This Psalm manifests itself very clearly. It is Messiah leading the praise of His righteous people in the latter day for the Lord’s destruction of their great enemy, and the consequent anticipated enthronement of Messiah in Zion. There is also a fine insultation over the enemy now thus fallen, kindred with that which the Spirit of Christ breathes in the prophet Isaiah over the king of Babylon (Isa. 14), and a recital of the cry of the afflicted ones in the day of their calamity.
The falling and perishing of the enemy at the presence of God (Psa. 9:55Thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked, thou hast put out their name for ever and ever. (Psalm 9:5)) is strikingly illustrated in scripture, in days of divine visitation or judgment. (See Psa. 114; Ex. 14:24-2524And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians, 25And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians. (Exodus 14:24‑25); John 18:66As soon then as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward, and fell to the ground. (John 18:6).) Here it is anticipated in the doom and downfall of the great infidel or antichristian enemy of the last day. (See Rev. 19.) How awfully will the nations then learn themselves to be “but men” (Psa. 9:2020Put them in fear, O Lord: that the nations may know themselves to be but men. Selah. (Psalm 9:20)), though they had been drinking in and practicing the old lie of the serpent, “ye shall be as gods.”