Why do the heathen rage?
The prophetical element in the Psalm
But though the poem was occasioned by some national event, we must not confine its application to that event, nor need we even suppose that the singer himself did not feel that his words went beyond their first occasion. He begins to speak of an earthly king, and his wars with the nations of the earth; but his words are too great to have all their meaning exhausted in David, or Solomon, or Ahaz, or any Jewish monarch. Or ever he is aware, the local and the temporal are swallowed up in the universal and the eternal. The king who sits on David’s throne has become glorified and transfigured in the light of the promise. The picture is half-ideal and half-actual. It concerns itself with the present, but with that only so far as it is typical of greater things to come. The true King who, to the prophet’s mind, is to fulfil all his largest hopes, has taken the place of the visible and earthly king. The nations are not merely those who are now mustering for the battle, but whatsoever opposeth and exalteth itself against Jehovah and His anointed. Hence the Psalm is in the nature of a prophecy, and still waits for its final accomplishment. It had a real fulfilment, no doubt, in the banding together of Herod and Pontius Pilate against Christ (Acts 4:25-27). But this was not a literal one. It may be said to have an ever-repeated fulfilment in the history of the Church, which is a history of God’s kingdom upon earth, a kingdom which in all ages has the powers of the world arrayed against it, and in all ages the same disastrous result to those who have risen “against the Lord and against His anointed.” And so it shall be to the end, when, perhaps, that hostility will be manifested in some yet deadlier form, only to be overthrown forever, that the kingdoms of this world may become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ. (J. J. S. Perowne.)
A magnificent lyric
The true basis of this Psalm is not some petty revolt of subject tribes, but Nathan’s prophecy in 2 Samuel 7:1-29, which sets forth the dignity and dominion of the King of Israel as God’s son and representative. This grand poem may be called an idealising of the monarch of Israel, but it is an idealising with expected realisation. The Psalm is prophecy as well as poetry; and whether it had contemporaneous persons and events as a starting point or not, its theme is a real person, fully possessing the prerogatives and wielding the dominion which Nathan had declared to be God’s gift to the King of Israel. The Psalm falls into four strophes of three verses each, in the first three of which the reader is made spectator and auditor of vividly painted scenes, while, in the last, the Psalmist exhorts the rebels to return to allegiance. In the first strophe (verses 1-3) the conspiracy of banded rebels is set before us with extraordinary force. All classes and orders are united in revolt, and hurry and eagerness mark their action, and throb in their words. Verses 4-6 change the scene to heaven. The lower half of the picture is all eager motion and strained effort; the upper is full of Divine calm. God needs not to rise from His throned tranquillity, but regards, undisturbed, the disturbances of earth. What shall we say of that daring and awful image of the laughter of God? The attribution of such action to Him is so bold that no danger of misunderstanding it is possible. It sends us at once to look for its translation, which probably lies in the thought of the essential ludicrousness of opposition, which is discerned in heaven to be so utterly groundless and hopeless as to be absurd. Another speaker is now heard, the anointed king, who in the third strophe (verses 7-9) bears witness to himself, and claims universal dominion as his by a Divine decree. In verses 10-12 the poet speaks in solemn exhortation. The kings addressed are the rebel monarchs whose power seemed so puny when measured against that of “my King.” But all possessors of power and influences are addressed. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The holy war
A vivid picture of the revolt against Messiah.
I. The extent of the revolt. Nations, People, Kings, Rulers. Christ has encountered this opposition--
1. In all nations.
2. In all ranks.
3. In all generations. Christ was rejected by His own age (Acts 4:27).
II. The determination by which this revolt was characterised. It is--
1. Deliberate.
2. Combined.
3. Resolute.
III. The secret cause of this revolt. They rebel against the laws of God in Christ.
IV. The vanity of this opposition to Christ.
1. The unreasonableness of it. “Why do the heathen rage?” No satisfactory answer can be given.
2. The uselessness of it. It is “vain,” because useless.
V. The conclusion. The Psalmist gives--
1. An admonition: “Be wise now.”
2. A direction: “Serve the Lord.” Do Him homage. (W. L. Watkinson.)
The Messiah King
I. The King (Psalms 2:6-7).
1. Divinely appointed. “I have set.” The Father speaking.
2. Divinely anointed. The name Christ or Messiah signifies anointed.
3. Assured of universal rule (Psalms 2:8). The world belongs to Him. He has created it. He has redeemed it. He shall ultimately possess it.
II. Messiah’s foes (Psalms 2:1-3). The citadel assailed because of its Sovereign; the Church the target of malice and mischief because of the kingly Christ. Crowned heads in general have been sworn enemies of the Lord’s anointed. The hostility of these foes is--
1. Deliberate. They “imagine,” rather “meditate.”
2. Combined. “They take counsel together.”
3. Determined. They “set themselves,” as fully resolved to accomplish their object.
4. Violent. They “rage.” Nothing has ever excited so much hostility as Christ and His Church.
III. Messiah’s victory (Psalms 2:4-5). Fourth verse is strikingly metaphorical. The Victor is in the heavens--watching the plots, reading the thoughts, hearing the decisions of His enemies, and He “sitteth” there, serene as the march of stars and suns, calm as the glassy lake locked in the embrace of summer morning. Shall “have them in derision.” Their efforts shall result in self-defeat and self-destruction, and help to the realisation of God’s own purposes. The devil and his agents often outwit themselves; they mean extinction, but God overrules it for permanent extension. No decree of the Divine government can be frustrated. Truth must prevail. He shall “speak in wrath.” His wrath is not vindictiveness, but the recoil of His love; not revenge, but retribution.
IV. Messiah’s message (Psalms 2:10-12). This is a call to--
1. Teachableness. “Be instructed.” Learn your folly in opposing the Lord.
2. Service. “Serve the Lord.” Do His bidding. Be governed by His laws.
3. Homage. “Kiss the Son.” The Eastern mode of showing homage to a king.
4. A call backed by the most weighty reasons: “lest He be angry.” (J. O. Keen, D. D,)
The King in Zion
Two contrasted topics, the King and the rebellion of His subjects.
I. The King.
1. The dignity of His person. Not a King, or the King, but my King. One able and worthy to represent me.
2. The extent of His dominion. The nations of men measure not the realm of Christ. All grades of intelligences throughout the universe owe Him allegiance.
3. The greatness of His power. Wide as is His kingdom, His power is adequate to hold and govern it. Spiritual supremacy involves supremacy of every name. To secure it, upheavals and overturnings are inevitable. Under the pressure of spiritual forces, all other forces must give way.
4. The blessedness of His sway. The prophetic representations of the Messiah’s reign are glorious and happy. All blessings come down upon the people.
II. The rebellion of His subjects.
1. Its universality.
2. Its wickedness. Men’s treatment of Christ is more gratuitously wicked than anything else. He came, self-moved, to do them infinite good.
3. Its impotence.
4. Its folly. This rebellion is misery in its progress, and ruin in its result. It fills the soul with wretchedness and fear in time, and leaves it under the wrath of God in eternity. (Monday Club Sermons.)
Messiah’s rule
I. The determined hate of the people (Psalms 2:1-3). The word “rage” suggests the idea of Oriental frenzy and excitement of a tumultuous concourse of crowds of people, all wildly angry. “Imagine” is the same word as is rendered “meditate” in Psalms 1:2. While the godly meditate on God’s law, the ungodly meditate a project which is vain. Let us not be in league with the world, for its drift is against the Lord.
II. The Divine tranquillity (Psalms 1:4-6). The scene shifts to heaven; God is ever undismayed.
III. Messiah’s manifesto (verses 7-9). Standing forth, He produces and recites one of the eternal decrees. Before time was, He was the only-begotten of the Father. The world is His heritage, but the gift is conditional on prayer. For this He pleads, and let us plead with Him. The pastoral staff for the sheep; the “iron rod” for those who oppose.
IV. Overtures and counsels of peace (verses 10-12). “Kiss,” the expression of homage (1 Samuel 10:1). (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
The reign of Christ
The Psalm is full of Christ. It is referred to six times by New Testament writers, and applied to Christ. It is a beautiful dramatic prophecy, in which several personages alternately speak momentous truths, to animate the Church of God in her conflict with sin and the powers of hell. The two leading thoughts are--the powerful opposition, but total discomfiture of Christ’s enemies; the certainty, universality, and blessedness of His reign.
1. The opposition would be universal, and characterise all classes of men.
2. It is intense. The heathen “rage.”
3. It is organised. They consult to find pretexts to justify their hostility. It is violent and aggressive. The restraints of the gospel are irksome and hateful. When argument and oratory failed, force was employed. It was foretold that all the crafty counsel and all the violent opposition should fail. Vain to imagine that human craft can contravene omniscience, or human power overcome omnipotence. It is the potsherd striving with his Maker. If God’s expostulation be disregarded, then He speaketh in judgment. While adverse nations perish, the kingdom of Christ shall continue and become universal. When the Son says, “I will declare the decree,” He has respect to future revelations as well as to the one then announced. He intimates that henceforth there shall be brighter and more ample discoveries of the Divine purpose. And the promise was verified by fact. The decree is not only declared, it is confirmed by the resurrection, the intercession and the enthronement of Messiah. The universality of the Redeemer’s kingdom is certain, but do existing facts look towards its consummation? Wonderful preparations are indicative of this. The great programmes of discovery and of instrumentality nearly complete. The great programme of prophecy is nearly accomplished. (W. Cooke, D. D.)
A great national hope
This Psalm belongs to the class called Messianic. It is full of that great national hope of the Jews concerning Him who was to come. A nation without hope is like a man without hope. Cut off hope from any man, or any group of men, and at once you paralyse the worth of everything. The Jewish nation was full of vitality. 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. A character is always nobler than any event that is going to happen. A great nature remains as a perpetual inspiration. Every Jewish child that was born might be the Messiah; every king might hold in his hand the Messianic sceptre. Through all their life there ran this great anticipation, this inextinguishable hope. We do not know of whom this second Psalm was written; we do not even know by whom it was written. What is the philosophy of the Messianic Psalms? Shall we say that back in those distant days men anticipated just what was going to come when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and did His work in Galilee? There was nothing so monstrous as that. The whole of the Bible is much more natural than we are apt to make it. This Messianic Psalm was taken and applied in its completeness to the Messiah, who had really revealed Himself at last. The words then found a kingship worthy of them, and were sung of Christ. There are three speakers, or 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 are the Lord Jehovah, and the Coming One, the Anointed, the King, the Messiah Himself. The writer stands as the chorus in the great tragedy. It is a great cry of astonishment from one who sees a great mercy coming to the world of guilt, bringing in redemption to the world, and the world setting itself against it. It is the everlasting wonder of the soul that knows Jesus Christ, that this world, with Jesus Christ waiting at its doors to save it, can set itself against Him, and not let Him in. But God’s great purpose of making Jesus King of the world is unchanged and unchangeable. Whether the world will have Him or not, Christ is to be King of the world. The world has heard that, and it has brought a certain deep peace into the soul of mankind. The third speaker is Christ Himself. He says, “I will declare the decree.” 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. Among the wonders of these last nineteen centuries has been the quiet certain confidence of Christianity. It cannot be crowded out and lost among the multitudes of mankind who are careless or hostile. It possesses Divine grace, which some day will be sufficient for the healing of the nations. At the close we come back to the writer or the chorus that tells us what the meaning of it all is. The Messianic Psalm presses itself into the lives we are living, and declares that if we are wicked we shall be powerless. If the most humble man puts himself upon the side of righteousness in company with Christ, if in his own little lot he does things pure and good and kind, he shall have a part with Christ in His great conquest of the world. He whom we worship as Christ is the centre of the world. Everything is verging to Him. All the past, however unconsciously, is ruled by Him; and all the future, however little it may now know its Master, will ultimately recognise Him. He who is everything, sanctification, redemption, in the fortunes of the individual soul, is the world’s redemption. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)
Imagine a vain thing.--
The opposition to God and His Christ
The Psalm opens abruptly. Here is no prelude; it is an utterance of amazement, begotten in the soul, and breaking from the lips of one who locks out upon the nations and generations of man. He discerns, in all the widespread view, one perpetual restlessness, one ceaseless movement of discontent, the throbbing of a rebellion that cannot be appeased, of a vain, bitter, and ceaseless revolt. It is a revolt against God and His Christ running through the centuries, underlying human history, breaking out in fresh manifestations age after age, finding new utterance from the kings and rulers and wise men of this world. Why does the world fret against the government of God? Why does the world resent and resist the rule of the righteous God, and of the redeeming Lord Jesus Christ? Whether it be the sins and sorrows of one city that come within your range; whether it be the notes and tones of the very last phase and stage of philosophic speculation; whether it be the problems that vex and chafe and worry the civilised world; whether the spectacle of our exaggerated, over-developed militarism, under which the whole continent of Europe groans and bleeds; or whether the vexed problems that lie in our own streets and houses, alike the question arises--Why does the world, in things great and small, chafe against the rule of God--God the Source of wisdom, the Giver of all good? against Christ, the. Redeemer of human nature! against Christ, man’s true King, Leader and Guide and Friend and Shepherd and Bishop of souls? “Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing?” (F. W. Macdonald, M. A.)
Authorship and meaning of the Psalm
The thoughts of the Psalm are so fresh and bold, and the poetical elevation so great, that the thoughts here seem to have for the first time taken hold of the writer, who is one, whom they directly concern.
1. Some young king, entering upon the rule of God’s Kingdom, has borne in upon his mind, from his very position, those strange and unprecedented words of Nathan--words of inexhaustible meaning, and yet quite fresh from their novelty--and entering into their spirit as, to a pure and thoughtful mind, they opened up regions of contemplation interminable in extent and full of wonders, and combining them perhaps with some show of opposition to his rule at home, or some threatened defection from his authority by tribes abroad,--the young king east his thoughts and aspirations into this hymn.
2. And what young monarch was in such a condition except Solomon? Every one of the conditions of the problem suits him. He was the seed of David, and therefore the Son of God. He was appointed king on Zion Hill. His rule tended to universality, and his aspirations, being those of a profound intellect and, at the same time, of an uncorrupted youth, must have aimed at conferring on all peoples the blessings of God’s Kingdom.
3. If we could realise to ourselves the thoughts and emotions of those early Davidic kings--standing, as all of them did, to Jehovah as His anointed, bearing all of them the title of His Son, and pointing forward to such a heritage, even all peoples; and yet so surrounded with darkness, and having but such imperfect instruments in their hands wherewith to realise their ideal, and so circumscribed on every side--what aspirations must have filled their hearts as they stood thus before so high a destiny! And yet, as all things seemed to make it impossible for them to reach it, what perplexities must have tormented them till, wearied out by the riddles of their position, some of them turned wilfully aside from the true path!
4. But if we can ill fathom the thoughts of these great creative minds, how much less those of the true theocratic King, the true Messiah and Son of God, when entering upon His kingdom, and standing at its threshold with all the possibilities of it clear before Him, and the way needful to be trod to reach it also clear! We know that He was sometimes troubled in spirit, and sometimes rejoiced greatly, alternating between a gloom more dark than falls on any son of man and a rightness more luminous than created light. But with full view of His work He entered on it, and with full view of the glory He prosecuted it to the end.
5. The Psalm, if a typical Psalm in the mind of its human author, referred to the installation of the theocratic king on Zion, who took God’s place over His kingdom, and stood to Him in all the endearing relations expressed by the name of Son. The writer to the Hebrews finds in it the statement of the manifestation of the true theocratic King and Son in power from His resurrection and ascension; and His principle is just. The one was a rehearsal of the other. All this Old Testament machinery, and this calling one who was king by the name Son, and the like, would never have been but for the other; it was only in order to suggest the other and prepare for it. It was a prophecy of the other. It contained the same ideas. And its having been imperfect, as it was, implied that the other--that which was perfect--should also be. Only, that which the Old Testament writer had not yet foreseen had now taken place; the material embodiment of the ideas of the kingdom had passed away, and all things had become spiritual in Christ. (Professor A. B. Davidson.)