Psalm 21

To the chief musician,
A Psalm of David.

1 The king shall joy in thy strength, O LORD;
and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice!
2 Thou hast given him his heart's desire,
and hast not withholden the request of his lips. Selah.
3 For thou preventest him with the blessing of goodness;
thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head.
4 He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it to him,
even length of days for ever and ever.
5 His glory is great in thy salvation;
honour and majesty hast thou laid upon him.
6 For thou hast made him most blessed for ever;
thou hast made him exceedingly glad with thy countenance.
7 For the king trusteth in the LORD,
and through the mercy of the most High he shall not be moved.

8 Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies;
thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee.
9 Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger;
the LORD shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them.
10 Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth,
and their seed from among the children of men.
11 For they intended evil against thee;
they imagined a mischievous device, which they are not able to perform.
12 Therefore shalt thou make them turn their back,
when thou shalt make ready thine arrows upon thy strings against the face of them.

13 Be thou exalted, LORD, in thine own strength;
so will we sing and praise thy power.

JW: A thanksgiving for blessings received, ver. 1-6; an expression of confidence in God, ver. 7-13.

The subject of this psalm is the same with the former, both being made for the peoples use, concerning the king. Only the prayers there used are here turned into praises for the blessings received in answer to their prayers. And as David was an illustrious type of Christ, so in many of these expressions he looks beyond himself to Christ, in whom they are properly, and fully accomplished.

3: 'Prevent' - Crowning him with manifold blessings, both more and sooner than he expected.

4: 'For ever' - Thou gavest him a long life and reign here, and after that didst translate him to live with thee for ever. But this was more eminently fulfilled in Christ, who asked of his father, life, or to be saved from death, Heb. 5.7, though with submission to his will: but his father, though he saw it necessary to take away his temporal life, yet instantly gave him another, far more noble, even the perfect possession of an everlasting life both in his soul and body, at his right hand.

5: 'Glory' - his fame or renown. 'Salvation' - by reason of those great and glorious deliverances which thou hast wrought both for him, and by him.

11: 'Thee' - against God, not directly, but by consequence, because it was against David, whom God had anointed, and against the Lord's people, whose injuries God takes as done to himself.

'Prevent' meant something quite different in the time that the King James was written and even when Wesley was writing than it does today. When you hear 'prevent' you're likely to conjure up the idea of keeping something from happening. Hence, it often carries with it a negative aspect in that an action is taken in order to avoid a certain situation or consequence. Now in some sense, this was true even in the 17th and 18th century English usage, but then there was often a positive sense, which we see in the case here. 'Prevent' literally has a positive sense, "Go before." If you're familiar with the theology of the Wesleys in any way, you're likely aware that we are immediately taken to 'prevenience' or 'prevenient grace.' John Wesley more frequently termed it 'preventing grace.' It's the grace that goes before. And here it went before the king, crowning him with manifold blessings, both more and sooner than he expected. Has God not done something similar to you? to me? to us? Take note of this: the blessing is older than and went before the curse. That's good news!

I wonder if St. Paul had this Psalm in mind, particularly verse 5, when he said the following: Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Gal. 6.14). My mind was also brought to the last stanza of 'How Deep the Father's Love for Us':

I will not boast in anything,
No gifts, no power, no wisdom,
But I will boast in Jesus Christ,
His death and resurrection.

Wesley equated 'glory' in verse 5 with 'fame' or 'renown.' Our fame, our glory, our boast is only in God's salvation. It came from above, not from within ourselves. But the thing I believe we can do in light of this is to receive the honor and majesty that God has graced us with instead of groveling in our past sins. We should always have a readiness to repent, but if we only look to the past, then we will miss out on the future to which Christ wants to take us. That future is honor and majesty, for Christ has brought us into his royal lineage. Praise be unto God!

I also like what Wesley says on verse 11, that God takes actions done against his people as actions done against him. I think St. Paul was aware of this: Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? I would imagine that the cross plays into this too. Christ, after all, was not just bearing our sins, but our pains, infirmities, and so on.