Psalms 2

Psalms 2:1-12

Christ rejected by the banded nations, but His long-suffering salvation to those that trust in Him. As already said, even in the first psalm it is Christ who alone perfectly fills out the description. The law, too, was specially to be the study, naturally, of the king of Israel: “it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear Jehovah his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them.” (Deuteronomy 17:19.) To this, even to the “learning,” the Lord was pleased in taking manhood to conform. It is He who speaks thus by the prophet, uniting together in the grace of His humiliation things that seem contrary to one another, the power and wisdom of an almighty Saviour, with the lowly obedience of His creature man: “Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? When I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? Behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness: their fish stinketh because there is no water, and dieth for thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.” This upon the one side; now hear how the same voice goes on: “The Lord Jehovah hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learner.” (Isaiah 50:2-4.) Thus He magnified the law, and made it honorable. But though the king of Israel has filled this place, and necessarily in perfection, He is not specifically before us in the first psalm. The second, however, is as explicit as the first is reticent in this respect. In this we find Christ as the God-ordained King, though resisted by the banded power of rebellious nations, and His salvation for those who trust in Him. And thus we find completed the character of the godly ones in Israel, who are, in order to be this, believers also in Christ. The blessedness here, not to be divorced from that of the first psalm, is of all those that take refuge in Him. The psalm has twelve verses, the number of manifest government, which are divided as twelve is usually, -we may say, almost universally in Scripture, when divided at all, -into four threes. The first three show us the rebellion of the nations; the second, Jehovah’s opposing attitude and testimony; in the third, Christ is declared to be the Son, with all things in His hand; the fourth is the warning-test for the world, by which the godly are made known. In each of these we find a different speaker.

1. The folly of rebellion is seen at the outset: “who hath hardened himself against Him and prospered?” (Job 9:4.) So great, indeed, is it, that men have to hide from themselves the truth as to what they do, and the “heart is” indeed “deceitful above all things” that can deceive the man himself with a lie that can deceive no other. It is God who asks “who can know it?” and happy is he who will take God’s account. The only reason that can be given for the insanity of rebellion against Him is that “the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” (Romans 8:7.) Satan is the determined enemy of omnipotence, and knows it. Man can bring himself to disbelieve in God, but “the devils believe and tremble.” Yet that has no controlling power to bring to an end an opposition which continually increases the judgment they anticipate. How fearful a thing is the power of sin! The opposition to Jehovah and His Christ is markedly that of the kings and rulers of the earth. The kings desire no “king of kings.” They take counsel and confederate together; and Herod and Pontius Pilate of old will have their representatives to the end (fast hastening) of “man’s day.” That Christ has come on God’s part and been rejected and cut off is a fact which remains with all its significance today. It is not a thing of the past only, but has stamped its character upon the world. Not till He breaks it in pieces with the rod of iron will the opposition cease; and at no time will it be more open, earnest, and intense than in those last days, when Jewish unbelief and Christian apostasy will culminate in the reception of him who (as our Lord warns the Jews) comes in his own name," with no manifestation of the Father, and no heaven-sent message, and is received. (John 5:43.) It was no partial outbreak of human passion that caused the crucifixion. Satan, “the prince of this world,” manifested as this by it, was able to unite Jew and Gentile, high and low together, against the One in whom God was reconciling the world unto Himself. Different motives might incite to the deed, and did; but, however the motives differed, the deed was that of all. How rightly could the Lord say of it “Now is the judgment of this world”! It was the final expression of the enmity of man’s heart to God: “Now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.” (John 15:24.) And is the world now other than it then was? The psalm before us shows that its opposition will continue until the rod of iron breaks it down. “As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man.” Even now there is no such thing really as a Christian world. Nay, the most bitter enmity to Christ and Christians has come forth out of the heart of Christendom itself. I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus; and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration." Thus it remains true still (for “Scripture cannot be broken”) that all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." (2 Timothy 3:12.) But when the thin veil of profession, now fast wearing out, shall be finally flung away, who shall attempt to depict the reality, when the very powers that “make the whore desolate and naked” shall with the “beast” to whom they give their strength, “make war with the Lamb”? (Revelation 17:12-17.) The last hours of nearly exhausted patience will be running out, and the lingering judgment at the very doors, when (the saints of the present dispensation having been removed to heaven) the remnant of Israel enter upon the scene, to encounter the full fury of the final storm; and it is with their sufferings and sorrows that the Psalms are filled. The opposition will then be at its height, and it is this crisis which most fully answers to what is here, the nations having thrown off the last semblance of a Christian yoke. It will be then, indeed, “Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us!” There will be then near in sight the “battle of that great day of God Almighty”: “they shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them.”
2. The three verses following give us now Jehovah’s attitude in view of this hostile gathering. Sitting in the heavens, far above the greatest of their puny efforts, He laughs at their dream of independence and resistance. But presently He too speaks out in His anger, and confounds them in His wrath: “And I,” He says, “I have established my king, upon Zion my holy mount.” It was as king of the Jews they wrote His title upon His cross: His claim was His condemnation. The ages have passed, and men might think that the long lapse of time had sufficiently voided that title at least; but it is not so. God had even long before declared, as if done, what is as sure as if it were done: “I have established my king on Zion.” He calleth the things that are not, as though they were.

The might of His voice had brought the worlds into being. The King on Zion is established by the same omnipotent Voice. 3. The King thus ordained comes forward now Himself to announce who He is, and the dominion which is entrusted to Him. As to His Person, He is by nature the true Son of God. The statement by the apostle in his address in the synagogue of Antioch (Acts 13:33-34) has been taken by some to mean that it is in resurrection, as “first-begotten from the dead” (Revelation 1:5) that these words apply to Him. But the apostle carefully distinguishes there God’s “raising up” to Israel “Jesus as a Saviour,” and His raising Him up from the dead. To the last he applies the expression, “I will give you the sure mercies of David”; to the former only “Thou art my Son.” Had Christ not been already the Son of God in nature, resurrection could not have made Him such; and the angel’s words to Mary (Luke 1:35) show distinctly how the title applies: “The Spirit of God shall come upon thee,” he says, “and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” Thus the Lord’s human birth fitly answers to what He was in Deity. In that He was, as John spake of Him, the only-begotten Son, with no “brethren,” whereas in human nature it is “among many brethren” that He is “First-born.” (Romans 8:29.) The one title as distinctly excludes any share with others, as the second implies it. Of course it is of His human generation alone that it could be said, “Today have I begotten Thee”; and thus He is Son of David also, and King in Zion. As such, however, the nations, even to “the ends of the earth,” are under His dominion; and He has but to ask to have. When He asks, -the nations being in rebellion, -He must subdue the opposition with “the rod of His strength” (Psalms 110:2), which the psalm before us shows us to be yet a shepherd’s rod. The uniform translation of the words in the New Testament (Revelation 2:27; Revelation 12:5; Revelation 19:15, Gk.) proves that the true rendering here is “thou shalt shepherd them,” not “break,” which the parallelism in the latter part of the verse has commended to many. But a shepherd’s rod can smite, and with severity, just because there is heart behind it, -in care of the flock; and we are reminded of Moses, when that rod of his, which had been turned into a serpent, returned to his hand. Forty years he had been in training as a shepherd when he was sent. with that sign of the power entrusted to him, to be the deliverer of Israel, and that rod smote Egypt, so that the nations trembled. Here now is the anti-typical Moses, far greater, yet only the more the true “Shepherd of Israel,” who appears for the redemption of His people, and to whose hands is committed therefore the judgment of the world. But how different is the realization of His inheritance here from that quiet overspreading of the earth by the gospel which so many still imagine! But “as concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes” (Romans 11:28), is said of Israel now, and with Israel’s blessing that of the world is bound up. The prophet Zechariah has shown us very clearly how in the midst of Jerusalem’s extreme distress, compassed with enemies and just falling into their hands, “then the Lord shall go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fought in the day of battle. . . . And His feet shall stand in that day on the mount of Olives,” -how familiar a spot! . . . “and Jehovah my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.” (Zechariah 14:3-5.) The blessing flows out consequent upon this, and “one Lord” is owned throughout the whole earth; but again (though in how different a manner from the cross!) it is from the rock smitten that the waters flow out: the judgment of the world is that in which men learn the righteousness of God, and to submit themselves to it. 4. All therefore depends upon His will and word. If He asks, all things are put in His hand, and His enemies are made His footstool. But He has not asked, and the time is that of His “kingdom and patience.” He reigns, but on His Father’s throne, not yet His own (Revelation 3:21), -His human throne. His saints, therefore, as yet cannot reign with Him, but suffer; and this will be true for Jewish saints even after those of the present period are caught up to meet Him. For as to the earth it cannot yet be said that He has taken His great power and reigned, or that “the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ”; and, as we have seen, the sorest time of distress for saints in Israel will be just before the time when He shall appear. Still, therefore, the warning word goes out to the kings of the earth: wisdom for them will be to submit themselves to Jehovah before the stroke comes that shall effectually humble them, -too late for blessing to them then! Well may those even who do this “rejoice with trembling” for the great peril to which they have been so near. Let them give the Son* at last the homage-kiss of peace and reconciliation now when the slumbering wrath, slumbering so long, is just about to burst out in a blaze that shall sweep all that is exposed to it to destruction.
One sanctuary refuge is there only. None from Him; nowhere but in Him. Happy all they who take refuge there! Thus the two psalms before us are complementary to one another, and together a suited introduction to the rest of the book. In the two, the Old and New Testaments, as it were, join hands, -the double testimony of God is given. After the warning of their long captivity for disobedience to the law, Moses leaves Israel with the assurance, “when thou shalt return unto Jehovah thy God, and shalt hearken to His voice according to all that I command thee this day, -thou and thy sons, with all thy heart and with all thy soul, that then Jehovah thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion on thee, and will gather thee again from among all the peoples whither Jehovah thy God hath scattered thee.” But that has respect only to one controversy; there is now another, and a far more serious one; and this is what the second psalm brings out: thus they are both needful, and exactly in place. Whoever the writers may be, whoever it may be that has arranged and given them their place in the collection, there has been somewhere the most perfect intelligence as to Israel’s condition in times which must have been yet future. Neither as to the psalms nor to their position is there anything haphazard or out of harmony. Order rules in every part; every verse even is in place: the fitness being doubtless little known even to those who were used of God to write and arrange them, and such as even Christians themselves have been slow to appreciate.

Whose is this wisdom? And if this be inspiration, what kind of inspiration is it? Most certainly the patchwork of the higher criticism it is not; and probably the more we ponder it, if there be a spirit of reverence in our hearts, the less we shall hesitate to call it “verbal.”