Those great and eminently spiritual men who produced this and the like Psalms, plainly saw that such great and important matters could not be managed and governed by any human wisdom or human counsels; and therefore they wished to pen forms of prayer of this kind for the safety of magistrates and transmit them to posterity. For such prayers as these were especially necessary for the people of God at that time, when David and other godly rulers after him, were continually exercised with new enemies and new afflictions, and those the most severely distressing.—Therefore all Kings and Rulers are fools who do not seek for, and expect, the happy government and the success of their affairs from heaven. This Psalm belongs to the second commandment, as do all the other supplicatory Psalms; for it contains a calling upon the name of the Lord. And it belongs also to the third petition of the Lord’s Prayer, where we pray that the will of God, not of the devil, may be done. PSALM XXI. _A thanksgiving for victory.—Confidence of further success._ To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The king shall joy in thy strength, O Lord: and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice! Thou hast given him his heart’s desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips. Selah. For thou preventest him with the blessings of goodness: thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head. He asked life of thee, _and_ thou gavest _it_ him, _even_ length of days for ever and ever. His glory _is_ great in thy salvation: honour and majesty hast thou laid upon him. For thou hast made him most blessed for ever: thou hast made him exceeding glad with thy countenance. For the king trusteth in the LORD; and, through the mercy of the Most High, he shall not be moved. Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies; thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee. 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. Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men. For they intended evil against thee; they imagined a mischievous device, _which_ they are not able _to perform_: 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.