Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
Ver. 7. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, &c.] Here he calleth unto hell gates, say the Papists; to the heavens, say others, to give way to Christ's ascension thereinto, as the firstfruits, and the opener of the way to all his members; and he doubleth the same speech, Psalms 24:9, for the joy that he had in the contemplation thereof; bidding them again and again lift up and be lifted up; a phrase or term taken from triumphal arches, or great porticoes, set up or beautified and adorned for the coming in of great victorious and triumphant captains. Justin. p. 55. Recipite Christum in portas novae Hierosol. (Cyril). There are at this day to be seen at Rome the ruins of Constantine's triumphal arch erected at that time when he entered the city triumphing over the tyrant Maxentius, quem vicit signo crucis, who conquored by the sign of the cross, as Eusebius reporteth; making Christ to triumph at Rome, after those ten bloody persecutions; with which triumph this psalm may fitly be compared, saith a learned interpreter. Our late annotators tell us of a fashion in ancient times, that when they would solemnize the entrance of any prince, or others that had well deserved of the public, they would break down the walls, and pull off the gates of the city; partly for more flee entrance, and partly to show that their city needed no wall nor gates as long as they had such a guardian and protector within it. It is likely, say they, that David by these words doth allude to some such custom. Or, as Calvin and others will have it, to the temple to be set up by Solomon; which he wisheth were done, that so he might bring in the ark of the covenant, hitherto transportative, into the place of its rest, Psalms 132:14. Certain it is, that the saints, those living temples of the Lord, are here called upon to lift up their hearts in the use of holy ordinances; yea, therein to be abundantly lifted up through faith, with a joyful and assured welcome of the King of glory, who will thereupon come in to them, by the ravishing operation of his love, benefits, and graces.