John Calvin Commentary Psalms 105:15

"[Saying], Touch not mine anointed ones, And do my prophets no harm." — Psalms 105:15 (ASV)

Saying, Touch not my anointed ones, the Psalmist proceeds further, affirming that when God made war against kings for the sake of his servants, they were defended by him, not only as he is accustomed to help the miserable and the unjustly oppressed, but because he had taken them under his special guardianship.

God protects his people, not only for general reasons, but because he has declared, on account of his free adoption, that he will maintain them. This is the reason why these holy patriarchs are here honored with two designations, his prophets and his anointed ones. In speaking of other men, God would have said: Do not touch these men who have wronged no one; do not hurt these poor wretched creatures who have deserved no such treatment from you.

But in the case of Abraham and his children, he shows that there was another reason for his defending them: he calls them anointed ones, because he had set them apart to be his peculiar people. In the same sense, he designates them prophets, (a title with which Abraham is also honored, Genesis 20:7) not only because God had manifested himself more intimately to them, but also because they faithfully spread divine truth, so that its memory might survive them and flourish after their death.

Anointing, it is true, was not yet in use, as it later was under the Law; but the prophet teaches that what God later exhibited in the ceremonies of the Law was really and indeed in Abraham, even as God engraves the mark of sanctification on all his chosen ones.

If God’s inward anointing had such powerful effect, even when he had not yet appointed or delivered the types of the Law, with how much greater care will he defend his servants now, after having shown us the fullness of anointing in his only-begotten Son!