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 the Creator 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 many in Israel, in which all nations would be subjected to the
authority of national Israel, or in the Creator 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, His God would “give
him majestic splendor” (Psalm 21:5b).
Verse six pulls the
reader back into the framework of covenant and blessings, as it reads, “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” should put the
reader in mind of the Abrahamic and Deuteronomic covenants and blessings.
By being the embodiment of the covenant God’s purposes for Israel---being a
light for the world for the purpose of the Creator God’s glory (which is what the
New Testament insists that Jesus is through believers when they are in union
with Him)---Jesus looks to the promise of being brought into His God’s
presence. This points towards the Resurrection, as when He was brought
forth from the grave, Jesus inaugurates the kingdom of heaven that the Creator God
had long intended to establish on earth, doing so by means of that very
Resurrection, which also serves as the evidence of the overlapping of heaven
and earth that now takes place whenever the Gospel (Jesus is Lord) is spoken
and believed.
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 the Creator God creates a renewed
Israel (covenant people), the covenant blessing is extended to all people,
through the Lordship of Jesus, as He comes to be recognized as the incarnation
and embodiment of the Creator. Jesus
becomes the person and place in which the covenant God brings about one of His
promised blessings, having told His covenant people “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, so they are made to be in their God’s
presence.
Finally, it can be
seen that the faithfulness of Jesus, which has its rooting in what He
understood to be the faithfulness of His God, is the key to His hope. As
Jesus has possibly 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
covenant God to perform a resurrection. Relying on His knowledge of
Israel’s history, Jesus could trust that He would not be upended, and 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 can be 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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