Psalms 1 and 2 · The portal of the Psalter
BSBThe Two Gates
Two psalms stand at the front of the book with no headings of their own: the blessed man who delights in the law, and the anointed King the nations rage against. They are joined by one word, and the reader who walks through them knows both which road he is on and whose reign he is under before he prays a line.
Summary
Psalms 1 and 2 are one gate in two leaves. The law and the King, the two ways and the raging nations, with a blessing at the opening of the first and at the close of the second.
- Neither psalm carries a heading, and the word blessed opens Psalm 1:1 and closes Psalm 2:12.
- Psalm 1 sorts the reader by what he delights in; Psalm 2 sorts the nations by what they do with the Son.
- Both psalms end on a way that perishes, so the gate closes the same question twice.
- The New Testament quotes Psalm 2 four times of Jesus, at Acts 4:25-26, Acts 13:33, Hebrews 1:5 and Hebrews 5:5.
The Two Psalms, Whole
18 verses, side by side, Berean Standard Bible
- 1Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or set foot on the path of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.
- 2But his delight is in the Law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night.
- 3He is like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding its fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither, and who prospers in all he does.
- 4Not so the wicked! For they are like chaff driven off by the wind.
- 5Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
- 6For the LORD guards the path of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
- 1Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
- 2The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together, against the LORD and against His Anointed One:
- 3“Let us break Their chains and cast away Their cords.”
- 4The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord taunts them.
- 5Then He rebukes them in His anger, and terrifies them in His fury:
- 6“I have installed My King on Zion, upon My holy mountain.”
- 7I will proclaim the decree spoken to Me by the LORD: “You are My Son; today I have become Your Father.
- 8Ask Me, and I will make the nations Your inheritance, the ends of the earth Your possession.
- 9You will break them with an iron scepter; You will shatter them like pottery.”
- 10Therefore be wise, O kings; be admonished, O judges of the earth.
- 11Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
- 12Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish in your rebellion, when His wrath ignites in an instant. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him.
Read them in one sitting and the join is audible. The first psalm ends with a way that leads to ruin, and the second ends with the same warning put to kings, with a blessing on everyone who takes refuge instead.
The Pairs
5 places where the second psalm answers the first
Who stands at the centre
Psalm 1.One man, described by what he refuses and what he delights in. He is never named, so any reader can be him or fail to be.
Psalm 2.One King, installed on Zion by God and called His Son. He is not a type of reader; He is the one the reader must reckon with.
What he does with the word of God
Psalm 1.He meditates on the law of the LORD day and night. The Hebrew verb carries the sense of muttering a text over until it is worn smooth.
Psalm 2.The nations plot in vain and the kings take their stand against the LORD and against His Anointed One, saying they will throw off the cords.
The picture given
Psalm 1.A tree planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in season, its leaf never withering, set against chaff the wind drives away.
Psalm 2.A son asking of his Father and being given the nations as an inheritance, and the ends of the earth as a possession, with a rod of iron in his hand.
How it ends
Psalm 1.The LORD guards the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to ruin (1:6).
Psalm 2.Blessed are all who take refuge in Him, for His wrath can flare in a moment and the way is lost (2:12).
The word that binds them
Psalm 1.The first word of Psalm 1:1 is blessed, and the psalm has no heading of its own.
Psalm 2.The last line of Psalm 2:12 is a blessing on all who take refuge in Him, and this psalm has no heading either.
How Each Reads the Other
the gate works in both directions
Psalm 1 reads Psalm 2
The first psalm says that a life is decided by what it delights in and who it walks with. Read forward into the second, the kings of the earth are simply the men of Psalm 1:1 at full scale: they are taking counsel, they are standing together, and the counsel is against the LORD. The blessing at the end of Psalm 2 is therefore the same blessing as the one at the start of Psalm 1, offered now to the people least likely to take it.
Psalm 2 reads Psalm 1
The second psalm keeps the first from becoming a private matter of personal habits. The law the blessed man meditates on belongs to a King, and the two ways run through public history, through thrones and armies and the ends of the earth. Read back into Psalm 1, the man planted by the water is not merely a well ordered individual. He is a subject of the King whom the nations are still raging against.
Psalm 2 in the New Testament
4 places the apostles read it of Jesus
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? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against His Anointed One.’
The church at prayer after Peter and John are released quotes the opening of the psalm and reads the rulers who took their stand as Herod, Pontius Pilate and the nations gathered against Jesus.
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.’
Paul preaching in Antioch of Pisidia takes the words about begetting the Son as fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus.
For to which of the angels did God ever say: “You are My Son; today I have become Your Father”? Or again: “I will be His Father, and He will be My Son”?
The opening argument of Hebrews asks which of the angels God ever addressed in these words, and answers that He said them to the Son.
So also Christ did not take upon Himself the glory of becoming a high priest, but He was called by the One who said to Him: “You are My Son; today I have become Your Father.”
The same line is used a second time, now to show that Christ did not take the honour of the priesthood on Himself but was appointed to it.
Three of the four quote the same line about the Son, and each puts it to different work. It proves the resurrection in Acts 13:33, the Son above the angels in Hebrews 1:5, and the appointment to the priesthood in Hebrews 5:5. The fourth, in Acts 4, quotes the opening of the psalm and names the people it fell on.
How the Gate Has Been Taught
6 readings, each summarized in our own words with the work named
The Babylonian Talmud
Berakhot 9b to 10a (redacted c. AD 500 to 600)
The rabbinic tradition preserves the ruling that Blessed is the man and Why do the nations rage are one chapter rather than two, which is the oldest surviving witness that the two psalms were read as a single gate.
Augustine of Hippo
Enarrationes in Psalmos, on Psalms 1 and 2 (begun AD 392)
Augustine reads the blessed man of Psalm 1 as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the one man who truly never walked in the counsel of the wicked, and takes the raging of Psalm 2 as the plot that ended at the cross.
John Calvin
Commentary on the Book of Psalms (1557)
Calvin treats Psalm 1 as set at the entrance to teach the reader what kind of man prays the rest of the book, and reads Psalm 2 of David's own kingdom first and of Christ's kingdom fully, since the promise outruns anything David held.
Franz Delitzsch
Biblical Commentary on the Psalms (1867)
Delitzsch notes that the two psalms are bound together by the beatitude that opens the first and closes the second, and that a reading preserved at Acts 13:33 in Codex Bezae cites Psalm 2 as the first psalm, which only makes sense if the two were counted as one.
Charles Spurgeon
The Treasury of David (1869 to 1885)
Spurgeon calls Psalm 1 the preface psalm, set at the door of the Psalter to sort the reader before he prays, and reads Psalm 2 as the psalm of the Messiah, with the kiss of the Son at its close offered to the very kings who raged.
Gerald H. Wilson
The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter (1985)
Wilson argued from the shape of the book that Psalms 1 and 2 were placed as an introduction to the whole Psalter, so that the reader meets the law and the anointed King before he meets a single prayer.
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