Paraphrase Upon the Books of the Psalms, Book 1 · Psalm 21
The Twenty First Psalm.
TO the |Prefect of his Musick.chief Musitian, a Psalm of David.
Paraphrase. The Twenty first Psalm was indited by David himself, and committed to the Prefect of his Musick, to be sung by the quire, in the assembly of the people, as a form of thanksgiving to God, upon occasion of any victory over his and Gods enemies.
1. The King shall joy in thy strength, O Lord; and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoyce?
O blessed Lord, thou hast gratiously interposed thy hand of power for our soveraign thine annointed, thou hast delivered him out of all his dangers; in this thy gratious and seasonable exhibition of thy self, he hath all cause to rejoyce and triumph exceedingly. (This hath a more eminent completion in the Resurrection of the*foreign the King Messias Chald. Messias.)
2. Thou hast given him his hearts desire, and hast not withholdena. the†powring out, or per…aps espousal— request of his lips. Selah.
Thou hast given him a most liberal return to all the most earnest requests, that with tongue or heart he hath addrest to thee.
3. For thou*hast met him b.preventest him with the blessings of goodness, thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head.
Thou hast bestowed on him, of thine own free bounty, all sorts of the most valuable mercies, thy special favour, and all the effects thereof: and as thou didst first advance him to the regal throne, so hast thou now most eminently secured him in it, and made his crown more illustrious, his glory more conspicuous then ever.
4. He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him; even length of dayes for ever and ever.
He besought thy defence, that thou wouldest preserve his life, and not suffer his enemies to prevail against it; and thou hast heard him abundantly, granted him a very long, and peaceable, and prosperous reign, and by thy faithful promise secured the Crown to his posterity, to the time of the coming of the Messiah, who must be born of his seed, and when he comes, be install'd in a glorious kingdome, that never shall have an end.
5. His glory is great in thy salvation: honour and majesty hast thou laid upon him.
Thou hast, by interposition of thy hand for his deliverance, brought great glory and dignity to him, made all men see, how he is valued by thee, and thereby exalted him to the greatest honour and majesty of any man in the world.
6. For thou hast|set him blessings foreign made him most blessed for ever; thou hast made him exceeding glad with thy countenance.
Thou hast blessed him in such a degree, that, as it was promised Abraham Gen. 12.2. thou shalt be a blessing, so it is now performed to this son of Abraham, they that will bless any, shall use this form for time to come, Let him be blessed by God as David was; thy special favour and kindness toward him hath been matter of most triumphant joy, and exultation to him.
7. For the King trusteth in the Lord, and through the mercy of the most high he shall not be moved.
And as he hath alwayes reposed his trust and affiance in God, so hath he never miscarried in his undertakings; Gods most powerful hand hath been most seasonably and mercifully reacht out to him, and secured him in all his dangers.
8. Thine hand shall finde out all thine enemies; thy right hand shall finde those that hate thee;
9. Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in time of thine anger: the Lord shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them.
Those that oppose or set themselves against God, shall be sure to be brought down, and discomfited by him. They that hate God shall meet with effects of his hatred. Gods displeasure is very heavy, and flaming, and insupportable, and the effects of it no lesse than a most formidable and utter destruction.
10. Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men.
And this ruine that falls on them shall proceed to their posterity, even to the utter eradication of their families.
11. For they‖bent or spread. c.intended evill against thee; they imagined a mischievous device†they prevailed not foreign which they were not able to performe.
And this is a just vengeance on them, for the evil designes which they had against him whom God had set in the throne: The malignity of their purpose is thus punisht, though they were not able to bring it to effect, God thus blasting and frustrating them.
12. Therefore shalt thou*set them a shoulder, or make them as one shoulder, on thy strings shalt thou prepare against— d.make them turne their back, when thou shalt make ready thine arrows upon thy strings against the face of them.
In reward to their evil intentions God shall set them in a battalio before him, and then assault them most hostilely, and with the weapons of his sharpe displeasure most sadly infest and destroy them.
13. Be thou exalted, O Lord, in thine own strength; so will we sing and praise thy power.
And this his vengeance on his enemies, as it is an exalting of his almighty power in the sight of all men, so is it that for which we, that receive the advantage by it, are eternally obliged to rejoyce, and blesse and magnifie his holy name.
Annotations on Psalm XXI.
V. 2. Request] The Hebrew foreign signifies to espouse, Deut. xxi. 7. he that foreign hath espoused a woman; so Exod. xxii. 15. foreign foreigna virgin espoused, and Deut. xxii. 23. foreign. And so the Chaldee foreign in the same sense. And if from that root came the noun foreign here with ש, it would elegantly be rendred the espousal of his lips, i. e. his most important considerable desire, which he had set his heart upon, and so often begg'd of God. What that was, appears v. 3. setting the crown upon his head, setling him peaceably in the throne. Thus Cant. iii. 11. Solomons day of Coronation is called poetically the day of his espousals, and the day of the gladnesse of his heart, i. e. the day that he desired so earnestly, set his heart on, and was so glad when it came. But if the roots be distinguished by the position of the point over ש, then as the word foreign, is not else-where to be met with in Scripture; so there may be place for conjecture, that foreign had originally the same sense, that now foreign in Chaldee and Syriack hath for effudit, pouring out. For the Lexicographers (that render it elocutio and expositio, and yet produce no other place but this, wherein they pretend it to doe so) are well reconcileable with this, and so are most of the antient Interpreters, though they have rendred it variously; the LXXII. foreign the will, or as other copies foreign the prayer of his lips, that which the lips poure out in prayer; and the Chaldee foreign the interpretation or exposition of the lips, agreeable to the Arabick notion of foreign (from foreign) for indicium. But the Syriack have foreign the preparation of his lips, that which he hath first prepared in the heart by meditation, and then poured out at the lips.
V. 2. Preventest] From foreign the word foreign foreignin Piel hath several significations; ordinarily to prevent or anticipate, but withall to meet. Deut. xxiii. 4. foreign we render, they met you not with bread and water; and so the Chaldee renders it foreign occurrerunt me, and the LXXII. foreign: so Nehem. xiii. 2. they met not— so Isa. xxi. 14. we read they prevented not; it should be, they met not with bread him that fled: In all which the LXXII. read foreign to meet. So Mich. vi. 6. wherewithall foreign shall I meet the Lord? and again foreign shall I meet him with burnt-offerings? we read, come before; which if it be in the notion of preventing, certainly belongs not to that place. And thus it most probably signifies here, thou shalt meet him with benediction of good, as when Melchizedeck met Abraham, and brought forth bread and wine, and blessed him: So Gods coming out to meet us with blessings is a very proper expression of his bounty in obliging and loving us first; as Job xLi. 2. who foreign hath begun any kindnesse to me, obliged me first, and I will repay him? The rendering of Castellio is here most perspicuous, and fully expressive of the sense, eum egregiis affecisti beneficiis, thou hast bestowed most eminent favours on him.
V. 11. Intended] The Hebrew foreign from whence is foreign here,foreign signifies two things; 1. to incline or decline, and 2. to stretch out, extend, distend. But how in either of these notions it shall be joyned with foreign here, it will not be easy to judge. The LXXII. render it in the former notion, foreign, they bow'd down evill things on thee; and the Latine, declinaverunt in te mala; and the Syriack seems to accord, rendring it foreign and the Arabick, they bow'd down. If this be the notion of the word, then it will best be rendred, they wrested, or perverted evill things against thee, (as Exod. xxiii. 2. foreign to decline, and foreign to pervert, is used, and again v. 6. foreign thou shalt not pervert) i. e. by perverting or distorting thy words, framed accusations, calumnies (which are styled foreign evill or wicked words or things Matth. v.ii.) against thee. In the second notion it is ordinarily applyed to lines & curtains; and then to spread evill against any, may be a phrase taken from the spreading of nets, (as Ps. CXL. 5. they spread a net with cords) for the insnaring of any. But the Chaldee, which render it by foreign from foreign which signifies first to beate out and compresse, and thence to machinate, contrive, or forge in the brain (in which sense it best agrees with imagining, that follows) make it probable to be taken from the Metallists, who beat out, and so extend or distend their metalls, and so frame them into any fashion: from whence, by an easy metaphor, it may be drawn to that of designing, or forging any evill against another.
V. 11. Make them turne their backs] That foreign foreignsignifies a shoulder or shoulder-blade, there is no question, Scapula, that part of the body which from the neck reacheth on both sides, before, and behinde, to the arme. But what the meaning is here of the Poetical phrase foreign thou shalt set them a shoulder, foreignis not so easie to resolve. The Chaldee reads it, Thou hast set them to thy people foreign one shoulder. The sense of it seems to be best fetcht from that which follows, foreign foreignto thy strings, from foreign nervus, a bow-string, Psal. xi. 2. The LXXII. seem not to have understood it, rendring it foreign in thy remainders, as if it were from foreign reliquus fuit. But sure it signifies the strings of a bow, as the instrument of shooting or wounding: and then whether we joyne that to the praecedent words, Thou shalt set them a shoulder for thy bow-strings,] or to the subsequent words, Thou shalt set them a shoulder, with thy bow-strings thou shalt prepare against the face of them,] the latter part must have some influence on the former; and then either way, the setting them a shoulder] will be either the setting them in aray, drawing them up in a full and fair battalio, that so his arrows may freely play upon them, which in the end of the verse are said to be prepared against the face of them; or, to the same sense, thou shalt make them as one neck (so the Jewish Arab. renders it) for slaughter. Somewhat parallel to this we have Hos. vi. 9. where it is said of the Priests foreign they killed shoulderw-ise, or by the shoulder. The Chaldee render it foreign one shoulder, in the same words, as here they use to expound foreign shoulder: which shews it to be a proverbial forme, to signifie sure, and uniforme slaughter. This the learned Castellio saw, and paraphrastically, but very significantly, exprest; Nam tu eis pro scopo collocatis, rectâ in eos tuis nervis collineabis, For thou shalt set them as thy butt or marke, and with thine arrows aime straight at them. And this sure is the perspicuous meaning of this darke place. For the souldier in procinctu, both in the antient and modern wars, was, and is wont to oppose onelyonly the shoulder to the enemy, that being the most commodious posture both for defence and offence. Thus the Phalanx was drawn up; thus our stand of pikes are accustomed to charge; thus the Archers draw the bows, the Musketiers give fire; so the swordmen receive the enemy, covering the left shoulder with the buckler, and they that use no buckler, yet stand upon a guard of like nature, and hold it for a rule, never to leave open the whole body to the opposite. All which gives the account clearly, why the phrase of setting them a shoulder] is here used, because that was the military posture. Abu Walid interprets it, thou shalt set them as one side, or on one side, viz. to deale with them all alike, comparing the use of it here with that in Hoseah c. vi. 9.