A manual of the book of Psalms · Martin Luther
PSALM XXI.
Therefore shalt thou make them turn their back, _when_ thou shalt make ready _thine arrows_ upon thy strings against the face of them. Be thou exalted, LORD, in thine own strength: _so_ will we sing and praise thy power. This is a prophecy concerning the kingdom of Christ;—that his kingdom shall be temporal and eternal. The beginning of the Psalm gloriously predicts that it shall come to pass that this king and this people shall rejoice in this kingdom, and that the glory of it shall be great. But you must understand that all this will be, not before the world or according to the flesh, but in God. For Christ entered into glory through the flesh and by the cross. This Psalm foretels also that this kingdom, that is, the Church of Christ, although afflicted before the world, shall be enriched with spiritual blessings and glorified; and that this word of grace and the remission of sins, this joyful and all-sweet Gospel shall be diffused abroad among all nations, and that the godly and those that believe, shall rejoice and be glad, and exult in it with a full and perfect joy, which no creature shall be able to destroy or to take away.
On the other hand, David shews that the Jews who opposed this counsel of God, and the whole of their kingdom should be destroyed by the awful judgment of God, “Thou shalt make them (says he) to turn their back;” that is, because that people opposed themselves to the Gospel, and crucified Christ, thou shalt afflict them with heavy calamities; and, having rejected the people destroyed their kingdom, and having done away with, and abrogated the whole of their law and worship for which they so furiously fight, thou shalt reduce them to a miserable slavery, so that they shall be oppressed under a foreign yoke and laws, and shall thus suffer the punishment due to their sins. This Psalm belongs to the first commandment, and to the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer: for it foretells of a people that should not be under the law of Moses, but in a kingdom of rejoicing and thanksgiving, and it speaks of a new manner of worship.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.