Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Psalms 21:11

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Psalms 21:11. For they intended evil — Sinners shall not be permitted to do all that is in their power against the godly; much less shall they be able to perform all that they wish.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Psalms 20-21 Before and after battle

These two psalms belong together as a pair. The former is a prayer for the king before he leads the people in battle; the latter, a thanksgiving after victory.
Addressing the king, the people call down God’s power and protection upon him (20:1-2). They pray that God will remember the king’s faithfulness and give him victory (3-5). The king replies that victory is certain, because he has God’s help. God’s power is greater than military might (6-8). In response, the people offer a further plea, brief and urgent, for God’s help (9).

The people join in thanksgiving to God that he has answered their prayer of the previous psalms (see Psalms 20:4). God has given the king his heart’s desire, enabling him to lead his people to victory (21:1-4). Although the king receives glory because of his victory, the glory is not self-centred. It is glory given him by God, in whom he trusts (5-7). Having offered thanks to God, the people turn and address the king. They assure him that through God’s power he will continue to have victory over all his enemies (8-12). King and people then unite in praise to God (13).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

“For they intended evil against thee; They conceived a device which they are not able to perform. For thou wilt make them turn their back; Thou wilt make ready with thy bowstrings against their face.”

There is another side to the character of the Holy Messiah which preachers of the current era have apparently never learned. Our Holy Saviour, the Messiah, is Love Incarnate; he is gentle, loving, patient, long-suffering, and unwilling that any mortal should perish; but he is also the Terrible One, who, upon the occasion of the Second Advent will strike unspeakable terror into the hearts of the wicked. The mightiest sinners on earth will scream for the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them and hide them from the wrath of Him that sitteth upon the throne and from the Lamb (Revelation 6:14 ff).

The Bible teaches that God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that One whom he raised from the dead; and there is absolutely nothing in the Holy Scriptures that should enable anyone to view that cataclysmic occasion with any emotion except that of fear and apprehension.

The KJV here supplies some extra words: “When thou shalt make ready thine arrows upon thy bowstrings against the face of them.” “By supplying `when’ and `thine arrows,’ the KJV expresses what the psalmist has left to the intelligence of the reader.”The Pulpit Commentary, p. 145.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

For they intended evil against thee - literally, “They stretched out evil.” The idea seems to be derived from “stretching out” or laying snares, nets, or gins, for the purpose of taking wild beasts. That is, they formed a plan or purpose to bring evil upon God and his cause: as the hunter or fowler forms a purpose or plan to take wild beasts or fowls. It is not merely a purpose in the head, as our word “intended” would seem to imply; it supposes that arrangements had been entered into, or that a scheme had been formed to injure the cause of God - that is, through the person referred to in the psalm. The purposes of wicked men against religion are usually much more than a mere “intention.” The intention is accompanied with a scheme or plan in their own mind by which the act may be accomplished. The evil here referred to was that of resisting or overpowering him who was engaged in the cause of God, or whom God had appointed to administer his laws.

They imagined a mischievous device - They thought, or they purposed. The word rendered “mischievous device” מזמה m^ezimmâh - means properly “counsel, purpose; then prudence, sagacity;” then, in a bad sense, “machination, device, trick.” Gesenius, Lexicon. Proverbs 12:2; Proverbs 14:17; Proverbs 24:8.

Which they are not able to perform - literally, “they could not;” that is, they had not the power to accomplish it, or to carry out their purpose. Their purpose was plain; their guilt was therefore clear; but they were prevented from executing their design. Many such designs are kept from being carried into execution for the want of power. If all the devices and the desires of the wicked were accomplished, righteousness would soon cease in the earth, religion and virtue would come to an end, and even God would cease to occupy the throne.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

11.For they have spread out. In this verse David shows that the ungodly had deserved the awful ruin which he predicted would befall them, since they had not only molested mortal man, but had also rushed forth in the fury of their pride to make war against God himself. No man, as has been stated in our exposition of the second psalm, could offer violence to the kingdom of Israel, which was consecrated in the person of David, by the commandment of God, without making foul and impious war against God. Much more when persons directly attack the kingdom of Christ to overthrow it, is the majesty of God violated, since it is the will of God to reign in the world only by the hand of his Son. As the Hebrew word נטה, natah, which we have translated to spread out, also sometimes signifies to turn aside, it may not unsuitably be here rendered either way. According to the first view the meaning is, that the wicked, as if they had spread out their nets, endeavored to subject to themselves the power of God. According to the second the meaning is, that for the purpose of hindering, and as it were swallowing up his power, ⁽⁴⁹¹⁾ they turned aside their malice, so as to make it bear against it, just like a man who, having dug a great ditch, turned aside the course of some torrent to make it fall within it. The Psalmist next declares, that they devised a stratagem, or device, which would fail of its accomplishment. By these words he rebukes the foolish arrogance of those who, by making war against God, manifest a recklessness and an audacity which will undertake any thing, however daring.

(491) “Pour icello empescher et comme engloutir.” — Fr.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Psalms 21:1-13

Again, to the chief musician, the 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 you have not withheld the requests of his lips ( Psalms 21:1-2 ).

Now the Selah indicates, really, sort of a change of thought. It sort of introduces a new idea. It is just sort of a rest, and then introducing of a new idea, new thought pattern.

For you prevent him with the blessings of goodness: you set a crown of pure gold on his head. He asks for life from thee, and you gave it to him, even the length of days for ever and ever. His glory is great in thy salvation ( Psalms 21:3-5 ):

He is talking about the king's delight in the Lord, and how he was just so gracious for what God has done.

For thou hast made him most blessed for ever: thou hast made him exceeding glad with thy countenance. For the king trusts in the LORD, and through the mercy of the Most High he shall not be moved. Your hand shall find out all your enemies: your right hand shall find out those that hate thee. You will make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger: the LORD will swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them. Their fruit will you destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men. For they intended evil against thee: they imagined mischievous devices, that they are not able to perform. Therefore thou shalt make them to turn their back, when thou shalt make ready your arrows upon thy strings against the face of them. Be thou exalted, LORD, in your own strength: so will we sing of thy praise and thy power ( Psalms 21:5-13 ). "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Psalms 21

This royal psalm of thanksgiving is a companion to the preceding one in that it records David’s thanksgiving for the victory that he anticipated in Psalms 20.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

2. Anticipation of further blessing 21:8-12

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Even though David’s enemies opposed him, they would fail. David would make them flee in retreat and would hand them a devastating defeat-described as shooting them in the face with his arrows.

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

For they intended evil against thee,.... All evil, whether in thought or deed, if not immediately and directly, yet is ultimately against the Lord, whose law is transgressed, and who is despised and reflected upon as a lawgiver; all sin is an hostility committed against God, or against Christ, against the Lord and his Anointed, or against his people, who are all one as himself: the intention of evil is evil, and is cognizable by the Lord, and punishable by him:

they imagined a mischievous device, [which] they are not able [to perform]; not the death of Christ; that was indeed in itself a mischievous device of theirs, but that they performed, though they had not their end in it; they expected his name would then perish, and they should hear no more of him: but rather it respects his resurrection from the dead, they could not prevent, though they took all imaginable care that them might be no show of it; and when they found he was really raised from the dead, they contrived a wicked scheme to stop the credit of it, but in vain, Matthew 27:63; and Jews and Gentiles, and Papists, have formed schemes and done all they can to root the Gospel, cause, and interest of Christ, out of the world, but have not been able to perform it.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      7 For the king trusteth in the LORD, and through the mercy of the most High he shall not be moved.   8 Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies: thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee.   9 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.   10 Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men.   11 For they intended evil against thee: they imagined a mischievous device, which they are not able to perform.   12 Therefore shalt thou make them turn their back, when thou shalt make ready thine arrows upon thy strings against the face of them.   13 Be thou exalted, LORD, in thine own strength: so will we sing and praise thy power.

      The psalmist, having taught his people to look back with joy and praise on what God had done for him and them, here teaches them to look forward with faith, and hope, and prayer, upon what God would further do for them: The king rejoices in God (Psalms 21:1; Psalms 21:1), and therefore we will be thankful; the king trusteth in God (Psalms 21:7; Psalms 21:7), therefore will we be encouraged. The joy and confidence of Christ our King is the ground of all our joy and confidence.

      I. They are confident of the stability of David's kingdom. Through the mercy of the Most High, and not through his own merit or strength, he shall not be moved. His prosperous state shall not be disturbed; his faith and hope in God, which are the stay of his spirit, shall not be shaken. The mercy of the Most High (the divine goodness, power, and dominion) is enough to secure our happiness, and therefore our trust in that mercy should be enough to silence all our fears. God being at Christ's right hand in his sufferings (Psalms 16:8) and he being at God's right hand in his glory, we may be sure he shall not, he cannot, be moved, but continues ever.

      II. They are confident of the destruction of all the impenitent implacable enemies of David's kingdom. The success with which God had blessed David's arms hitherto was an earnest of the rest which God would give him from all his enemies round about, and a type of the total overthrow of all Christ's enemies who would not have him to reign over them. Observe, 1. The description of his enemies. They are such as hate him, Psalms 21:8; Psalms 21:8. They hated David because God had set him apart for himself, hated Christ because they hated the light; but both were hated without any just cause, and in both God was hated, John 15:23; John 15:25. 2. The designs of his enemies (Psalms 21:11; Psalms 21:11): They intended evil against thee, and imagined a mischievous device; they pretended to fight against David only, but their enmity was against God himself. Those that aimed to un-king David aimed, in effect, to un-God Jehovah. What is devised and designed against religion, and against the instruments God raises up to support and advance it, is very evil and mischievous, and God takes it as devised and designed against himself and will so reckon for it. (3.) The disappointment of them: "They devise what they are not able to perform," Psalms 21:11; Psalms 21:11. Their malice is impotent, and they imagine a vain thing,Psalms 2:1. (4.) The discovery of them (Psalms 21:8; Psalms 21:8): "Thy hand shall find them out. Though ever so artfully disguised by the pretences and professions of friendship, though mingled with the faithful subjects of this kingdom and hardly to be distinguished from them, though flying from justice and absconding in their close places, yet thy hand shall find them out wherever they are." There is no escaping God's avenging eye, no going out of the reach of his hand; rocks and mountains will be no better shelter at last than fig-leaves were at first. (5.) The destruction of them; it will be an utter destruction (Luke 19:27); they shall be swallowed up and devoured, Psalms 21:9; Psalms 21:9. Hell, the portion of all Christ's enemies, is the complete misery both of body and soul. Their fruit and their seed shall be destroyed,Psalms 21:10; Psalms 21:10. The enemies of God's kingdom, in every age, shall fall under the same doom, and the whole generation of them will at last be rooted out, and all opposing rule, principality, and power, shall be put down. The arrows of God's wrath shall confound them and put them to flight, being levelled at the face of them, Psalms 21:12; Psalms 21:12. That will be the lot of daring enemies that face God. The fire of God's wrath will consume them (Psalms 21:9; Psalms 21:9); they shall not only be cast into a furnace of fire (Matthew 13:42), but he shall make them themselves as a fiery oven or furnace; they shall be their own tormentors; the reflections and terrors of their own consciences will be their hell. Those that might have had Christ to rule and save them, but rejected him and fought against him, shall find that even the remembrance of that will be enough to make them, to eternity, a fiery oven to themselves: it is the worm that dies not.

      III. In this confidence they beg of God that he would still appear for his anointed (Psalms 21:13; Psalms 21:13), that he would act for him in his own strength, by the immediate operations of his power as Lord of hosts and Father of spirits, making little use of means and instruments. And, 1. Hereby he would exalt himself and glorify his own name. "We have but little strength, and are not so active for thee as we should be, which is our shame; Lord, take the work into thy own hands, do it, without us, and it will be thy glory." 2. Hereupon they would exalt him: "So will we sing, and praise thy power, the more triumphantly." The less God has of our service when a deliverance is in the working the more he must have of our praises when it is wrought without us.