Psalm 2

Psalms 2:1-3

Why do the heathen rage opens onto a world conspiracy against heaven, the kings of the earth and the rulers taking counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed. Acts 4:25-26 quotes verses 1 and 2 as David's own words, applied by the apostles to Herod and Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles and the people of Israel, gathered together against Jesus the anointed. The bands and cords of verse 3 are the rebels' own image, the Lord's rule pictured as a yoke they mean to throw off rather than the covenant it actually is.

Psalms 2:4-6

Against the rebels' plotting the psalm sets heaven's response: he that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, not amusement but the derision of a plan already defeated before it starts. God answers the kings' council not with a council of his own but with a word already spoken, yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion, the throne installed rather than debated. The verb set plants the king as God's own settled act against every earthly rage.

Psalms 2:7-9

I will declare the decree turns from the rebels to the divine declaration itself: Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee, quoted at Acts 13:33 of the resurrection and at Hebrews 1:5 of the Son's rank above the angels, the New Testament's own reading of begetting as installation into office rather than a birth. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance widens the decree from Zion to the uttermost parts of the earth, the nations promised rather than merely subdued. The rod of iron and the potter's vessel of verse 9 name the same breaking power Revelation 2:27 and 19:15 later apply to this king.

Psalms 2:10-12

Be wise now therefore turns the warning back onto the kings who opened the psalm in rage, urging the same rulers to serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling, worship that holds joy and reverence together. Kiss the Son carries a philological dispute: John Gill and most of the older bench read bar as Aramaic for son, matching the Son of verse 7, while other readers take the Hebrew root for purity and render the phrase kiss the pure one or do homage sincerely, a difference argued from the same consonants without one side settling it. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him closes the psalm on the very word that opened Psalm 1, the two psalms forming one gate into the whole book.