Verse 5. - His glory is great in thy salvation. David' s glory exceeds that of all other living men, through the "salvation" which God vouchsafes him. That salvation is partly temporal, consisting in deliverance from his foes; partly of an unearthly and spiritual character, arising out of his relationship to the coming Messiah. It is from the latter point of view, rather than the former, that it is said, Honour and majesty hast thou laid upon him.
21:1-6 Happy the people whose king makes God's strength his confidence, and God's salvation his joy; who is pleased with all the advancements of God kingdom, and trusts God to support him in all he does for the service of it. All our blessings are blessings of goodness, and are owing, not to any merit of ours, but only to God's goodness. But when God's blessings come sooner, and prove richer than we imagine; when they are given before we prayed for them, before we were ready for them, nay, when we feared the contrary; then it may be truly said that he prevented, or went before us, with them. Nothing indeed prevented, or went before Christ, but to mankind never was any favour more preventing than our redemption by Christ. Thou hast made him to be a universal, everlasting blessing to the world, in whom the families of the earth are, and shall be blessed; and so thou hast made him exceeding glad with the countenance thou hast given to his undertaking, and to him in the prosecution of it. The Spirit of prophecy rises from what related to the king, to that which is peculiar to Christ; none other is blessed for ever, much less a blessing for ever.
His glory is great in thy salvation,.... That is, the glory of the King Messiah is great in the Lord's salvation of him; delivering him from all his troubles and sorrows, and out of the hands of all his enemies, when he was raised from the dead, and was set at the right hand of God, and crowned with glory and honour: or the sense is, that his glory is great in the salvation of his people by him; it was his glory as Mediator to be appointed to be the Lord's salvation to them; and it being effected by him declares the glory and greatness of his person; and the nature of it is such as cannot fast of bringing glory to him; and such is the sense his people have of it, that it obliges them to ascribe the glory of it alone to him;
honour and majesty hast thou laid upon him; which is to be understood not of the honour and majesty of his divine nature, which are essential to him, and not laid upon him by any; nor of the glory which the saints attribute to him on account of their salvation by him; but of that which his Father has put upon him, and lies in the introduction of him into his glory after his sufferings and death, and resurrection from the dead; in exalting him at his right hand above all creatures and things; in giving him all power in heaven and in earth; in putting all the gifts of the Spirit into his hands, which he receiving gave to men, and in ordaining him Judge of quick and dead.
honour and majesty hast thou laid upon him; which is to be understood not of the honour and majesty of his divine nature, which are essential to him, and not laid upon him by any; nor of the glory which the saints attribute to him on account of their salvation by him; but of that which his Father has put upon him, and lies in the introduction of him into his glory after his sufferings and death, and resurrection from the dead; in exalting him at his right hand above all creatures and things; in giving him all power in heaven and in earth; in putting all the gifts of the Spirit into his hands, which he receiving gave to men, and in ordaining him Judge of quick and dead.