Psalm 2: The Lord’s reign

Without Psalm 2, you’ll get bogged down when the Psalms talk about “enemies.” Book 1 talks about enemies and foes fifty times in 41 Psalms. Some people just skip these psalms, looking for something more joyful.

Psalm 2 is the missing piece of the puzzle. David’s enemies are God’s enemies. As the Lord’s anointed (verse 2), David represents God’s reign on earth. So, any enemy of David is an enemy of the one who appointed him.

It’s crazy to make yourself an enemy of God, but this is the history of the world. Ever since there have been nations, warriors hunt each other to build their kingdoms (Genesis 10:9-11), and people build cities that try to take heaven’s power into human hands (Genesis 11:4).

God isn’t threatened by these enemies of the Lord and his anointed. These jokers are a joke. To frighten them into standing down, he reminds them what he has decreed:

Psalm 2:1-6 (NIV)
¹ Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?
² The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,
³ “Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.”
⁴ The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.
⁵ He rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,
⁶ “I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.”

The main theme of the Psalms is: the Lord reigns. And on earth, God’s reign is carried out through his anointed (verse 2). That is his decree (verse 6).

In verse 7, we hear a new voice. Somebody applies that decree personally:

Psalm 2:7-9 (NIV)
⁷ I will proclaim the Lord’s decree: He said to me,

“You are my son; today I have become your father.
⁸ Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance,
the ends of the earth your possession.
⁹ You will break them with a rod of iron;
you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”

Any suggestions as to who this is?

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Christian readers sometimes assume this must be Jesus, since he’s the only Son. There’s a couple of problems with that approach. First, that’s not how Israel understood the Psalm. They did not go, “Ah, there must be a second person of the trinity, so it must be about Jesus.” The other problem is that the trinity is eternal. There was never a day when Jesus became the Son by being created or born or adopted.

So, what do you think? What would verse 7 have meant to Israel?

Listen to the moment when God issued the decree that the house of David would reign over his people forever:

2 Samuel 7:11-14 (NIV)
The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: ¹² When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹³ He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. ¹⁴ I will be his father, and he will be my son.

Solomon became king because his father (David) had the throne. David became king because God had the throne. Solomon represents not just the reign of his earthly father David, but the reign of Israel’s eternal Father (Deuteronomy 32:6; Exodus 4:20). In each generation, a son of David received the throne from the one who gave the kingship to David’s descendants: their Father in the heavens.

So, 2 Samuel 7:14 wasn’t talking directly about Jesus either. If it was just about Jesus, there’d be no need for God to say, “When he does wrong, I will punish him …” as 2 Samuel 7:14 goes on to say.

Psalm 2:7 is about the son of David who is God’s anointed (verse 2), installed in Zion (Jerusalem) by God’s decree (verse 6). The king responds by acknowledging God’s decree, and accepting the responsibility entrusted to him.

Psalm 2 sounds like the enthronement ceremony for the kings of Judah. The order of service was:

• A priest introduces the occasion. He explains that — despite the ignorance of other nations — God’s people are ruled by the Lord and his anointed (verse 2).
• A prophet declares what God had decreed, namely that this person standing in front of them was appointed by God to reign in Zion, the temple mountain where God lived among his people (verse 6).
• The king accepts his God-given appointment, taking on the household responsibility as the son receiving the authority of his Father (verse 7), the divine authority that comes with his job (verses 8-9).
• The priest then calls on everyone — including the leaders of other nations — to recognize the new king (verse 10) and pay him homage because of the power he has been given by God (verses 11-12).

That’s what the Psalm meant for Judah in the time of the monarchy. So, what does it mean for us?

Psalm 2 after the exile

The kingdom ceased when Babylon destroyed Jerusalem. After the exile, some returned and built another temple, but there was no enthronement ceremony. They were ruled by a Persian king, not a son of David.

So, why place this Psalm near the front of the Psalter? Why elevate this Psalm that declares the reign of the Lord and his anointed (verse 2) and ridicules the nations for conspiring to rule God’s people (verse 4)? Why focus on God’s decree that he installs his king in Jerusalem (verse 6)?

That was not their experience, but it was their hope. The kingship had died, but this Psalm kept alive the hope that, one day, the kingship would burst back to life, with a son receiving the kingship of his father by divine decree.

Was their hope fulfilled? The prophets kept declaring that God would do it. There was a descendant of David whose name was Zerubbabel. The Persians appointed him as governor (Hagai 1:1), but he wasn’t king. God told him not to fight for it but to wait, for the anointing as king is something God does by giving his Spirit:

Zechariah 4:6 (NIV)
This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.

So, when did God restore the kingdom? When did God appoint his king to reign?

Psalm 2 in the New Testament

Matthew is bursting of out of his skin as he announces the arrival of the long-awaited king:  Jesus the anointed, the son of David (Matthew 1:1).

This is the fulfilment of Israel’s whole story: the 14 generations before David’s reign (Matthew 1:2-6), the 14 reigning sons of David (1:7-11), and the 14 sons of David who could not reign because the nation was in captivity (1:12-17).

Then Jesus the anointed was born (1:18), restoring God’s presence to his people (1:23). Foreigners recognized the king of the Jews (Matthew 2:2), but God’s own people did not. By the end of Matthew, they’d betrayed the king of the Jews to their enemies (Matthew 27:11, 29, 37).

In light of Psalm 2, the apostles understood Jesus’ death as the execution of God’s anointed:

Acts 4:25-27 (NIV)
²⁵ You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:

“Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? ²⁶ The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed one.”

²⁷ Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed.

The nations had already destroyed the kingdom. Now they destroyed the king.

This time, God overruled. That’s the good news, according to Paul:

Acts 13:32-34 (NIV)
³² We tell you the good news: What God promised our ancestors ³³ he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm:

“You are my son; today I have become your father.”

³⁴ God raised him from the dead so that he will never be subject to decay.

When the rulers of this world had done their worst, God overturned the execution of his anointed, raising him from the dead, installing him as king of a world that is no longer subject to decay. On resurrection day, the Son received the authority to reign over the earth from his Father in heaven. According to Paul, that’s the gospel.

By raising up this descendant of David from the dead and installing him as “the Son of God in power,” God made his Anointed the Lord of all nations (Romans 1:3-5).

Hebrews focuses us on the regal authority given to Jesus as the reigning Son:

Hebrews 1:5 (NIV)
To which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father”? [Psalm 2:7]
Or again, “I will be his Father, and he will be my Son”? [2 Samuel 7:14]

The difference between Jesus and other rulers is that his authority is God-given:

Hebrews 5:5 (NIV)
Christ did not take on himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.” [Psalm 2:7]

The authority God gave his Christ covers not only Israel, but the nations as well: “Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.” [Psalm 2:8]

The nations under his kingship? Yes, though the full implication of this promise wasn’t obvious before it happened (Ephesians 3:6). He didn’t have to fight for the kingship. It was something his Father decreed for him (Psalm 2:8, compare Psalm 110:1).

Jesus then shares his authority with those who recognize his kingship:

Revelation 2:26–27 (NIV)
²⁶ “To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations — ²⁷ that one ‘will rule them with an iron sceptre and will dash them to pieces like pottery’ [Psalm 2:9] — just as I have received authority from my Father.

The previous verse of Psalm 2 said his Father would give his son the nations as his inheritance, so:

Revelation 12:5 (NIV)
She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron sceptre.” [Psalm 2:9]

Since this is his Father’s decree, all the Son needs to do is declare it. The word coming out of his mouth — based on his Father’s decree — carries the authority of the king over all kings, the ruler over all rulers:

Revelation 19:15 (NIV)
Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron sceptre.” [Psalm 2:9]

Seven times the New Testament quotes Psalm 2 in relation to Jesus. It’s not that the Psalm was originally written about Jesus. It’s that the regal authority of God’s anointed was lost for 600 years, and now it’s restored in the Christ (anointed ruler).

So, was Psalm 2 about Jesus? Not immediately. It’s about all the sons of David who reigned for 400 years when Israel was a kingdom (1000–600 BC). It’s about all the sons of David who could not represent God’s reign for 600 years when the kingdom had fallen. And, it’s about the son of David, God’s anointed (the Christ) whom God raised up to reign not only over Israel but over the nations as well.

As God had decreed, it’s in his Anointed that heaven’s reign is restored to earth.

How does that sit with you? Your thoughts?

Adapted from “Formed in God’s Story: Psalms.” Full notes and podcasts here.

Related posts

• Formed in God’s Story: Psalms: the series with notes and podcasts
• The story of the Psalms