1 Jehovah, in Thy strength the king rejoices,
And in Thy salvation how greatly he exults!
2 The desire of his heart Thou hast given to him,
And the request of his lips Thou hast not refused.
3 For Thou meetest him with blessings of good;
Thou settest on his head a crown of pure gold.
4 Life he asked from Thee; Thou gavest it to him,
Length of days for ever and ever.
5 Great is his glory through Thy salvation;
Honour and majesty Thou layest upon him.
6 For Thou dost set him [to be] blessings for ever,
Dost gladden him in joy with Thy face.
7 For the king trusts in Jehovah,
And in the loving-kindness of the Most High he shall not be moved.
8 Thine hand shall reach towards all thy foes;
Thy right hand shall reach all thy haters.
9 Thou shalt make them as a furnace of fire at the time of thine
appearance (face);
Jehovah in His wrath shall swallow them up: fire shall devour
them.
10 Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth,
And their seed from the sons of men.
11 For they cause evil to hang over thee;
They meditate mischief: they will achieve nothing.
12 For thou shalt make them turn their back,
On thy bowstrings wilt aim [arrows] at their faces.
13 Lift Thyself up, Jehovah, in Thy strength;
We will sing and harp, [praising] Thy might.
This psalm is a pendant to the preceding. There the people prayed for
the king; here they give thanks for him: there they asked that his
desires might be fulfilled; here they bless Jehovah, who has
fulfilled them: there the battle was impending; here it has been won,
though foes are still in the field: there the victory was prayed for;
here it is prophesied. Who is the "king"? The superscription points to
David. Conjecture has referred to Hezekiah, principally because of his
miraculous recovery, which is supposed to be intended in ver. 4.
Cheyne thinks of Simon Maccabæus, and sees his priestly crown in ver.
3. But there are no individualising features in the royal portrait,
and it is so idealised, or rather spiritualised, that it is hard to
suppose that any single monarch was before the singer's mind. The
remarkable greatness and majesty of the figure will appear as we read.
The whole may be cast into two parts, with a closing strain of prayer.
In the first part (vv. 1-7) the people praise Jehovah for His gifts to
the king; in the second (vv. 8-12) they prophesy to the king complete
victory; in ver. 13 they end, as in xx., with a short petition, which,
however, here is, in accordance with the tone of the whole, more
jubilant than the former and less shrill.
The former psalm had asked for strength to be given to the king; this
begins with thanks for the strength in which the king rejoices. In the
former the people had anticipated triumph in the king's salvation or
victory; here they celebrate his exceeding exultation in it. It was
his, since he was victor, but it was Jehovah's, since He was Giver of
victory. Loyal subjects share in the king's triumph, and connect it
with him; but he himself traces it to God. The extraordinarily lofty
language in which Jehovah's gifts are described in the subsequent
verses has, no doubt, analogies in the Assyrian hymns to which Cheyne
refers; but the abject reverence and partial deification which these
breathe were foreign to the relations of Israel to its kings, who were
not separated from their subjects by such a gulf as divided the great
sovereigns of the East from theirs. The mysterious Divinity which
hedges "the king" in the royal psalms is in sharp contrast with the
democratic familiarity between prince and people exhibited in the
history. The phenomena common to these psalms naturally suggest that
"the king" whom they celebrate is rather the ideal than the real
monarch. The office rather than the individual who partially fulfils
its demands and possesses its endowments seems to fill the singer's
canvas. But the ideal of the office is destined to be realised in the
Messiah, and the psalm is in a true sense Messianic, inasmuch as, with
whatever mixture of conceptions proper to the then stage of
revelation, it still ascribes to the ideal king attributes which no
king of Judah exhibited. The transcendant character of the gifts of
Jehovah enumerated here is obvious, however the language may be pared
down. First, we have the striking picture of Jehovah coming forth to
meet the conqueror with "blessings of goodness," as Melchizedek met
Abraham with refreshments in his hands and benedictions on his lips.
Victory is naturally followed by repose and enjoyment, and all are
Jehovah's gift. The subsequent endowments may possibly be regarded as
the details of these blessings, the fruits of the victory. Of these
the first is the coronation of the conqueror, not as if he had not
been king before, but as now more fully recognised as such. The
supporters of the Davidic authorship refer to the crown of gold won at
the capture of Rabbath of Ammon, but there is no need to seek
historical basis for the representation. Then comes a signal instance
of the king's closeness of intercourse with Jehovah and of his
receiving his heart's desire in that he asked for "life" and received
"length of days for ever and ever." No doubt the strong expression for
perpetuity may be paralleled in such phrases as "O king, live for
ever," and others which are obviously hyperbolical and mean not
perpetual, but indefinitely protracted, duration; but the great
emphasis of expression here and its repetition in ver. 6 can scarcely
be disposed of as mere hyperbole. If it is the ideal king who is
meant, his undying life is substantially synonymous with the
continuance of the dynasty which 2 Sam. vii. represents as the promise
underlying the Davidic throne. The figure of the king is then brought
still nearer to the light of Jehovah, and words which are consecrated
to express Divine attributes are applied to him in ver. 5. "Glory,"
"honour and majesty," are predicated of him, not as if there were an
apotheosis, as would have been possible in Assyrian or Roman flattery,
but the royal recipient and the Divine Giver are clearly separated,
even while the lustre raying from Jehovah is conceived of as falling
in brightness upon the king. These flashing emanations of the Divine
glory make their recipient "blessings for ever," which seems to
include both the possession and the communication of good. An eternal
fountain of blessing and himself blessed, he is cheered with joy which
comes from Jehovah's face, so close is his approach and so gracious to
him is that countenance. Nothing higher could be thought of than such
intimacy and friendliness of access. To dwell in the blaze of that
face and to find only joy therein is the crown of human blessedness
(Psalm xvi. 11). Finally, the double foundation of all the king's
gifts is laid in ver. 7: he trusts and Jehovah's loving-kindness
gives, and therefore he stands firm, and his throne endures, whatever
may dash against it. These daring anticipations are too exuberant to
be realised in any but One, whose victory was achieved in the hour of
apparent defeat; whose conquest was both His salvation and God's; who
prays knowing that He is always heard; who is King of men because He
endured the cross,--and wears the crown of pure gold because He did
not refuse the crown of thorns; who liveth for evermore, having been
given by the Father to have life in Himself; who is the outshining of
the Father's glory, and has all power granted unto Him; who is the
source of all blessing to all, who dwells in the joy to which He will
welcome His servants; and who Himself lived and conquered by the life
of faith, and so became the first Leader of the long line of those who
have trusted and therefore have stood fast. Whomsoever the psalmist
saw in his vision, he has gathered into one many traits which are
realised only in Jesus Christ.
The second part (vv. 8-12) is, by Hupfeld and others, taken as addressed
to Jehovah; and that idea has much to recommend it, but it seems to go
to wreck on the separate reference to Jehovah in ver. 9, on the
harshness of applying "evil against thee" and "a mischievous device"
(ver. 11) to Him, and on the absence of a sufficient link of connection
between the parts if it is adopted. If, on the other hand, we suppose
that the king is addressed in these verses, there is the same dramatic
structure as in Psalm xx.; and the victory which has been won is now
taken as a pledge of future ones. The expectation is couched in terms
adapted to the horizon of the singer, and on his lips probably meant
stern extermination of hostile nations. The picture is that of a fierce
conqueror, and we must not seek to soften the features, nor, on the
other hand, to deny the prophetic inspiration of the psalmist. The task
of the ideal king was to crush and root out opposition to his monarchy,
which was Jehovah's. Very terrible are the judgments of his hand, which
sound liker those of Jehovah than those inflicted by a man, as Hupfeld
and others have felt. In ver. 8 the construction is slightly varied in
the two clauses, the verb "reach" having a preposition attached in the
former, and not in the latter, which difference may be reproduced by the
distinction between "reach towards" and "reach." The seeking hand is
stretched out after, and then it grasps, its victims. The comparison of
the "fiery oven" is inexact in form, but the very negligence helps the
impression of agitation and terribleness. The enemy are not likened to a
furnace, but to the fuel cast into it. But the phrase rendered in A.V.
"in the time of thine anger" is very remarkable, being literally "in the
time of thy face." The destructive effect of Jehovah's countenance
(xxxiv. 17) is here transferred to His king's, into whose face has
passed, as he gazed in joy on the face of Jehovah, some of the lustre
which kills where it does not gladden. Compare "everlasting destruction
from the face of the Lord" (2 Thess. i. 9). The king is so completely
representative of Jehovah that the destruction of the enemy is the work
of the one fire of wrath common to both. The destruction extends to the
whole generation of enemies, as in the ferocious warfare of old days,
when a nation was wiped off the earth. The psalmist sees in the
extremest vengeance the righteous and inevitable consequence of
hostility condemned by the nature of the case to be futile, and yet
criminal: "They cause evil to hang over thee: they meditate mischief;
they will achieve nothing." Then, in ver. 12, the dread scene is
completed by the picture of the flying foe and the overtaking pursuer,
who first puts them to flight, and then, getting in front of them, sends
his arrows full in their faces. The ideal of the king has a side of
terror; and while his chosen weapon is patient love, he has other arrows
in his quiver. The pictures of the destroying conqueror are taken up and
surpassed in the New Testament. They do not see the whole Christ who do
not see the Warrior Christ, nor have they realised all His work who slur
over the solemn expectation that one day men shall call on rocks and
hills to cover them from "the steady whole of the Judge's face."
As in Psalm xx., the close is a brief petition, which asks the
fulfilment of the anticipations in vv. 8-12, and traces, as in ver. 1,
the king's triumph to Jehovah's strength. The loyal love of the nation
will take its monarch's victory as its own joy, and be glad in the
manifestation thereby of Jehovah's power. That is the true voice of
devotion which recognises God, not man, in all victories, and answers
the forthflashing of His delivering power by the thunder of praise.