The Ancient Promise

Series on the Psalms

Text: Psalm 21

Title: The Ancient Promise

Introduction

This Psalm is frequently thought to be a response to Psalm 20. The idea is that in Psalm 20 we have a prayer for victory in battle through the king of Israel and then in Psalm 21 we have a celebration of God’s answer to that prayer. This is not impossible as the Psalm begins with a mention of the victories God gives to the king. However, I do not believe that is the real purpose of the Psalm. A careful reading of Psalm 21 suggests to me a totally different theme, even though part of the Psalm is devoted to a declaration of the king’s triumph over his enemies. The conquests of the king are subservient to a greater theme. Psalm 21 is actually a celebration of the covenant of grace as it is epitomized in God’s promise to David. The language is first of all an extraordinary and exalted paean of praise. Secondly, the emphasis on the defeat of all enemies is pursuant to the pregnant idea of eternal blessing that pervades the Psalm for example in verse 6, Surely you have granted him eternal blessings and made him glad with the joy of your presence. In fact verse 7 gives us the reason for declaring the destruction of God’s enemies, namely, that it is an example of God’s unfailing love for David, For the king trusts in the LORD; through the unfailing love of the Most High he will not be shaken. This Psalm is Messianic in the deepest sense of the word. It cannot be understood apart from the unfolding purpose of God in his covenant of grace and its culmination in Christ. In this sense Psalm 21 is more of a preparation for Psalm 22 in which we see the sufferings of the Messiah portrayed, for Psalm 22 is the Psalm Jesus prayed upon the cross and he must also have had in mind Psalm 21 which celebrates God’s faithful promise. Thus we shall look at this Psalm and see the promise of God, the provision of God, and the praise of God.

I. The Promise of God

Verses 1-6 describe the promise, O LORD, the king rejoices in your strength. How great is his joy in the victories you give! You have granted him the desire of his heart and have not withheld the request of his lips. You welcomed him with rich blessings and placed a crown of pure gold on his head. He asked you for life, and you gave it to him-length of days, for ever and ever. Through the victories you gave, his glory is great; you have bestowed on him splendor and majesty. Surely you have granted him eternal blessings and made him glad with the joy of your presence. In verse 1 which introduces the Psalm the King takes joy in the victories God grants because they are symbolic of God’s favor. This becomes clear in verse 2 where David says that God has given him the desire of his heart and the request of his lips. What was the desire of David’s heart? Was it to win a battle? All the battles David won would be meaningless apart from the true desire of his heart. Remember David said he would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. This is a great warrior who would rather write Psalms of worship. This is the man who wrote, In thy presence is fullness of joy, a sentiment by the way which is expressed again in this Psalm in verse 6. No, David’s desire was for God’s purpose to be fulfilled through his house. In II Samuel 7 David desires to build a house for God but God says no, I will build your house. God’s word in verses 11-13 is, The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. David’s prayer in response to this shows his profound consciousness of God’s purpose being fulfilled in Israel. This is the promise of Messiah. Look at II Samuel 7:20-26, What more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Sovereign LORD! For the sake of your word and according to your will, you have done this great thing and made it known to your servant. How great you are, O Sovereign LORD! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears. And who is like your people Israel-the one nation on earth that God went out to redeem as a people for himself, and to make a name for himself, and to perform great and awesome wonders by driving out nations and their gods from before your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt? You have established your people Israel as your very own forever, and you, O LORD, have become their God. And now, LORD God, keep forever the promise you have made concerning your servant and his house. Do as you promised, so that your name will be great forever. David is conscious of the cosmic significance of God’s promise. See Psalm 89:27-29, I will also appoint him my firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the earth. I will maintain my love to him forever, and my covenant with him will never fail. I will establish his line forever, his throne as long as the heavens endure. If you look at Peter’s Pentecost sermon you see something of what David’s hope was in Acts 2: 29-32, Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. J. A. Alexander writes “The lowest sense of God’s promise to David is unbroken succession but that this is not the whole is evident from the extraordinary gratitude expressed by David and from his singular language in II Samuel 7 where it is clear that this is not a personal or even a national assurance, but a universal one concerning the whole race.” David knew that God had said to Abraham, In your seed will all the nations of the earth be blessed. Remember that the author of Hebrews says that when Abraham sacrificed Isaac he believed that God could raise Isaac from the dead in order to keep his promise. It is not that difficult to believe that David also believed that God’s supernatural power would be needed to fulfill the promise that his throne would last forever. This is the reason Matthew begins his Gospel by introducing Jesus Christ as the Son of Abraham and the Son of David and why he traces Jesus genealogy back to David and then to Abraham. The great desire of David is that God’s promise would be fulfilled and that the true joy of creation would be restored through his house. Thus the emphasis on joy and eternal life.

II. The Provision of God

Against this background it is easy to see the significance of verses 7-12, For the king trusts in the LORD; through the unfailing love of the Most High he will not be shaken. Your hand will lay hold on all your enemies; your right hand will seize your foes. 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. You will destroy their descendants from the earth, their posterity from mankind. Though they plot evil against you and devise wicked schemes, they cannot succeed; for you will make them turn their backs when you aim at them with drawn bow. The unfailing love is the covenant love of God for his people. This love cannot be removed and therefore means that David cannot be shaken. He cannot be removed from God’s favor. It is this that provides the rationale for the declarations concerning his enemies into the future. What is described here is their utter destruction. It is not so much a particular description of their fate as it is a celebration in verse 11 that they cannot stand in the way of God’s purpose being fulfilled. What God has promised He is perfectly capable of bringing to pass. Verse 10 is a particularly poignant expression of this because the promise of God to David involved his descendants and one descendant in particular. The posterity of unbelievers is utterly obliterated. This in contrast to the remarkable preservation of David’s posterity following the days of Ahab. In II Chronicles 22 we can read the story of how the seed of David was rescued from Ataliah who was exacting revenge on the whole house of Judah, that is all of David’s descendants. And in verses 11 and 12, But Jehosheba, the daughter of King Jehoram, took Joash son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the royal princes who were about to be murdered and put him and his nurse in a bedroom. Because Jehosheba, the daughter of King Jehoram and wife of the priest Jehoiada, was Ahaziah’s sister, she hid the child from Athaliah so she could not kill him. He remained hidden with them at the temple of God for six years while Athaliah ruled the land. We see the same evidence in Revelation 12 with the dragon pursuing the seed of the woman, but it is not the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the seed of David which is destroyed , but rather the seed of the serpent.

III. The Praise of God

The whole Psalm is a paean of praise to God for his faithful promise but this comes to a climax in v.13, Be exalted, O LORD, in your strength; we will sing and praise your might. God is exalted both in Himself and in the praise of his people. He is acknowledged to be the Lord of the universe, the God who has decreed whatsoever comes to pass, the true and living God who alone has strength and from whom all other strength derives. Thus his people sing of him. The true fulfillment of this is in Christ in whom the triumph is sealed. Ultimately the keeping of God’s promise to David is brought to pass through David’s greater Son, Jesus Christ. This is exactly what Peter preaches on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:29-32, Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.

Summary of Psalm 21

Psalm 21 is David’s extravagant celebration of God’s covenant promise that his descendants would occupy his throne forever. This was the desire of David’s heart for he constantly longed for the fullness of joy which was found in God’s presence. The promise could not be fully satisfied by mere succession to the throne. This joy could only be fully realized in the person of David’s greater son, Jesus Christ. David and his offspring will live forever but the posterity of the enemies of God will be cut off. This amply illustrates the fact that God’s unfailing love will never be removed from David or from any of his elect people. As Israel praises God as the only true source of strength so also we praise God for his mighty arm that has redeemed us through His Son Jesus Christ alone.