asking. Everything in God's purpose will certainly be done; but He leads people's hearts to ask, as the moral filling up of their relationship with Him. In Christ, as man, this was perfect.
If He asked for life and still went to the cross, how was He heard? One writer points to the resurrection, and finds an earlier stage of the answer too.
God heard Jesus first by an inward deliverance. God enabled Him to take the cup from His Father's hand, and not from the hand of Satan… But He was heard more fully in His resurrection. "He asked life of you; you gave it to him, length of days forever and ever," Psalm 21:4.
The Man whose days were cut short is the Man given endless days. One writer names the puzzle and its solution.
Death, which ends the days of fallen man, becomes the means of prolonging the days of this perfect Man. What a seeming paradox this is! As someone has said, "He is 'cut off from the land of the living'; He is buried, and yet He will live and His days will go on." The resurrection is the glorious answer to this paradox. It is no part of God's pleasure that man should lie under the sentence of death, any more than that he should come under judgment for his sins… So we see the pleasure of the LORD not only displayed in Christ, but secured by Christ.
The phrase is not poetic exaggeration for a long reign. It carries the full weight of the word eternal, and it marks off two different worlds.
Length of days for ever and ever is basic to the truth of eternal life wherever we meet it. The words "eternal" and "everlasting" carry that meaning in themselves. It sets the short span of human life in this world against the eternal relations of those whom God blesses in the resurrection world.
The gift of unending days sits next to the crown of pure gold in the previous verse, and the two belong together.
His crown is one of "pure gold" (v. 3); that is, of spotless righteousness. So His kingdom is one that will last (Heb. 1:8-9): "length of days for ever and ever" (v. 4).
The words can be read at more than one level, and commentators are careful about the difference.
Verse 3 looks back to the very time He was facing death. At that time He asked life from God (Heb. 5:7), and God gave it to Him in resurrection — "length of days forever and ever" (v. 4). In one respect this is true of David too, and of all believers, who are blessed with eternal life in Christ. But the language here has only One in view — One who is King.
- Asked. The King does not seize life; He requests it from God, and that dependence in prayer is His perfection.
- Answered. The reply was not escape from dying but resurrection — He was heard, most fully, when God raised Him.
- Reversed. Death, which ends the days of fallen man, became the very means of prolonging the days of this perfect Man.
- Endless. "Length of days for ever and ever" carries the full sense of eternal: not a long human life, but the resurrection world.
- Shared. His crown of pure gold means a kingdom that lasts. Believers too are blessed with eternal life in Christ — though the verse itself has One King in view.
His glory is great through thy salvation; majesty and splendour hast thou laid upon him.
Psalm 20 was a prayer for the King in trouble. Psalm 21 celebrates the answer, and verse 5 shows what God gave Him: a great glory, with splendor and majesty laid on Him.
Men had rejected this King, and death stood before Him. What He asked God for was life. (Some Bible translations read "in Your salvation" and "honour and majesty" where the ESV reads "through your salvation" and "splendor and majesty".)
In Psalm 21 we get the inspired answer to this godly desire, already anticipated in Psalm 20:3, 6. So here they celebrate, in prophecy, the triumph of the Christ. He has been heard. But now we have His desires explained, His earthly sorrows opened out. Death was before Him. He asked life of Jehovah, and God heard Him. But how, after all? In length of days (as man) for ever and ever. They say to Jehovah, "His glory is great in Your salvation. Honour and majesty You have laid upon Him." In a word, the right hand of God has exalted the rejected Messiah, and set Him in glory and majesty above.
This glory comes through a rescue. One writer ties it to the prayer Jesus prayed when His hour came, and to what faith can see already.
The prayer of Jesus to the Father, when His hour had arrived, was "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you" (John 17:1). This passage sets out the results of His gracious suffering: "His glory is great in Your salvation." The spiritual man can already see this by faith. "We see Jesus crowned with glory and honour" (Heb. 2:9). Great glory is His, whom God has made higher than the heavens.
God places this honour on Him. So which glory does the verse mean? The Son of God never lacked glory of His own.
It is not the intrinsic glory of the Son of God — Himself the Life, the true God and eternal Life (1 John 5:20) — that is here presented. Instead, it displays the Messianic honour that God has laid on the guiltless Sufferer of death as the appointed Heir of all things (Heb. 1:2). Here in particular, this glory appears under the limited, earthly side of Jewish promise. We do well to note the true prophetic character of this Psalm. Yet its subject is Christ glorified, so the eye of Christian faith finds in these verses a rich and full pasture of immediate grace.
Set beside the way men treated Him, each gift in the verse reverses something they did.
The exaltation of Christ also shows God's infinite delight and satisfaction in the One whom men rejected. Men cut His days short; God gives Him length of days for ever and ever. They heaped shame and dishonour on Him; God has given Him glory, honour and majesty. Men filled His path with trial and sorrow. God has blessed Him for ever, and filled Him with gladness by divine favour.
Why is the glory great? Everything in it comes to Him as a gift, and the gift does not stop with Him.
He has gone down into death, and He receives even life itself as the gift of God. That eternal life becomes the portion of the new creation, and He is its Head. In the same way "His salvation" becomes a true salvation of countless people. That is what makes it great indeed, and great His glory. In all these things He is the Representative of others. To be this — the Saviour of multitudes who will adore Him forever — is without question what "His glory is great in Your salvation" means.
One Person links the depths and the glory.
The same blessed Person went down the whole way to the deepest depths because of sin. He is now in the centre of the glory, and supreme in the administration of all the bounty of God. "His glory is great in Your salvation."
And this is not distant news for the reader.
To know these things is the believer's chief delight. For it is his Saviour and forerunner whom he sees crowned in this way.
- Asked — death stood before the King, and He asked God for life. Psalm 21 records the answer to the prayer of Psalm 20.
- Answered — God gave Him life: length of days for ever and ever, and His right hand set the rejected Messiah on high.
- Crowned — God lays honour and majesty on Him. This is not the glory He always had as the Son of God, but Messianic honour for the Heir of all things, and it reverses the dishonour men gave Him.
- Shared — the glory is great because the salvation reaches multitudes. He wears it as the Representative and Saviour of countless people.
- Seen — faith sees Him now: "We see Jesus crowned with glory and honour." The One at the centre of the glory is the One who went to the depths.
For thou hast made him to be blessings for ever; thou hast filled him with joy by thy countenance.
In Psalm 20, God's people pray for their King; in Psalm 21 they celebrate the answer. Verse 6 is its high point: it says what God has made of the King, and where His gladness now comes from.
Facing death, the King had one request.
In Psalm 21 we get the full answer to Psalm 20 and its desires, in the exaltation of Christ... He had asked life of Jehovah (compare Heb. 5). He gave it to Him, but it was length of days for ever and ever, the abiding eternal life of the risen glorified man. That was the answer to the cry of the suffering Messiah when death was before Him... The glory of the Father raised Him from the dead. Jehovah has laid honour and majesty upon Him. He has made Him most blessed for ever and glad with Jehovah's countenance.
This blessing has a price behind it.
Jesus has now His heart's desire. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, despising the shame, and now He sits at the right hand of the throne of God. The world rejected Him. His reward and comfort now are the joy of the Father's presence and the brightness of the glory He has received from Him. God has made Him most blessed for ever.
Commentators differ over how to read the first half of the verse. A note in the margin, and some translations, read that God made Him blessings. He does not only receive blessing; He becomes blessing for others.
Christ is made blessings; not only is He the Blesser, but He is made Blessings for evermore (see Ps. 21:6, margin) and all that is on God's account towards mankind.
Read that way, the verse describes a role He now fills in heaven.
As gone on high, our Lord Jesus Christ is made "blessings for ever" (Psalm 21:6. See New Trans.). As Son over God's House, He is the Administrator of all blessing.
The second half of the verse names the source of His joy.
"You make Him glad with the joy of Your presence." This reminds us of Psalm 16:11, "In Your presence there is fullness of joy." His close fellowship with the Father is a vital reason for His joy.
Where the ESV says "presence," older translations read "your countenance" — God's face.
The "throne" suggests distance, the "face" suggests knowledge and intimacy. Character is declared in the face. For ever God will be showing His perfections to His redeemed people. We will always be learning what kind of God we are dealing with. Psalm 21:6 says: "You have made him exceedingly glad with Your countenance."
Verse 6 is not only about Him.
What follows is one of the few passages in scripture that tells us the Lord's present experience. In worship the Holy Spirit fills the believer's soul with that same experience, because we have "part with Him." (John 13.) ... He is full of gladness. Once a "Man of sorrows," He is now the "Man of joy." We talk of the happiness of heaven. My delight is that there is One there whose joy is, and always will be, beyond that of everyone else.
- Answer — Psalm 21 answers the prayer of Psalm 20. Facing death, the King asked for life. God gave it in resurrection — "length of days for ever and ever."
- Cost — This blessing is what the cross bought. The world rejected Him; now the Father's glory is His settled reward.
- Reach — The margin reads made blessings. He is not only the One blessed; He is the channel through whom every blessing comes.
- Nearness — His gladness comes from a face, not a throne. In God's presence there is fullness of joy, and His people will keep learning who God is for ever.
- Share — Believers have part with Him. The Man of sorrows is now the Man of joy, and worship draws us into His gladness.
For the king confideth in Jehovah and through the loving-kindness of the Most High he shall not be moved.
Psalm 21 celebrates a King already crowned and glad, and verse 7 gives the reason for it all: He trusted. So who speaks these words, and why does a crowned King's safety rest on trust rather than on His own power?
The psalm speaks about the king rather than in his own voice.
As for the Psalms, I do not accept that they are all the words of our Lord. Even in some psalms where His voice is clearly heard, there are other voices too. So in Psalms 20 and 21 we hear the voice of those who pray and give thanks on behalf of Jehovah's Anointed rather than His own voice. At least they express their interest and agreement with His desires, and then acknowledge how all these desires are fulfilled to the very last detail.
Everything listed before verse 7 — the crown, the honour, the endless days — is not handed out at random. This verse names its cause.
This exaltation and blessing is seen as the direct answer to the faithfulness of Christ when He suffered at the hands of men.
Those watching are already sure of a victory that has not yet happened.
This continues the words of the remnant that we had in the previous psalm. They first speak to Jehovah, admitting that they have a full and glorious expectation of the victory of their King, and that He will be established in His kingdom, because He had trusted in Him, His God. (See Psalm 18:2-3; Hebrews 2:13; Hebrews 5:7.)
We might expect trust to belong to the weak, and glory to end the need for it.
Even when He is displayed in His glory we are reminded that the King trusts in the Lord. Such is the true place of Man — dependent on the living God. He recognises too that His remaining unmoved is through the mercy of the Most High. So although the King Himself will be seen, the power behind Him is unseen. This will be true throughout the 1000 years of peace.
The verse does not just say God. It uses a title with its own claim about who governs the earth.
The name El is also used with ELION, and is then translated "the Most High God." Look at the various places where this name is found and you will see that it is God's "millennial name above all idolatrous gods and demons and all power." It is in this character that God is called "possessor of heaven and earth."
Read that way, the King's stability is not a private comfort. The One who owns everything the King will rule stands behind it.
Elsewhere in the Psalms, a wicked man says the very same thing.
A friend at our right hand is a friend at our side, whom we can turn to at any moment. The wicked man, trusting in himself, "says in his heart, 'I shall not be moved'" — only to come under the judgment of the LORD. The godly man, trusting in the LORD at his right hand, can say, "I shall not be moved." And he can say it with complete confidence, for if the Lord says, "I will never leave you nor forsake you," then "we can confidently say, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?'"
Verse 7 is the hinge. Once the King's trust and God's response are settled, the psalm turns to those who set themselves against Him.
In verses 3 to 7, the exaltation of Christ bears witness to the righteous government of God. It is only right that the One who was the faithful witness for God in the middle of evil should be raised to a place of glory. In verses 8 to 12, the judgment carried out on the enemies of Christ bears witness to that same government. It is only right that those who have rejected Christ — the perfect witness for God — should come under judgment. The One whom man rejected is appointed to carry out the judgment.
- Trust first. The crown, honour and long life of verses 1–6 are not the King's achievement. Verse 7 names their cause: He trusted.
- Answer next. Commentators read His exaltation as God's direct answer to His faithfulness while men did their worst.
- Name behind it. "Most High" names the One who owns heaven and earth. The King's safety rests on the One who owns what He will govern.
- Unseen power. Even in open glory the King still trusts. Dependence is the true place of Man, and the power holding Him up stays unseen.
- Two ways to be unmoved. The wicked say "I shall not be moved" out of self-confidence, and they fall. The same words spoken in trust stand — and the psalm moves straight on to judgment for the King's enemies.