Psalms 2: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm opens with nations and their rulers plotting together to throw off the rule of the LORD and of the king he has chosen. God, seated in heaven, laughs at them and answers that he has already installed his king on Zion. The king then repeats the LORD's decree naming him God's son and offering him the nations as his inheritance, to rule with an iron rod. The psalm closes by telling the kings and judges of the earth to serve the LORD with fear and to give the Son their loyalty.

Claim by Claim

1. 2:1
   • A question is asked: why do the nations rage.
   • A question is asked: why do the peoples plot what is empty and comes to nothing.
2. 2:2
   • The kings of the earth take their stand.
   • The rulers conspire together.
   • Their stand and conspiracy are against the LORD.
   • Their stand and conspiracy are also against the LORD's anointed one.
   • The kings and rulers speak the words that follow.
3. 2:3
   • They say: let us tear off the bonds of the LORD and his anointed.
   • They say: let us throw their ropes away from us.
4. 2:4
   • The one who sits enthroned in the heavens laughs.
   • The Lord mocks them.
5. 2:5
   • Then he will speak to them in his anger.
   • He will terrify them in his burning fury.
6. 2:6
   • God says he himself has installed his king.
   • The king is installed upon Zion.
   • Zion is God's holy mountain.
7. 2:7
   • The speaker says he will declare the decree.
   • The LORD said to the speaker: you are my son.
   • The LORD said to the speaker: today I have begotten you.
8. 2:8
   • The LORD tells him to ask of him.
   • The LORD says he will give him the nations as his inheritance.
   • The LORD says he will give him the ends of the earth as his possession.
9. 2:9
   • He will break them with a rod of iron; the wording can also mean he will rule them with it.
   • He will smash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
10. 2:10
    • Kings are told to act wisely now.
    • The judges of the earth are told to take warning.
11. 2:11
    • The LORD is to be served with fear.
    • Rejoicing is to be done with trembling.
12. 2:12
    • They are commanded to kiss the Son.
    • The command is given lest he become angry.
    • If he becomes angry they will perish in the way.
    • His wrath is kindled in a moment.
    • All who take refuge in him are blessed.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

2:1

"Heathen" in 1611 English simply meant the nations, the peoples outside Israel. It carried no comment on their religion. "Imagine a vain thing" means to plot something empty: a scheme that will come to nothing.

2:2

Where the King James prints LORD in capitals, the Hebrew has the personal name of Israel's God, YHWH, which Jewish readers did not pronounce aloud; "Lord" in ordinary type (as in verse 4) is a different word, meaning master. "His anointed" translates Hebrew *mashiach*, from which English gets "messiah"; the Greek equivalent is *christos*. It means a person marked out for office by having oil poured over his head, here the reigning king of Israel, who was installed that way at his coronation.

2:3

"Their" means the LORD's and his king's. Chains and cords are the straps of a harness put on a working animal, a standard image for the obligations a subject ruler owed his overlord. The speakers are the rebelling kings of verse 2.

2:4

"Have them in derision" means to laugh at them with open contempt, the way you would treat a threat you do not take seriously.

2:5

"Vex" in 1611 meant to shake or terrify, far stronger than the modern sense of annoy; "sore" meant severe or fierce, not painful.

2:6

Zion was the fortified ridge in Jerusalem that David captured, and the name came to stand for the whole city and its temple hill. Calling it "my holy hill" marks it as God's own ground; ancient peoples commonly located a god's rule on a particular mountain.

2:7

A "decree" here is a formal royal document, a written charter of appointment, read out when a king took the throne. "This day have I begotten thee" uses the language of legal fatherhood, not physical birth: across the ancient Near East a king was declared the god's son on the day of his coronation, which is what "this day" points to.

2:8

"Inheritance" and "possession" are legal words for property handed over and held by right, the same terms used for family land. "Ask of me" pictures a formal petition from the new king to the God who has just installed him.

2:9

The "rod" is a king's mace or scepter, a heavy club that served both as a weapon and as the emblem of royal authority. The Hebrew verb translated "break" can be read, with different vowels, as "shepherd" or "rule"; the ancient Greek translation took it that way, so the line has been understood both as smashing the nations and as ruling them. Pottery is fired clay: once shattered it cannot be repaired, and smashing inscribed pots was a known ritual for cursing an enemy.

2:10

"Judges" here means rulers generally. In this world governing and judging were the same job, a king's chief duty was to hear cases and give verdicts.

2:11

"Serve" is the word used for a subject's duty to his king, not for worship alone. The Hebrew of the end of this verse and the start of verse 12 is unusually difficult, and translations differ over how the two lines divide.

2:12

Kissing the feet, hand or garment of a ruler was the standard public gesture of submission to him. The word for "son" here, *bar*, is Aramaic rather than Hebrew, which is one reason this line is heavily disputed; other readings of the same consonants give "kiss the chosen one" or "kiss his feet." "Perish from the way" is likewise open: it can mean to be destroyed on the road you are traveling, or to have your whole course come to nothing. "Blessed" here means fortunate or well off, and "put their trust in him" translates a verb meaning to take shelter, as from a storm or a pursuer.