As we move on to the fifth verse of this Psalm, we read “Your deliverance brings him great honor” (21:5a). Similar to the way in which “blessings” would have carried a specific connotation for the Psalmist and the people of Israel, the use of “deliverance” would have a deliberate reference attached to it as well. “Deliverance,” when used by the people of Israel, pointed to exodus---to redemption. Again, we are not to approach these words on our own terms, informed by twenty-first century mindsets. We must take the contextual approach that goes beyond the use of language, making every attempt to understand the terminology in its historical, philosophical, theological, political, cultural and social setting as well, with no disconnect between any of those things.
For Israel, “deliverance” was deliverance from exile. God delivered His people from Egypt. God delivered His people from a variety of oppressors through the time of the Judges. Exile was more than just being away from their land. The idea of exile included God’s people not ruling themselves in their own land. Because of that, we can take this concept forward into His own day, as Jesus would have done, building on Ezra and Nehemiah’s declarations that the exile was continuing even though God’s people had returned to their land, and realize that the people of Israel still saw themselves as a people in exile. This ongoing conception of exile from God’s blessings was the impetus behind the attempts at revolution in the centuries leading up to, and the century following Jesus’ life, death, and Resurrection.
Part of the anticipation for their messiah, which was connected with the vision of Daniel and the four hundred ninety years attached to that vision that would culminate with the coming of the messiah, was that the messiah, their king (Son of God, Son of Man, Son of David---all kingly terms that would eventually be vested with divine significance because of the post-Resurrection realization, by His disciples, that Jesus had been the physical embodiment of God in His saving action on behalf of His chosen people) would bring Israel’s long exile to an end once and for all. As it is related to the first part of verse five, the deliverance that would bring the king honor can be readily understood as the deliverance from exile that God would work through His people’s messiah-king, as that which would bring that king great honor. Indeed, in making it so all nations would submit to Israel’s king, whether it would be in the subservient way envisioned and expected by Israel in which all nations would be subjected to the authority of national Israel, or in God’s kingdom plans in which Israel’s king would be a king for all peoples with the barriers between Jew and Gentile (as well as all other social barriers) torn down, God would “give him majestic splendor” (21:5b).
Verse six pulls us back into the framework of covenant and blessings, as we read, “For You grant him lasting blessings; You give him great joy by allowing him into your presence” (21:6). Once again, the use of “blessings” puts us in mind of the Abrahamic and Deuteronomic covenants and blessings. By being the embodiment of God’s purposes for Israel---being a light for the world for the purpose of God’s glory (which is what Jesus is through us when we are in union with Him)---Jesus looks to the promise of being brought into God’s presence. This points towards the Resurrection, as when He was brought forth from the grave, Jesus entered into the kingdom of heaven that God had established and inaugurated on earth by that very Resurrection. Because it will then be through acknowledgment of Jesus as King and Lord of all peoples (the Gospel), and of all creation as well, that God creates a renewed Israel (covenant people), the covenant blessing is extended to all people, through the Lordship of Jesus, as we see Him as God, and as God says, “I will walk among you, and I will be your God and you will be My people” (Leviticus 26:12). All that are in union with Jesus are said to be kings and priests to God, and in this promise of being with His people, we are made to be in God’s presence.
Finally, we can see that the Spirit-gifted faithfulness of Jesus, and its rooting in the faithfulness of God, is the key to His hope. As Jesus has taken this Psalm to heart, He would have read, “For the king trusts in the Lord, and because of the Sovereign One’s faithfulness he is not upended” (21:7). As He journeyed through His ministry, towards the encounters and confrontations that would ultimately lead to the death that He knew He must undergo on behalf of His people, Jesus would trust in the faithful God to perform a resurrection. He trusted that He would not be upended, that He would not be permanently laid down, but that in His Resurrection, and in the proclamation of His Gospel, that the world itself would be upended---turned upside down as we read in Acts, and that because of His faithfulness, a new age would dawn. Truly, this is a Psalm of the King.
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