Psalms 21:8

"Thy hand will find out all thine enemies;

Thy right hand will find out those that hate thee.

Thou wilt make them as a fiery furnace in the time of thine anger.

Jehovah will swallow them up in his wrath,

And the fire shall devour them.

Their fruit wilt thou destroy from the earth

And their seed from among the children of men."

"All thine enemies" (Psalms 21:9). Barnes' summary of these enemies is: "All that in any way are opposed to God and his reign, all worshippers of idols, all enemies of truth, all rejecters of revelation, all workers of iniquity, all infidels and scoffers. These shall be subdued, either by being made to yield to the claims of truth, or by being cut off and punished."[17]

The apostle Paul added the following to the list of God's enemies: "Them that know not God, and them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thessalonians 1:8).

"As a fiery furnace" (Psalms 21:9). The enemies of God are here compared, not to a furnace, but to the fuel in the fiery furnace. What does this mean? Spurgeon properly identified what is here foretold as exactly what Christ promised when he said, "They shall be cast into a furnace of fire; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."[18]

One hardly needs to be told that the judgments against God's enemies here foretold are not those capable of being executed by any king. The sudden outcropping of the word "Jehovah" in Psalms 21:9b dramatically indicates that the passage cannot pertain to the earthly David, but to David's Greater Son, the Messiah. Kidner expressed it thus: "This passage outruns the power of any king, as the word `Jehovah' in Psalms 21:9b acknowledges; and the scale of events calls once more for the Messiah."[19]

"In the time of thine anger" (Psalms 21:9). The literal meaning of the Hebrew text here is, "in the time of thy face, thy presence, or thy countenance."[20] (Also, see American Standard Version margin). This indicates that the time when such terrible judgments upon the wicked shall be executed is that of the final judgment of mankind associated with the Second Advent of Jesus Christ. The thought of this passage is dramatically repeated in 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10, especially in the words, "Who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face (or presence) of the Lord and the glory of his might." The apostle Paul also revealed in that passage exactly when such terrifying judgments shall come: "When he (the Christ) shall come (in the Second Advent) to be glorified in his saints."