Psalm 21:3

Psalm 21 belongs with the psalm before it. Psalm 20 is a prayer for the king before a battle or a time of national danger, asking God for help and victory. Psalm 21 is the thanksgiving sung afterwards, when the help has come. Read together they show a prayer and its answer, and a God who is faithful to hear his people when they pray for their king.

The heading, “To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David”, names David as the author and hands the psalm to the leader of the music for use in public worship. So this is the thanksgiving of the whole congregation as well as of the king. The salvation it celebrates was most likely a victory over enemies, the kind of deliverance on which the safety of the kingdom depended.

The psalm falls into two parts. Verses 1 to 7 give thanks for what God has already done for the king, and Psalm 21:8–13 looks ahead with confidence to the defeat of his enemies and ends in praise of God’s power.

Kings of the surrounding nations commonly boasted in their own strength and skill, or in the power of their gods. David credits the LORD with everything. The same conviction is in the words “the battle is the LORD’s” (1 Samuel 17:47), and Psalm 20 puts its trust in the name of the LORD (Psalm 20:7). This psalm sings that conviction after the victory.

“The king shall joy in thy strength, O LORD; and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice!” The king is David, the LORD’s anointed, and he speaks to God directly by his covenant name, Yᵉhôvâh. A king has an army, a throne and his own abilities, and David finds his joy in none of them. His joy is in the strength of the LORD.

The word for “rejoice” in the second line, gîyl, means to rejoice or be glad, and its root sense is to spin round under strong emotion. This is gladness that shows. The word for strength, ‘ôz, means strength or might, and here it is God’s own power to act. David calls the LORD his strength in another psalm (Psalm 18:1), and Isaiah sings of God as his salvation and his strength (Isaiah 12:2).

Salvation, yᵉshûwʻâh, is deliverance, and the word takes in rescue, victory and the welfare that follows. Here it means the particular rescue God gave the king and his people from their enemies. Scripture knows the LORD as the deliverer of his people from the crossing of the Red Sea (Exodus 14) onwards. The word comes from the same root as the name Jesus (Yeshua), which ties the rescue David sings about to the greater salvation found in the Messiah.

The two halves of the verse say one thing in two ways, as Hebrew poetry often does. Strength is matched by salvation and “joy” by “rejoice”, and the second half rises to an exclamation, “how greatly”. The joy is great because the salvation was great. Paul asks the same joy of the church: “Rejoice in the Lord alway” (Philippians 4:4).

“Thou hast given him his heart’s desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips.” Psalm 20 had prayed that God would grant the king his heart’s desire (Psalm 20:4), and this verse reports that he has.

The verse names two things. The heart’s desire, taʼăvâh, is a longing or strong desire, the kind a person carries inside and may leave unspoken. The request of the lips is the prayer actually spoken. God answered both. The verb for “given”, nâthan, is the ordinary Hebrew word for giving, and mânaʻ, “withholden”, means to keep back or deny. God gave freely and kept back no part of what the king asked.

Those prayers were most likely for victory, protection and the establishing of the kingdom. The answer was also a sign to the whole nation that God was keeping the covenant he had made with David and his house (2 Samuel 7). The king’s success came from God’s hand, for it is God who brings one down and lifts another up (Psalm 75:6–7).

“He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him, even length of days for ever and ever.” The king prayed for life, chay, which on his lips means his life preserved and a reign that flourishes under God’s blessing. God gave it, and “gavest” is the same verb, nâthan, as “given” in verse 2. Then the verse says how far the gift went: “length of days for ever and ever.”

God’s answer was larger than the request. He has said, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee” (Jeremiah 33:3), and he is able to do far above all that we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20).

“His glory is great in thy salvation: honour and majesty hast thou laid upon him.” Glory, kâbôwd, is honour, splendour and reputation, the standing a king has in the eyes of his people and of the nations. The verse says where it comes from. It is great, gâdôwl, “in thy salvation”, and the word is yᵉshûwʻâh again, as in verse 1. When God delivered the king, the king’s name became great, so his glory is a witness to what God did and returns to God as praise. Isaiah speaks in the same way of Israel saved by the LORD with an everlasting salvation (Isaiah 45:17).

Honour, hôwd, is grandeur and royal dignity, and it is often used of the majesty of God himself. It stands beside hâdâr, majesty, and the pair together give the full splendour of a king. The verb “laid”, shâvâh, has God as its subject. He places these on the king as a gift.

In this Israel’s king differed from the kings around him, who often claimed to be gods or the offspring of gods. Israel’s king was the LORD’s anointed, ruling under him, and every part of his splendour was received. That kept the king humble, and it taught the people to put their final trust in God. Scripture says the same of all rule and honour. God removes kings and sets up kings (Daniel 2:21), he brings low and lifts up (1 Samuel 2:7–8), and it is he who gives kingdoms (Daniel 2:37–38). Honour and life follow humility and the fear of the LORD (Proverbs 22:4), and every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father (James 1:17).

“For thou hast made him most blessed for ever: thou hast made him exceeding glad with thy countenance.” This verse is the high point of the thanksgiving, because it names the gift that stands above the other gifts. The noun behind “blessed” is Bᵉrâkâh, blessing, a word that also covers prosperity. “For ever” is ʻad, perpetuity, which was also part of “for ever and ever” in verse 4. The blessing God has set on the king is lasting, in line with his promise of an enduring house for David (2 Samuel 7).

The gladness is simchâh, joy or mirth, a word often used of the joy of Israel’s festivals. Its source is “thy countenance”. Pânîym means face, and from the face it comes to mean presence. To have God’s face turned toward you is to have his favour and approval, as in the blessing given to Aaron for Israel, “The LORD make his face shine upon thee” (Numbers 6:24–26).

So the king’s deepest gladness is God himself. Victory and prosperity are gifts, and the presence of the Giver is the joy. David says elsewhere that in God’s presence is fulness of joy (Psalm 16:11), and that the light of God’s countenance puts gladness in the heart (Psalm 4:6–7).

“For the king trusteth in the LORD, and through the mercy of the most High he shall not be moved.” The verse opens with “For” and gives the reason for everything before it. Two things stand together in it, the king’s trust and God’s mercy.

To trust, bâṭach, is to be confident in someone and to lean on him for safety. It is an active reliance that shapes what a person does. The king, with all his power, relies on the LORD, and in that he is a pattern for every believer: “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart” (Proverbs 3:5–6).

The mercy is cheçed, God’s steadfast love and loyal kindness, the faithful love with which he keeps his covenant. The king’s security rests finally on this, on the character of the God who keeps his promises. Lamentations confesses the same enduring love in the darkest of days (Lamentations 3:22–23).

Two names of God appear in the verse. “The LORD” is his covenant name, the name of the God who bound himself to Israel and its king. “The most High”, ʻelyôwn, means high or upper, and it is a title of God as the one who is over all. His mercy therefore comes with supreme power behind it.

“He shall not be moved” uses môwṭ, to totter, shake or slip. Thrones in David’s day were threatened by enemies abroad and rebellion at home, and this king stands firm because God holds him. David says of himself in another psalm that he has set the LORD always before him, and so he stands (Psalm 16:8).

David was truly blessed in all these ways, and the language of the psalm is larger than David’s life. “For ever and ever”, “most blessed for ever” and a glory “great in thy salvation” are fully true of one King, Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Prince of Peace whose everlasting reign Isaiah foretold (Isaiah 9:6–7). Each verse finds its completion in him.

Jesus lived in complete dependence on the Father. The strength of the LORD was shown in his triumph over sin, death and every hostile power (Colossians 2:15). He is himself God’s salvation, named Jesus because “he shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21), and his is the only name by which we are saved (Acts 4:12). The king’s joy looks ahead to his joy, for he endured the cross for the joy that was set before him (Hebrews 12:2).

His heart’s desire was to do the will of the Father who sent him (John 4:34). With his lips he prayed for his disciples (John 17:9) and for the glory of the Father’s name (John 12:28). Because his desires were one with the Father’s, all of them are granted. All power in heaven and in earth has been given to him (Matthew 28:18), and the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ (Revelation 11:15).

God went before us in him. He chose his people in Christ before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4), and in Christ all fulness dwells (Colossians 1:19). After his suffering Jesus was “crowned with glory and honour” (Hebrews 2:9), and he bears the name King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16).

He entrusted his life to the Father even to death, and the Father gave him life by raising him. He is the firstborn from the dead (Colossians 1:18) and the resurrection and the life (John 11:25), and his dominion is an everlasting dominion (Daniel 7:14). Length of days for ever and ever is literally his, and he shares it, so that whoever believes in him has everlasting life (John 3:16).

David’s glory was received. Christ is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Hebrews 1:3), with a glory that is his own as the Son, and that glory is displayed in the salvation he accomplished by his life, his death and his resurrection. At his name every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:10–11).

God has anointed him with the oil of gladness, and his throne is for ever and ever (Hebrews 1:8–9). He is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and through him we come into the presence where the fulness of joy is. That road ends in the city where God’s people live in the light of his presence for ever (Revelation 22:3–5).

He trusted the Father perfectly and always did what pleased him (John 8:29). He is the same yesterday, today and for ever (Hebrews 13:8). The mercy of the most High is seen most of all in the God who is rich in mercy giving his Son to redeem us (Ephesians 2:4–5), and those who belong to Christ receive a kingdom that stands unshaken (Hebrews 12:28).

The psalm gives us a way of seeing our own lives. David had a crown, victories, long life and a great name, and he traces every one of them to God. What we have is received in the same way, and seeing that makes room for gratitude in the place where pride would grow. It also lifts from us the weight of securing ourselves. The king is held by the mercy of the most High, and so are all who trust him.

It shows us a God who is ahead of us. Before the king asked, God was already coming to meet him with blessing, and when the king asked for life, God’s gift was larger than the request. That is the God to whom we pray.

And it shows where joy finally lives. The gifts in these verses are many, and the greatest of them is the face of God turned toward his king in favour. In Christ that favour rests on all who are his, so that a believer with little in hand can still be “exceeding glad”. Battles came to David, and they come to us, and the strength that gave him joy is the strength we are given to lean on.