"The Lord reigns; he is robed in majesty;
the Lord is robed; he has put on strength as his belt.
Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved.
2 Your throne is established from of old;
you are from everlasting.
3 The floods have lifted up, O Lord,
the floods have lifted up their voice;
the floods lift up their roaring.
4 Mightier than the thunders of many waters,
mightier than the waves of the sea,
the Lord on high is mighty!
5 Your decrees are very trustworthy;
holiness befits your house,
O Lord, for evermore."
Psalm 93
This is the first in a number of Psalms, which celebrate the Lord as King (cf Psalm 95:3; 97:1; 99:1). This Psalm, as one commentator puts it, 'strikes the keynote for the group; it is the overture to the oratorio, the prelude to the symphony'. Two points may be made by way of introduction, which gives a guideline as to the Christian interpretation of it. The first is that in some of the later Psalms the emphasis is on a future coming, and what these Psalms look to is the Lord's universal dominion, which will one day be universally recognized and rejoiced in. The second point is that the words in 1 here, 'The Lord reigneth' describe an act rather than a state - 'The Lord has become King' by some specific act of sovereignty. 'He has shown the world, by a recent deed, that eternal truth that He reigns. His coronation has been by His own hands' (Maclaren). When we take these two points together, we get the message of the Psalm from a Christian point of view. Commentators have thought that the specific act of Divine sovereignty may well be the return of the exiles from Babylon to Jerusalem in 538 BC. Whether this be so or not, this certainly serves to illustrate the point, for this was a demonstration of the Divine sovereignty in history. But any such act would serve to illustrate it just as well. But this, and any other manifestation of sovereignty in history is also prophetic, in the sense that it points forward to something greater and grander - the Old Testament Messianic hope for a King reigning in righteousness is fulfilled only in Christ, in His victory and exaltation. The true fulfilment, and therefore the deepest meaning of the Psalm, is found in the New Testament statements such as Ephesians 1:20-22 and Philippians 2:9-11. What is a prophetic promise in the Old Testament becomes a reality in the New (although hidden still, and perceived only by faith), and will become a demonstrable reality at the End, when the King comes!