Psalms 21:5

"His glory is great in thy salvation;

Honor and majesty dost thou lay upon him.

For thou makest him most blessed forever:

Thou makest him glad with joy in thy presence."

These verses abundantly confirm the interpretation of "eternal life" which we understand to be the meaning of Psalms 21:4, above.

"Honor and majesty dost thou lay upon him" (Psalms 21:5). What is indicated here according to Dahood (in The Anchor Bible) is, "A characteristic attribute of the (pagan) gods, consisting of a dazzling aureole or nimbus which surrounds divinity."[9]

This connotation of the terminology here fully confirms the view that the person spoken of here must be identified with divinity.

"It is from the salvation arising out of David's relationship to the coming Messiah that it is said here that, `Honor and majesty dost thou lay upon him.'"[10]

"For thou makest him most blessed forever" (Psalms 21:6). The literal meaning of the Hebrew text here is, "For thou settest him to be blessings forever."[11] This means exactly what God meant when he promised Abraham that in him and in his seed all the families of men would be blessed (Genesis 12:3; 18:18; 22:18). "Just as all mankind were blessed in Abraham, so were they all blessed in David's seed."[12] This thought is fully confirmed in Matthew 1:1. Note especially that "forever" here has no reference whatever to "long live the king," but means perpetually and eternally. This reiteration of the thought in Psalms 21:4 makes it mandatory to view "forever" in that passage as also having the meaning of "eternal life."

"Thou makest him glad with joy in thy presence" (Psalms 21:5). The weakest comment we have encountered on this is that of Addis who thought that the king mentioned here was enjoying the presence of God in the sense that, "The king lived hard by the temple,"[13] where God's presence was manifested. Such a notion is impossible of acceptance, because God's presence was not "hard by the temple" at some location separated from the temple, but within the very "Holy of Holies" inside the temple. If this passage meant no more than living near the Jerusalem temple, it would have been equally applicable to every person living in Jerusalem.

Kidner has a much more discerning comment, indicating that, "The true meaning of `in thy presence' is explained by Hebrews 12:2."[14] That passage states that, "Jesus, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." There indeed is the real presence of God, which in fact is not actually anywhere else.