In the same way we may suitably understand^[1] what we read in the psalm, But God, our King before the worlds, hath wrought salvation in the midst of the earth; so that the Lord Jesus may be understood to be our God who is before the worlds, because by him the worlds were made, working our salvation in the midst of the earth, for the Word was made flesh and dwelt in an earthly body.

But God is our king before the ages; he has worked salvation in the midst of the earth. That understanding of Asaph, which the superscription was predicting and foretelling in the spirit of prophecy that the Savior the Lord would come, pertains to the second section and lists in a rhetorical tour de force how many miracles he has done in heaven and on earth. And that he was speaking about his incarnation—lest anyone might think that he was a temporal lord—he attests that he had already been a king before the foundation of the world, as he himself says in the gospel, I was born in this [age].^[1] For the times are called ages [secula] because they roll back into themselves [in se]. Next comes the phrase, He worked salvation in the midst of the earth. Although this can also be understood to refer to the miraculous deeds which he is recognized to have done visibly before people, nonetheless we would take this better to refer to the salvation of souls, which he did through his life-giving preaching.

You strengthened the sea in your power; you crushed the heads of dragons on the waters. And truly it would show what he said earlier—namely, that the Lord the Savior was king before the ages, who deigned to suffer for us, so that he would destroy death by dying, bestow freedom to the captives and recompense to the guilty—so he repeats the miracles which he had once done among the nation of the Jews. For he strengthened the watery deeps of the Red Sea, when the water was divided in two walls so as to make the ship-traversing sea into a path of dry land. Next comes You crushed the heads of dragons on the waters. The mystery of the earlier miracle explains well enough that that prefigurement of the crossing of the Red Sea was pointing to the waters of Holy Baptism, where the heads of dragons, that is, of unclean spirits, were made nothing because the salvific font makes clean the souls which the demons make unclean with the filth of their sins.

Next comes May the haughtiness of those who hate you always ascend to you. We note that this has been aptly spoken concerning the Romans, about whom he says earlier, In the middle of your hall they have placed their standards, in order to move the Almighty Judge most vehemently against the enemies of Jerusalem. Their haughtiness is what the Lord especially curses, for through it both the angel fell and the blessed state of the first man departed.^[1] And consider how wisely the sharpest vice was placed last so that he might say after everything that one item what would be kept in the confines of memory. Thus those who have been devoted to the Lord with a pure mind deplore simply and wisely; thus those who obey the godly rules pour forth their complaint, although they do not know how to be deceived by their grief, however excessive it is.