PSALMS 21      Other translations  -  previous  -  next  -  meaning  -  Psalms  -  BM Home  -  Full Page

PSALM 21

To him that presides over the music, a Psalm of David.

1. The king shall be glad in your strength, O jehovah, and in your salvation how greatly shall he exult.
2. You have given him his heart's desire, and have not withheld the request of his lips. Selah.
3. For you present him with the blessings of goodness; you will place a crown of pure gold on his head.
4. He asked life of you, and you have given him length of days for ever and ever.
5. His glory is great through your salvation; glory and honour have you laid upon him.
6. For you make him a blessing forever, you will make him glad with joy before your face.
7. For the king trusts in jehovah, and through the mercy of the most high he shall not be moved.
8. Your hand shall find out all your enemies; your right hand shall find out them that hate you.
9. You shall make them as a fiery oven in the time of your presence; jehovah shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall consume them.
10. Their fruit shall you destroy from the earth, and their seed from the sons of man.
11. For they intended evil against you; they imagined a mischievous device; they have not prevailed.
12. Truly you shall make them turn their back; you shall make ready your arrows upon your strings against the face of them.
13. Be you exalted, O jehovah, in your own strength; we will sing and praise your power.

Verse 1. The king shall be glad in your strength, O Jehovah. There are two things which are predicated of the lord, namely: that he is a king and that he is a priest; king or royalty signifies Holy Truth, priest, or priesthood, signifies Holy Good; the former is the Divine spiritual, the latter the Divine celestial principle. The lord, as a king, governs all and singular things in the universe from Divine Truth, and as a priest, from Divine Good: Divine Truth is the order itself of his universal kingdom, all the laws of which are truths, or eternal verities; Divine Good is the very essential principle of order, all things of which are mercies; both are predicated of the lord; if only Divine Truth was predicable of him, no man could be saved, for Truths condemn every one to hell; but Divine Good, which is of mercy, elevates out of hell into heaven. AC 1728.

Verse 3, 5. You present him with the blessings of goodness, you will set a crown of pure gold on his head; glory and honour have you laid upon him. By the king here is not meant David, but the lord, who is called a king from the Divine spiritual principle which proceeds from his divine humanity; and whereas blessing signifies acknowledgements, glorification and thanksgiving, that all good and truth, and thence heaven and eternal happiness are from him, hence it is evident what is signified by you have prevented him with the blessings of goodness, and by making him blessings for ever; the blessings of goodness signify truths derived from good; a crown of pure gold signifies the good from which those Truths are derived; honour and glory signify Divine Good and Divine Truth. AE 340.

Verse 5. Glory and honour have you laid upon him. These words are spoken of the lord, and by glory and honour upon him is meant all Divine Truth and Divine Good. AE 288.

Verse 10. Their fruit shall you destroy from the earth, and their seed from the sons of man. By the fruit of the ground are signified works of faith without charity; but that such fruit is no fruit, or that the work is dead, and that both the fruit and root perish, is thus declared in Amos: "I destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath;" Amos 2:9; and in David: "Their fruit shall you destroy from the earth, and their seed from amongst the sons of man," Psalm 21:10. AE 448.

Verse 8. Your hand shall find out all your enemies; your right hand shall find out them that hate you. A manifest distinction is here made between hand and right hand, also between enemies and those that hate, which can only be accounted for by the consideration, that hand has reference to the power of divine truth, and right hand to the power of divine good, and that enemies denote those who are opposed to the former, and they that hate denote those who are opposed to the latter.

Verse 13. We will sing and praise your power. These words are expressed in the original Hebrew by two words, which both denote singing, the one probably having reference to the joy or singing of the will, and the other to the delight or singing of the understanding, and both to the marriage of the good and the true, which, we have had occasion to observe as the continual mark of distinction which meets us in almost every page of the sacred collection of the Psalms, and in no Psalm more remarkably than the present, as may be seen by an attentive review of the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth verses.