From Glory to Glory: The Story of Christ in Psalms 15–24 (Part 11): Psalm 20 and the Coming King

by on January 3, 2026 | Comment

The last-minute arrival of the hero is one of the great suspense breakers in good stories. When all hope seems lost against the rising tide of enemy forces, hope reignites as reinforcements arrive to carry the heroes forward. The civilian ships unexpectedly show up to rescue British troops stranded at Dunkirk. The Millennium Falcon swoops in before the Empire takes out the last few rebel fighter planes. Gandalf shows up with the Rohirrim before the forces of Saruman destroy Helm’s Deep. The appearance of the right hero transforms a bleak situation into an occasion of hope.

Psalm 20 is about the arrival of God’s king, who brings hope to his people. God’s Old Testament people long suffered under the threat of surrounding nations, never fully at peace. Especially after the exile, it would have seemed to them that their enemies had the obvious and decisive upper hand. Psalm 20, however, takes us back to the certainty outlined in Psalm 2, that God would send his king, the nations would bow to him, and that those who take refuge in this king would be blessed.

This series through Psalms 15–24 continues to examine how this block of psalms recounts Christ’s incarnate ministry twice. First, we get it in reverse order, then in forward order. Psalm 15 is about his ascension depicted as entering God’s heavenly mountain. Psalm 16 is about his resurrection as the grave could not hold him. Psalm 17 is about his trust that his Father would raise him even during those three days that his body lay in the grave and his soul was in heaven with the Father and the believers who had died before him. Psalm 18 reflects on Christ’s death itself.

Psalms 19–21 form an extended reflection upon Christ’s perfect, righteous life. Psalm 19 unites themes of creation and law to show that righteousness is required to enter God’s special presence on his mountain. Yet, the true king—Jesus Christ—will furnish that righteousness. Psalm 20 and Psalm 21 are both about the Messiah’s kingship. These are followed by Psalm 23 and Psalm 24, which celebrate God’s kingship. Psalm 22 bridges the two pairs because to celebrate the Messiah’s kingship and God’s kingship are the same thing. The Messiah is God the Son and is also the divine king promised in Psalm 2.1

Psalm 20, more specifically, is about the sending of the Son in the incarnation. It reflects on the Son’s relationship to the Father and contemplates what would happen during his life. It is about his coming to earth, his arrival in history. It meditates on his coming in our flesh as a core reason why he will enter God’s holy mountain and take us with him into God’s presence for blessing. After Psalm 19 establishes the need for a king with perfect righteousness, Psalm 20 presents the king who is coming.

The main point is that God’s king comes as the greatest hope. Because other articles in this space have exegeted and applied Psalm 20, this article focuses solely on Psalm 20 as continuing the story of Christ in Psalms 15–24. Still, Psalm 20 disciples us in the Christian life by reminding us to have confidence. Because God’s truly righteous king reigns over us, we trust that God hears us in our prayers.

Coming

Psalm 20 is about Christ’s coming in his incarnation as the ultimate king over God’s people and the fulfillment of God’s promises to send that king in David’s line. Psalm 20 is explicitly a royal psalm, with its ending in verse 9 proclaiming, “O Lord, save the king!”2 Inasmuch as Psalm 20 and Psalm 21 go together, “Psalm 20 is a prayer for the king as he goes out to battle, and Psalm 21 celebrates his victory upon his return.”3

The first half of Psalm 20 records David’s six hopes that God would respond in favor of the king:

May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!

May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!

May he send you help from the sanctuary

and give you support from Zion!

May he remember all your offerings

and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices!

May he grant you your heart’s desire

and fulfill all your plans!

May we shout for joy over your salvation,

and in the name of our God set up our banners!

May the Lord fulfill all your petitions!

Two complexities appear here. First, David is the king but also speaks to the king about what he hopes God will do for him.5 Second, every psalm is a prayer, but David addresses the king in verses 1–5.5 How do we resolve these tensions?

For the first tension, Psalm 110:1 gives us some perspective. David wrote, “The Lord [meaning God] says to my Lord [meaning the king]: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’” Hebrews 7 explains that David wrote Psalm 110 about the ultimate king coming in his line, Jesus Christ. Likewise, in Psalm 20, King David addresses a future king, the one who would be his ultimate heir to reign over God’s people in fulfillment of God’s promises in Psalm 2.6 Therefore, David speaks prophetically into the future to address his true heir, Jesus Christ, who descended according to his humanity from David. King David can address the king in Psalm 20 because he speaks to Jesus Christ the King, hoping that God would answer all Christ’s prayers.

This answer sets up the solution to that second tension as well: How can David direct a prayer to this future king? Prayer is directed toward God. The resolution resides in this, that the future king whom David addresses in prayer is himself God. This issue highlights how Psalm 20 is about God the Son incarnate. Jesus Christ, the future king to whom David spoke, is not only David’s son according to his humanity. He is also God the Son according to his deity. The ultimate king of Psalm 20 is God the Son come to earth to be our Savior.

The nature of David’s seven petitions reveal that this prayer is about when Christ came to perform his ministry on earth. David sought God’s help for this king in his day of trouble, when he needed help, when he made sacrifices, when he was working to fulfill God’s plans and purposes. These prayers are therefore not about what Christ is doing now that he has ascended in victory. Rather, they express trust that God would bring success and victory to the incarnate Christ’s earthly mission.7 Psalm 20 is ultimately about Christ’s coming.

Certainty

Given how emphatically this psalm is about God the Son as he came in his incarnate mission, can we find any sense of personal application for ourselves? In this psalm’s second half, the perspective shifts somewhat. Consider Psalm 20:6–9.

Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed;

he will answer him from his holy heaven

with the saving might of his right hand.

Some trust in chariots and some in horses,

but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

They collapse and fall,

but we rise and stand upright.

O Lord, save the king!

May he answer us when we call.

Notice how the viewpoint changes from speaking to the king about his work to stating his confidence that God will respond. The Hebrew word translated in verse 6 as “anointed” is messiah. That Hebrew word messiah came into Greek as Christ.8 God will certainly make sure that his anointed Savior has ultimate victory.

In that sense, David’s confidence running through verses 6–8 rests upon that conviction that the Messiah will be victorious.9 Because the Messiah, the Christ, will prosper, then we trust in God’s name rather than earthly weapons, knowing that worldly powers will collapse and God’s people will stand. In verse 9, God upholding our king means that our king answers our call.

Psalm 20 identifies the reason why we have confidence and should trust that God will come to our aid. We know that God will help us because we belong to his king. The personal application is to realize the certainty of God hearing his people. Yet, that certainty does not depend on anything in us. It depends upon our king.

Psalm 20 teaches that our greatest hope is in our king. He has come to deliver us, and we know his success because God upheld him through all obstacles, even the grave itself. He is our greatest hope because he is the reason that God hears our prayers. Because of our king, God is infinitely kind to his citizens. In Christ, we have assurance of God’s mercy.

Completion

Since Psalm 20 is a prayer for the king as he goes out to battle, it hopes for God the Son’s victory as he goes out to battle sin and death in his incarnation. It petitions for Christ’s success as he steps down from heaven when he assumed our nature.10 God the Son comes forth from his heavenly abode where he dwells eternally in the Godhead. He comes to be the king over God’s people, he who can truly deliver us. We see in Psalm 20 why his mission was successful.

The day of trouble was all of Christ’s afflictions as he endured our curse throughout his whole earthly life. As Westminster Shorter Catechism 27 says, “Christ’s humiliation consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross; in being buried, and continuing under the power of death for a time” (emphasis added). This curse bearing that he endured throughout his life reached its greatest point at the cross.

David points us to Christ’s death for us as he prayed in verse 4, “May he remember all your offerings and regard with favor your burnt offerings!” Indeed, we know that God did remember, regard with favor, and receive Christ’s offering because he delivered Jesus from death as in verse 6. Yet, Christ’s sacrifice was pleasing, not because he offered it on his own behalf, but because he offered himself as a sacrifice for the sake of his people. He gave his own life to give life to us.

Rulers often must deliver their people from enemies. Our king has delivered us from ourselves. Our sin alienated us from God such that we deserved a death sentence. So, God the Son came as our king to die in our place. Because of his great faithfulness (the king’s faithfulness is the reason for God to deliver him, v. 4), God hears all that our king asks of him.11

What has our king prayed? John 17 says that he prayed for his work to be effectual and that he prayed for us. He prayed that he would be gloried, which he was as he made satisfaction for sin on the cross and then rose from the grave in glory. He prayed that his elect would come to faith by the power of God’s Word. He prayed that God would preserve us and knit us together as his people. If you believe in Christ now, you are an answer to his prayer in John 17, having come to faith by the Spirit’s sovereign work through the Scripture left to us by the apostles. Christ has brought his mission in coming to earth to completion in applying his blessings to his people by the Spirit’s power. Our king has come. He is our greatest reason for hope.

Notes

  1. O. Palmer Robertson, The Flow of the Psalms (P&R Publishing, 2015), 69. On Psalm 20 and Psalm 21, see Bruce K. Waltke and Fred G. Zaspel, How to Read and Understand the Psalms (Crossway, 2023), 432; Christopher Ash, The Psalms: A Christ-Centered Commentary, 4 vols. (Crossway, 2024), 2:229; Carissa Quinn, The Arrival of the King: The Shape and Story of Psalms 15–24, Studies in Scripture and Biblical Theology (Lexham Academic, 2023), 132.
  2. Waltke and Zaspel, How to Read and Understand the Psalms, 74, 168, 531.
  3. Waltke and Zaspel, How to Read and Understand the Psalms, 101, 168, 384, 432n13.
  4. Allen P. Ross, A Commentary on the Psalms, 3 vols. (Kregel Academic Press, 2011–16), 1:298–99, 306; James M. Hamilton Jr., Psalms, 2 vol., Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary (Lexham Academic, 2021), 1:263; Ash, Psalms, 2:229.
  5. John Goldingay, Psalms, 3 vols., Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms (Baker Academic, 2006–8), 1:301; Ross, Psalms, 1:491–93; Ash, Psalms, 2:230.
  6. Hamilton, Psalms, 1:263.
  7. Ash, Psalms, 2:230, 231, 235.
  8. Ash, Psalms, 2:235.
  9. Ash, Psalms, 235; Ross, Psalms, 1:501.
  10. Waltke and Zaspel, How to Read and Understand the Psalms, 101, 168, 384, 432n13.
  11. Quinn, Arrival of the King, 132–33; Ross, Psalms, 1:497–99

© Harrison Perkins. All Rights Reserved.

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