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I. THE OFFENSIVE WEAPONS. These have as their symbols the sword and arrows.

1. The sword, a heavy, massive weapon for close engagement, and inflicting terrible wounds.

2. The arrow, a light missile used to annoy the enemy at a distance. It comes whizzing through the air unseen, causes but a small wound, and is scarcely felt till its sharp point reaches the heart.

3. Now, both are emblems of one and the same thing — the Word of God. For the Word has this twofold power of wounding, sometimes as the sword, sometimes as the arrow. The first, the Word of terror, is the sword girt upon Messiah's thigh; the second, the Word of persuasion, is the arrow shot from His bow. And thus, by the joint action of these two weapons, "peoples," that is, whole kingdoms and nations in a mass, "shall fall under Thee," shall submit themselves to Christ.

II. THE DEFENSIVE ARMOUR is to be noted (ver. 8), the "refulgent, dazzling armour." This tells of whatever is admirable and amiable in the external form and appearance of the Christian religion.

1. The character of Jesus Himself.

2. The light of good works shining in the lives of His disciples.

3. Whatever is decent and seemly in the government, the discipline and the rites of the Church,

III. "THE WONDERS" WHICH HIS OWN RIGHT HAND WAS TO SHOW HIM are to be explained. Not "terrible things," as the Authorized Version has it, for there is no notion of terror in the Word as here used; but of things extraordinary in their kind — grand, amazing, awful. In some of the oldest English Bibles we have here the better chosen word, "wonderful." Now, the "wonders" which Messiah's "own right hand" showed Him were the overthrow of Paganism and the Roman empire, and that by such seemingly inadequate means. It was, indeed, a wonderful thing, wrought by Christ's single arm, when his religion prevailed over the whole system of idolatry, supported as it was by the authority of sovereigns, by the learning of philosophers, and most of all, by the inveterate prejudices of the vulgar, attached to their false gods by the gratification which their very worship afforded to the sensual passions, and by the natural partiality of mankind in favour of any system, however absurd and corrupt, sanctioned by a long antiquity. It was a wonderful thing when the devil's kingdom, with much of its invisible power, lost at once the whole of its external pomp and splendour. It was a wonderful thing when the minds of all men took a sudden turn; kings became the nursing fathers of the Church, statesmen courted her alliance, philosophy embraced her faith, and even the sword was justly drawn in her defence. These were the wonderful things effected by Christ's right hand. And in the later ages there will be terrible things also achieved by Him, when Antichrist and his armies shall be overthrown. Then in verses 6 and 7 we have —

IV. THE KING SEATED ON THE THRONE OF HIS MEDIATORIAL KINGDOM, ruling in perfect justice. The sceptre was an emblem of the perfect integrity of the monarch in the exercise of his power. Well, therefore, is it said, ver. 6, "A straight sceptre is the sceptre of Thy royalty." Earthly kings can never be perfectly just, for they are all liable to error and deception. But in the kingdom of Messiah there shall be no imperfection in His rule, and therefore He is anointed by God with the oil of gladness above all others. This declaration is, with the greatest propriety, applied to Christ in the Epistle to the Hebrews and made an argument of His Divinity. Thus ends this section of this psalm.

(Bishop Horsley.)

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KJV: Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty.

WEB: Strap your sword on your thigh, mighty one: your splendor and your majesty.