This Psalm belongs to the class called Messianic. It is a psalm full of that great national hope of the Jews concerning Him that was to come. The noblest kind of national hope, the highest idea of "manifest destiny," is not simply a great event, but a great character. It is the ideal of a great character that is to come to them, and then to create great character throughout all the people. The hope of the coming of such a being was the ruling idea of the Jewish people.
I. What is the philosophy of the Messianic psalms? There are three speakers and series of utterances. The first is the writer of the Psalm, who stands, as it were, to call the attention of the people to the two great Speakers. These two great; Speakers are, first, the Lord Jehovah, who stands behind everything done and said in Judaism, and, in the second place, the coming One, the Anointed, the King, the Messiah Himself. The writer stands as the chorus in the great tragedy. He sees God taking the sovereignty of the world, and bringing to the world its Saviour. He sees, looking down through the ages, that persecution is going to come. So he breaks forth in astonishment, "Why do the heathen rage?"
II. But God's great purpose of making Jesus King of the world is unchanged and unchangeable. And so He speaks: "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh." Jesus shall reign. That is Jehovah's determined purpose.
III. The third Speaker is Christ Himself. "I will declare the decree," etc. Christ is in the world, and He is sure of the world. Sitting upon the throne, recognising clearly who set Him there, He will never leave it until all the nations shall be His nations.
IV. At the close we come back to the writer of the chorus that tells us what the meaning of it all is. "Be wise now, ye kings," etc. There rings out the great voice of the Psalmist, which declares that in the end of things only he who is on the side of righteousness shall have place and power in this world. If we set ourselves against the Son of God and His righteousness, our force shall die out of the world.
Phillips Brooks, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxix., p. 232.
I. We gather from this Psalm that there existed a various and widely spread opposition to Messiah's claims and kingdom. The hostility is said to be (1) general; (2) angry and determined; (3) organised; (4) the recoil from wholesome restraint and submission.
II. The second portion of the Psalm reveals to us the treatment of this opposition and its overthrow. "Thou shalt break hem with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."
III. We have the announced purpose in fulfilment of which our faith may be encouraged and our hope inspired. "I will declare the decree; the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee."
W. M. Punshon, Sermons,2nd series, p. 118.
References: Psalms 2:1. Expositor,3rd series, vol. v., p. 305.Psalms 2:2. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. ix., No. 495.