Psalms 2:4

He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh,.... At the rage and tumult of the Heathen; at the vain imaginations of the people; at the opposition of the kings of the earth; at the mad counsel of the

He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.

He that sitteth, as the Judge upon his tribunal, and as the King of the whole world upon his royal throne; who, without stirring from his place, can with one look or word destroy all his enemies. In the heavens: this is opposed to their being and reigning upon earth, , and is mentioned here, as it is in other places of Scripture, as an evidence both of God’ s clear and certain knowledge of all things that are done below, as is noted, , and of his sovereign and irresistible power, as is hence gathered, . See the preface to the Lord’ s prayer. Shall laugh, i.e. shall both despise and deride them, and all their crafty devices, which he shall manifest to the world to be ridiculous and contemptible follies. Compare .

Psalms 2:4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.Ver. 4. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh at them] Videt, ridet. He seeth and smileth, he looketh and laugheth, at these giants. He sitteth in heaven, far above their reach; neither doth he much trouble himself about the matter. No more should we; but trust in him, and know that there is a council in heaven that will dash the mould of all contrary counsels upon earth; as the stone cut out of the mountain did the four great monarchies, Daniel 2:34. See an instance hereof in latter times. Luther, that heroic reformer, was excommunicated by the pope, proscribed by the emperor, hated and cursed all Christendom over almost, yet he prospered, and the work of Christ went on in his hands. And when the Elector of Saxony, his only patron, was much afraid what would become of him, and of the business of religion, Luther out of his Patmos (as he called it), where he lay hid, writeth him a rousing letter, wherein is read this among many other brave passages: Sciat celsitudo tua et nihil dubitet longe aliter in coelo quam Noribergae de hoc negotio conclusum est, Let your Highness rest well assured of this, that things are far otherwise carried and concluded in heaven, than they are at the Imperial Diet held at Norinberg. After this, in the year of grace 1526, there conspired against the gospel, and the professors thereof, the emperor and his prisoner in Spain, the French king, the princes also and bishops in Germany, stirred up by the pope. The French king was set at liberty, upon the condition that he join with the emperor to root out Lutheranism, that is, true religion. This was the agreement, but God broke it; for the French king was no sooner home but he made a league with the pope and the Venetians against the emperor. The pope excuseth his falling off from Caesar by a petulant and malapert epistle. Caesar, by another letter, lay open to the world the pope’ s perfidy, exhorting him to peace, and concluding that they had more need to unite their forces for the extirpation of Lutheran heresy. By this means the Church had a happy halcyon, while these great ones were out, and at it. The Lord shall have them in derision] Adonai, that is, the sustainer and upholder of all. Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords, Revelation 19:16. Lords and lowlies are all his vassals and underlings, as Constantine, Theodosius, and Valentine, those great emperors, called themselves. This name or style Christ hath written on his vesture, that all may see it, and on his thigh, where hangs his sword, to show his absolute dominion, his unlimited empire, got and held out of the hands of his enemies, with his mind, and with his bow, Genesis 48:22.

(4) He that sitteth.—Here the psalm, with a sublimity truly Hebrew, turns from the wild confusion on earth to the spectacle of God looking down with mingled scorn and wrath on the fruitless attempts of the heathen against His chosen people. Laugh.—We speak of the “irony of events “; the Hebrew ascribes irony to God, who controls events.

Verse 4. He that sitteth in the heavens] Whose kingdom ruleth over all, and is above all might and power, human and diabolical. Shall laugh. Words spoken after the manner of men; shall utterly contemn their puny efforts; shall beat down their pride, assuage their malice, and confound their devices.

4–6. The poet-seer draws aside the veil, and bids us look from earth to heaven. There the supreme Ruler of the world sits enthroned in majesty. With sovereign contempt He surveys these petty plottings, and when the moment comes confounds them with a word.

He that sitteth in the heavens - God, represented as having his home, his seat, his throne in heaven, and thence administering the affairs of the world.

4. Laugh… derision—A bold anthropomorphism, here signifying not only exultation, but the infinite ease with which God shall render abortive all their plans, which in Psalms 2:1 are called “vain,”—nothing.