Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
Yet - notwithstanding the opposition, of the anti-Christian confederacy.
Set - margin, 'Anointed' (cf. Psalms 2:2). literally, 'poured out.' But in Proverbs 8:23 the Hebrew is translated "set up." In Micah 5:5, end, the cognate noun is translated "principal men." Hengstenberg is probably right in maintaining the English version, "set," appointed, or constituted. The "I" in the Hebrew stands in emphatic contrast to the confederate rebels. They reject His dominion (Psalms 2:4), whereas I, Yahweh, have set Him as "MY King," the King who stands in closest, relation to me, "the man that is MY FELLOW" (Zechariah 13:7). Thus "MY KING" answers to "MY Son," Psalms 2:8. For God's own King nothing short of the whole earth can be a fitting empire (Psalms 2:8): whence appears the vanity of the conspiracy (Psalms 2:1-2).
My holy hill - the hill Zion, in which David had deposited the ark of the covenant, and which thereby was constituted the holy center of the kingdom of God (Psalms 48:1-2). From it, as the center seat of empire (Isaiah 31:4; Isaiah 1:2-3; Jeremiah 3:16-17), Messiah shall reign over the whole earth (Psalms 132:13; Ezekiel 43:7; Luke 1:32-33). Israel shall no longer reject her King, as she did at His advent in lowliness, but shall say, "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord" (Matthew 23:38-39; cf. Psalms 21:5; Rev. 11:25-26; Isaiah 59:20-21). While the Pentateuch refers prophetically to the people, the Psalms delineate also the Messiah Priest-King (Psalms 110:4). Not merely Christ's person, but His kingdom on earth, is foretold. Israel in the Psalms means literal Israel, not the spiritual Israel the Church, except in a secondary and intermediate application. Rationalists rightly hold this, in opposition to the false spiritual interpretation: but denying, like the spiritualizer, the coming of a literal kingdom, they maintain the prophets were mistaken in expecting one (Auberlen). Thus spiritualizers play into the hands of Rationalist. As the whole earth is to be the Redeemer's kingdom, so the seat of government. "the place of His throne, the place of the soles of His feet, where He will dwell in the midst of Israel forever" (Ezekiel 43:7) is "chosen" by Yahweh to be "Mount Zion" (Psalms 48:1-2, "The city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness ... the joy, of the whole earth ... the city of the great king;" Psalms 132:13). At the time of Judah's and Israel's joint restoration "they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord, and all the nations shall be gathered unto it" (Jeremiah 3:17-18; cf. Isaiah 2:2-3).