Psalms for Turbulent Times - Psalm 21: The king trusts in the Lord

Psalm 21

1    The king shall rejoice in your strength, O Lord;  

how greatly shall he rejoice in your salvation!

2    You have given him his heart’s desire  

and have not denied the request of his lips.

3    For you come to meet him with blessings of goodness  

and set a crown of pure gold upon his head.

4    He asked of you life and you gave it him,  

length of days, for ever and ever.

5    His honour is great because of your salvation;  

glory and majesty have you laid upon him.

6    You have granted him everlasting felicity  

and will make him glad with joy in your presence.

7    For the king puts his trust in the Lord;  

because of the loving-kindness of the Most High,

he shall not be overthrown.

8    Your hand shall mark down all your enemies;  

your right hand will find out those who hate you.

9    You will make them like a fiery oven

in the time of your wrath;  

the Lord will swallow them up in his anger

and the fire will consume them.

10  Their fruit you will root out of the land  

and their seed from among its inhabitants.

11  Because they intend evil against you 

and devise wicked schemes

which they cannot perform,

12  You will put them to flight  

when you aim your bow at their faces.

13  Be exalted, O Lord, in your own might; 

we will make music and sing of your power.



Common Worship: Daily Prayer, material from which is included here,
is copyright © The Archbishops' Council 2005 and published by Church House Publishing.


The psalms we have been reflecting upon in these last days are known as ‘royal psalms’. For they focus on the ideal relationship between a king and God. They are ritual songs celebrating how a good political leader would exercise power knowingly under the gaze of a higher sovereign. These psalms (18, 20 and 21) focus in on a power dynamic which is fascinating – for it is about trust flowing two ways. In other words, it is a covenant of hope. This flow of royal psalms comes to a shuddering halt tomorrow with Psalm 22, just as we enter the deep darkness of another king's story, Jesus. That's our context. The context of Psalm 21 is that it is a song of thanksgiving for a victory granted to a Davidic king, a king who followed in the royal line of David. 



The thing is, the kings of Israel (in the main) failed spectacularly to live up to the prophetic hope of a royal line of just and good rulers. After David and his son Solomon, the kingdom began to fall apart. The northern kingdom (Israel) had a total of nine different dynasties and 19 different kings in its 200 year history. The southern kingdom (Judah) had one dynasty and 12 kings. ‘The Davidic kings failed again and again, and their reigns betrayed the ideal of these psalms,’ says Walter Brueggemann.[1] These 'royal psalms' of petition and prayers of thanksgiving are in some ways a manifesto of how it ‘should be’ rather than a description of what really was. A manifesto of hope which, in this Holy Week, we see fulfilled in King Jesus. Brueggemann helpfully continues with his analysis: ‘But the prophets would pick up on these themes and project them into a future: someday a king would arise who would truly mediate the rule of God (eg Isaiah 7, 9 and 11). The prophetic claim is that royal failure could not undo the promise of God. The Christian claim is that those promises are fully and finally realised in Jesus the Christ. But this fulfilment represents a shift in the divine strategy for the realisation of the promises, for the crown Jesus would wear was made of thorns. The King of the Jews would reign from a tree.’[2]  



Psalm 21 is a song of thanksgiving which flows out of Psalm 20’s petition for help. It is a ritualised song which a monarch, and the people, would say on returning to the Temple following a clear answer to prayer for help against an enemy which threatened the nation. Today, we could read this psalm as a prophetic song of thanksgiving for a future delivery from this vile virus. As we think of the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives are being marred and wounded by illness, loss of life, loss of income, lost of home, loss of direction, loss of hope – how might we yet say with utter confidence:

For the king puts his trust in the Lord;

because of the loving-kindness of the Most High,

he shall not be overthrown.

In the Anglican psalter, a prayer follows each psalm. I love these little prayers. For they help to reinterpret each psalm in the light of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. They help me see the royal reign of Jesus. Here is a reinterpretation worthy of Christ's journey deeper into Holy Week, on this Wednesday when we remember the betrayal of the King by one who did not trust God enough and wanted to wrest control of events in order to propel Jesus to an earthly victory and overthrow. Judas chose a route of power-grabbing for Jesus. Jesus rejected that route. Here is a prayer which highlights Christ's peaceable kingdom, where evil is overcome by the power of good.

Crown us, O God, but with humility,

and robe us with compassion,

that, as you call us into the kingdom of your Son,

we may strive to overcome all evil

    by the power of good

and so walk gently on the earth

with you, our God, for ever.

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[1] A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament © Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1999; p261

[2] P261