Psalm 2: The Reign of the LORD’s Anointed
No context is given for this Psalm; we’re not even told who wrote it (though Acts 4:25 credits David). Regardless of who wrote it or their original intentions, this is a Psalm we clearly recognize as being “Messianic” in nature—that is, this Psalm talks about Jesus, the Messiah. The ultimate (and literal) “Son of God,” the ultimate king, the ultimate “Anointed One.” David is rhetorically asking why anyone would ever go against God and His Anointed One (the king), knowing that God is in control; we can ask the same thing, in retrospect: why would anyone go against God and His Anointed One (Jesus the Christ), knowing that Jesus is the only means of salvation? (It’s a literal question, though, not a rhetorical one—the attitude should be one of trying to understand where people are coming from, as opposed to, “Why don’t you just believe in Jesus you dummies?” Which, let’s be clear, the Christian Church, and its members, have been guilty of on many occasions…)
There are definitely people who don’t recognize Jesus as being the only means of salvation—they don’t go against Jesus thinking they’re going against the only means of salvation, they go against Jesus believing that He’s not a means of salvation—just like there would have been kings of other nations, when this Psalm was written, who went against Israel and did not consider God to be God, and did not consider Israelite kings to be God’s Anointed. But it’s never a question of how strongly you believe something, it’s a question as to whether the thing you believe is correct or incorrect.
The Text
All that said, let’s get into the text…
1 Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying,
3 “Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”
We start the Psalm off by looking at those who would rebel against the LORD and His anointed—that is, the King of Israel. And the only thing that strikes me from these first few verses is the fact that this Psalm (as in many other parts of the Scriptures) doesn’t just call the king “God’s chosen one,” or “the one who inherited the throne,” or even just “the king of God’s kingdom.” The king is called the “Anointed” one. Being the king of Israel (or, later, Judah) was more than just a matter of being the leader of the people, and more than just a matter of being a descendent of David. Being King of Israel/Judah was a matter of being anointed by God—being set apart by God—to shepherd His people.
I don’t think of this in terms of how a king was chosen, more as a matter of how a king was supposed to view his kingship. It should never be a matter of “I’m king so I can do whatever I want,” it’s a matter of, “God made me king, so I should follow Him.”
In fact… here’s a quotation from a note in the New Student Bible talking about this term “anointed one” in the Psalm:
The Messiah in the Psalms
Israelite kings and priests were anointed with oil when they took office. The “Anointed One” probably originally meant “king.” It came, however, to stand for more. The Hebrew word is masiah, which became Messiah and translated into Greek as Christos or Christ. This psalm was understood in the New Testament as referring to Jesus—for no Old Testament king ever gained the control of the nations implied here. You can find quotations in Acts 4:25–26; 13:33; Hebrews 1:5; 5:5; and Revelation 2:27; 12:5; and 19:15.
Not that this is what the Psalm is about, it’s just a side note. So let’s continue: how does God react to this questioning of His authority?
4 He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
Two things on this section:
First, the obvious: go ahead and plot all you want, nations and kings of the earth and rulers, but if you’re going against God it will come to nothing. The very idea that you could fight God and win is laughable.
The second thing is that verse 4 mentions “the Lord,” not “the LORD,” indicating that verse 4 is not using the personal name for God, but just the word “lord” as a title (see below for a more fulsome discussion of the word “LORD”). I don’t know if that means that verse 4 is referring to the LORD’s anointed king, the “Lord of Israel,” or if it’s referring to the LORD, who is “the Lord of the earth.” (i.e. “The LORD is the Lord of the earth.”) I couldn’t find a commentary that mentioned this nuance; that doesn’t mean such commentaries don’t exist, it just means I didn’t find it.
5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
6 “As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”
While verse 4 spoke of God laughing at the absurdity of being challenged by earthly rulers, that doesn’t mean that He is taking things lightly. The point is absurdity, not mirth! And we see that here: God is now unleashing His wrath. The King of Israel is God’s king; going against the LORD’s Anointed is the same as going against God Himself.
7 I will tell of the decree:
The LORD said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
9 You shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
For the original Israelite king who [I assume] wrote this, thinking of himself as God’s son would have been highly appropriate, and a good way of thinking of himself not just as king, but as God’s “anointed.” Of course, the ultimate Anointed One, God’s literal son Jesus Christ, fulfils this all the more, as mentioned above.
10 Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
be warned, O rulers of the earth.
11 Serve the LORD with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
It’s very interesting to read these verses of the Psalm in light of both the strict, of-the-moment reading from when it was written (i.e. written about a king—a man in the line of David), as well as reading it in retrospect, knowing about Jesus (i.e. written about the king—the literal Son of God). Some of this doesn’t change; e.g. earthly rulers should serve the LORD with fear now as then (though this isn’t something we expect from earthly rulers).
But the point about the “Son” being angry, and earthly kings perishing would be read very differently if that “Son” is an earthly Israelite king, in which case the nations perishing will only happen if God is working with/through that king versus if we read that “Son” as Jesus, who is God, and where “perishing” is more than just losing battles or even losing one’s nation, it’s about losing one’s soul.
The Name of God
I mentioned above that verse 4 mentions “the Lord,” not “the LORD”—that is, it’s not in all caps. In the Old Testament Scriptures, whenever we see the word LORD in capital letters1 it means that the original Scriptures are using God’s personal Name, not just the word/title “lord.” A good description of this can be found in the Preface to the English Standard Version translation of the Bible:
… concerning terms that refer to God in the Old Testament: God, the Maker of heaven and earth, introduced himself to the people of Israel with a special personal name, the consonants for which are YHWH (see Exodus 3:14–15). Scholars call this the “Tetragrammaton,” a Greek term referring to the four Hebrew letters YHWH. The exact pronunciation of YHWH is uncertain, because the Jewish people considered the personal name of God to be so holy that it should never be spoken aloud. Instead of reading the word YHWH, they would normally read the Hebrew word ’Adonay (“Lord”), and the ancient translations into Greek, Syriac, and Aramaic also followed this practice. When the vowels of the word ’Adonay are placed with the consonants of YHWH, this results in the familiar word Jehovah that was used in some earlier English Bible translations. As is common among English translations today, the ESV usually renders the personal name of God (YHWH) with the word LORD (printed in small capitals). An exception to this is when the Hebrew word ’Adonay appears together with YHWH, in which case the two words are rendered together as “the Lord [in lower case] GOD [in small capitals].” In contrast to the personal name for God (YHWH), the more general name for God in Old Testament Hebrew is ’Elohim and its related forms of ’El or ’Eloah, all of which are normally translated “God” (in lower case letters). The use of these different ways to translate the Hebrew words for God is especially beneficial to the English reader, enabling the reader to see and understand the different ways that the personal name and the general name for God are both used to refer to the One True God of the Old Testament.
Other translations of the Bible follow a similar format, rendering the personal name for God as “LORD.” This doesn’t apply to the New Testament, however, because it was written in Greek, and didn’t have this term YHWH for translators to render into English in the same way the Old Testament Scriptures do.
So that’s the difference between “Lord” and “LORD,” but it doesn’t explain why all of Psalm 2 uses God’s personal name “LORD” except for verse 4, as called out above. Elsewhere throughout the Psalm we keep seeing “LORD,” meaning that the Psalm is using God’s personal name—YHWH or “LORD”—everywhere except in that one place.
To be pedantic, most bibles will use “small caps” instead of all capitals—that is, they’ll say “LORD” instead of “LORD.” But that’s just because small caps is nicer to read than all capital letters. (This blog tries to use a nicer style text where supported, falling back to all capitls when devices don't support it; “FORMATTED NICELY” vs. “ALL CAPITALS.”) We get the same idea, without the text “shouting” at us. ↩︎
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