So let’s be honest with ourselves, it took longer than expected to get through those first 4 verses. I can’t say whether or not every psalm will be this way, but at least now you know a little bit of what we’re doing here. We may go down some rabbit trails when we see something interesting. I hope that’s OK with you. 😊
Since we’re still pretty close to the beginning of this psalm why don’t we do a quick once over on the whole thing again, and then we’ll pick back up in verse 5.
The Reign of the Lord's Anointed
1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
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 break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.
6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
7 I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.
8 Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
10 Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.
11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
Let’s switch it up and go to a different translation for this verse. When I see lines like “vex them in His sore displeasure” I start to get a little confused. The ISV renders this verse as follows:
5 In his anger he rebukes them,
and in his wrath he terrifies them:
In other words, God ain’t playing around anymore. What do we know about the wrath of God? Well, we know that we, the commonwealth of Israel (Eph 2:12 –“remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”) , aren’t appointed to God’s wrath (1 Thes 5:9 – “For God has not destined us to receive wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus, the Messiah,”) but there are some very real promises of wrath in the book of Revelation (Rev 16 – the whole chapter). So, in verse 5, who is it that’s seeing this wrath of God? At the very least, it’s those who are out of covenant (remember our study on the word ‘goyim’ from last time) and who are outside of the commonwealth of Israel. And if we're looking at eschatological prophecy is in view then we’re talking about, basically, anyone who has taken the mark of the beast.
6 “I have set my king on Zion,
my holy mountain.”
Time for some more questions! Let’s start with the easy question: where is Zion? The quick and easy answer is that it’s a mountain in Jerusalem. If you want to dig deeper, it stops being quite so easy, but that’s an entirely different topic…
The second question would have to be, who is His king? Actually, let’s first talk about why God would be saying that He placed a king on Zion. In ancient Near Eastern (ANE) society it was almost always claimed by the king that they had been installed as king by their god(s). So for Israel to not be able to make the same claim – even though the Israelite religion would deny that the gods in question from those other kingdoms were actually God, and that they were actually devils (we went over this a bit last time but the a verse reference would be Deut 32:16-17) – would be, in essence, weakening the claim of the Israelite king to the surrounding nations.
Ok, now back to who God’s king is…
We need to first recognize that our God, Himself, is the actual King over all the earth (Ps 47:7, Ps 22:28, Ps 98:6). But there’s something different happening here, as well. There is a hint, an allusion of the sonship of Messiah at play here. In Zecheriah 14:9 we read, “The LORD will be king over all the earth at that time. There will be one LORD, and his name the only one.” The language here dictates that we’re talking about a future event. If the LORD is already king over the earth (as we’ve just shown), why is it that we’re looking at this with a future fulfillment in view? It’s possible that this was a reference to a future time when God would reinstate His dominance over the earth. That’s a perfectly valid interpretation. But, it’s also possible that this is reference to Jesus being God, because He is also described as King over the earth.
In 1 Timothy 6:15 God the Father is described as “King of kings and Lord of lords” but in Revelation 19:16 we see this very same title being applied to Jesus. In fact, in the verse before (Rev 19:15) we have a reference to this very description of God’s king sitting on the holy mountain of Zion. It says, “And out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike own nations – ‘He will rule them with a staff of iron.’ It is he who treads the winepress from which flows the wind of the furious rage of ADONAI, God of heaven’s armies. (CJB). That brings us to our next few verses…
7 Let me announce the decree of the LORD
that he told me:
“You are my son,
today I have become your father.
8 Ask of me, and I will give you
the nations as your inheritance,
the ends of the earth as your possession.
9 You will break them with an iron rod,
you will shatter them like pottery.”
The same iron rod (staff) is in view here. We’re already drawing the connections between Psalm 2 and Messianic end times fulfillment, and verse 9 is connected to Revelation 19, when Jesus is enthroned over all the earth.
If there’s still any questions over whether it’s Jesus who is in view here, Hebrews 1:5 clears this up, “For to which of the angels did He ever say, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten you’? And again: ‘I will be to Him a Father, And He shall be to Me a Son’?” And in Acts 13:33 we read, “God has fulfilled this for us their children, in that He has raised up Jesus. As it is also written in the second Psalm: ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.’”
So, who is this king who God has installed on His holy mountain? It is none other than King Yeshua, King Jesus.
Before we move on I feel that we should at least bring something up for verse 8. (I know we’re going slow here, but I promise we’re getting through this psalm today. Just something real quick…)
When Jesus was fasting in the wilderness and Satan tempted Him, one of the things Satan offered Jesus was “all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.” (Mat 4:8). We can assume that Satan actually had the authority to make the offer since Jesus didn’t deny the validity of the claim but, through Scripture, told him, “You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.” But I’d like to point out that Jesus knew that because He worshipped the Father, and Him only did He serve, He was going to receive the nations after Satan lost his claim upon the earth. You can go into this little study a lot deeper than I’m doing here (and I think you’ll have a good time if you do) but I just wanted to touch on it before we moved on to the next verses.
10 Therefore, kings, act wisely!
Earthly rulers, be warned!
11 Serve the LORD with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the son before he becomes angry,
and you die where you stand.
Indeed, his wrath can flare up quickly.
How blessed are those who take refuge in him.
I think this part here is pretty self-explanatory, but let’s look at it just a little bit. The most surprising – and almost out of place – is plea for repentance. Repentance is always something that we should be focusing on when we’re viewing ourselves. And we should always be praying for the repentance and restoration of those who would stand against our King, but it seems a little bit strange coming directly after we’re told of their coming judgment of being broken like pottery. But I think that this is important for us to remember. No man is so far removed from the Father that he is beyond the grasp of the Father. Our heart’s cry should be for the salvation of every man, no matter how we view their current actions.
In reading 2 Peter 3:9 we see that God is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” Our most adamant prayers, greater than my pleas for health or relief, should be for the salvation of every man, even my enemies. It’s sometimes difficult to prayer for the salvation of our enemies but it’s a selfish thing to want to win an argument more than we want to see those around us come to know the Father’s love. I’m just as guilty as anyone else here, but I’m trying.
I’ll repeat the last line of the last verse one last time in closing:
How blessed are those who take refuge in HIM!
Shalom!
This originally appeared on my blog linked below
http://thepoiema.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-psalms-2b-reign-of-lords-anointed.html