40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Psalm 1-2 (Episode 525)

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

This episode opens the first book of the Psalms by showing that Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 function together as the interpretive lens for the whole Psalter. Daniel and Chad unpack how these opening Psalms point to Christ as the blessed man, the King, the Messiah, and the Son of God. Have a listen. More from 1517: ·       Support the work at 1517 ·       1517 on Youtube ·       1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts ·       1517 Events Schedule ·       1517 Academy - Free Theological Education   New Books from 1517 Publishing: ·       The Turk at the Door by Adam Francisco ·       Luther and the Lion: A Narnian Catechism by Samuel Schuldheisz ·       By Water and the Word by Brian Thomas ·       Being Family by Dr. Scott Keith   More from the hosts: ·       Daniel Emery Price ·       Chad Bird   Follow 1517:  Instagram X/Twitter Facebook

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check it all over there. Live it over there. While you're over there, check out everything else the 1517 is doing. And after you check out all that free stuff, of course, go over the right-hand corner. You know that donate link, become a contributor.

We'd appreciate that very much. You don't want us doing advertisements on this show. I mean, I don't want to have to pretend like I love some product. I don't want to do that. You don't want me to do that. So, you know, help support the work. Thank you so much to those of you who already do that. Chad, we're going to start a brand new book.

This episode, this is different than any of the other books we've done before. This is a, we're going to do a book within a book. How about that? People are starting to wonder, what is it? Well, they probably saw on the episode title what it was. What are we going to do? We are going to launch into the first. book of the Psalms, Chad's going to talk to you a little bit about how this division is,

is, it works out. Now I know, some time ago, we released, you know, an episode on the first, I don't know, I don't know. I don't can't remember now how many we got through, but a handful of them. Eight or not, maybe. Yeah. And we were going to do like a Psalm companion and just like record. It was, it just didn't work as far as, you know, got a lot of stuff going on. So we decided, you know what, we're just going to do it regular and, uh, and attack. the Psalms like we would any other book. Now, the difference is, is we might get through one. We might get through three in an episode. We'll just see how it goes. So, Chad, explain what we mean by going to go through a book within a book. Yeah, it's kind of a different way of thinking about the

Psalms. So there's, just like there's five books of the Torah, Genesis through Deuteronomy, there's five books within the book of Psalms, or five sections, if you want to call them that. and they're not evenly, you know, they'll have the same number of Psalms. You've got different differing lengths, but you do have five books within the book of Psalms. And what's kind of cool about this? And I've got a presentation I do in the Psalms, and I always point this out, because I think it's important that when you look in kind of the big perspective of all five of these books, it's not like they were put together haphazardly. I think that's important to point out. It wasn't like you had a deck of 150 psalm cards and you split it and you shuffled it.

And then you just said, all right, well, this is what it's going to be. Whatever comes up on top, that's going to be Psalm 1. Whatever comes out. Second, it's going to be Psalm 2. Now, it's pretty clear. And there's been like decades, I think beginning in the 50s or 60s, there were some in-depth research that began to be done. to trace like linguistic and thematic development within the five books of the Psalms. It's pretty much a universal agreement among not just kind of conservative or liberal,

but across Psalm scholarship. That you've got a structure that begins with David. So the first two books that would be 1 to 41 and 42 to 72 are David all over the place. In fact, most of the Psalms that have David's name and the title are found in books one. and two. So a lot about David in those first 72 Psalms. Psalm 72 is either by Solomon or maybe about Solomon. So there you transition from David to Solomon, and that's the end of book two. Now the third book kind of traces the what you might call the devolution, like the undoing of Israel. And you begin to see all the issues that's reflected in several these Psalms. And you get

to the end of that, which is Psalm 89. It's like, man, things are bad. People begin to question whether God has forgotten them, whether he's not going to keep the covenant he made with David. Things are like really, really bad at the end of Psalm 89. And that transitions in into book four, which begins with Psalm 90, which is by our friend Moses, which is perfect because Moses was the intercessor for Israel. So during this desperate time, you call in the Psalm of Moses. And he kind of redirects you to the promises of God. And then that continues with several Psalms about the history of Israel. And it finishes with book five, where you have the conclusion of book five, Psalm 146 to 150,

having each Psalm beginning and ending with Hallelujah. So Psalm 146 starts out with praise the Lord, ends with praise of Lord. Psalm 147 begins with praise the Lord, ends of praise the Lord. So you have this accumulation of hallelujah at the end. and those Psalms depict the king that God has given gathering all nations to the Lord. So it's this in-time eschatological focus upon God through his messianic king, gathering all the nations to himself. So it's pretty neat the way the structure is set up, where you begin with David, which of course points to the son of David.

You go through Israel's history, things fall apart, but God keeps his promises, sends the Messiah, and then gathers all nations to himself in those last five Psalms. So when you're reading through them, praying through them, kind of keep that in mind because it's set up in a very specific sort of way. Yeah, so the plan here is to go through the first book or section of Psalms, then go on to something else and then come back and go through the second. We're going to go through 41 Psalms, and we'll see how long that takes. And then after that, we'll go to, we'll see. That's going to be a surprise, right?

We'll see what happens. We'll figure that out when we get there. Yeah, so there's a lot that we can say about the Psalms, just kind of in general. But I think we can just kind of weave that into each of these. The only thing I'll say, just by way of summary, as a way of thinking about the Psalms, is that they're unique in the Bible because these are God's words to us, which is what, of course, all the Bible is. But these then become our words also back to God. So he gives us these words. He plants him in our ears. And then they exit our mouth into God's ears. So we echo back the words that God is given to us. And that's why the Psalms are the schoolhouse of prayer. They teach us what to pray and how to pray. And they're the best, like the Lord's Prayer, which is a summary of the Psalms, basically, because these are God's words. words to us that become our prayers, then back to God. Even though some of them honestly don't sound like prayers.

Like Psalm 1 never addresses God, right? Some of my prayers don't sound like prayers, chat. Be honest with you. This is true. This is true. Same for all of us, right? Okay, so Psalm 1 and 2 are, you got to talk about, you can't talk about like, just Psalm 1 by itself or just Psalm 2 by itself.

Because if you do, you really, kind of missing the unity of both these. So we'll definitely be covering at least these two Psalms, and we'll see where time's at. We might jump into the third Psalm, too. But these two are a unit. And this is realized by people who anyone who's written preached on the Psalms, written commentaries on the Psalms, will point this out that these are, they're not twin Psalms, but they belong together. I like to use the metaphor of saloon doors. The Psalm 1 and 2 are the saloon door. The Saloon doors that swing open into the rest of the house of the Psalms because they are the doorway and not just the doorway, but also to kind of mix my metaphors here, the framework or the

interpretive lens, I'll be a better choice of words, the interpretive lens by which to understand the purpose of the Psalms. And right away, what we encounter in this interpretive lens is that they're focused upon a particular individual. And this is where things get rich theoretically. This individual is going to be described as a blessed man, as a king, as the Anointed One, and as God's

son in Psalm 1 and Psalm 2. So just to steal my own thunder right away, Psalm 1 and 2 are describing to us Christ in various sorts of ways, as a man, as a king, as the Messiah, and as the son of God. So we have a whole Christology that's embedded within these first two Psalms.

And the reason that's important is because that then teaches us how to read all the rest of the Psalms. But these aren't just really, really old prayers by a king of Israel who lived a long time ago. And so we're kind of reading somebody else's prayers from an ancient time. but these are, in fact, prayers that are the prayers of Christ and the prayers about Christ, and then they become our prayers as we pray them in and through and through Jesus. So that's kind of where we're going with these first two. Yeah, with the first line of the Psalms, I love that this is the opening line of the whole book, is just Blessed is the Man.

and you might be get tripped up and think like this might this maybe this book is going to tell me how I could be a blessed man uh which is not at all what is doing but but as you said like you start with Jesus at the with the first line of the song because this blessed is the man this is a singular individual that is talking about it's not talking about blessed is any man who then meets this criteria as I get into it It's not like that. It's, blessed is this single individual who I'm about to describe, right? That this is a single, and I'm not just saying that like, oh, theologically, this is the case. Like, that's the case grammatically that this is a singular person

that is talking about. Absolutely, which is why there's a couple of translations. I think a new revised standard version does this, they pluralize it, which, oh, gets on my nerves. There's some that will say, blessed are they, or blessed are those, or blessed are peace, or people no first of all it's that's not what the Hebrew says it says Ashreha isish and the ish on that is just the word for a male individual so blessed is the man is an accurate not only an accurate translation just as far as the words go and the grammar goes but it's an accurate translation also theologically because this is describing a unique individual who as we shall see avoid certain things and then

does certain things and produces fruit that affects certain individuals. So, yeah, important to point that out. Blessed is the individual man. And what does he do? Well, and it's the thing, if you're, if you are honest at all, once you figure out what it is that this man does and does not do, you realize very quickly that, I mean, he's certainly not talking about you. Yeah. Yes. Not talking about me for sure because what he doesn't do is Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. And I've walked and I've stood and I've sat in all those particular places more than, more than once. Kind of a nice progression too, isn't it? You go from walking to standing. to sitting.

Yeah, so the psalmist in this, yeah, beautiful poetry, and this is Hebrew poetry, is concentrating on how you go from movement to non-movement to an even deeper non-movement where you're just sitting there. He doesn't do any of these. He does not walking, standing, or sitting in the counsel of the wicked or the way of sinners, the seat of scoffers. So you start right away with a blessed man who, doesn't do those three things.

And what this means, it doesn't mean that he's not at any point around sinners. Well, of course he is. Where are you going to cut yourself off from all humanity? It's the only way you're going to do that. No, it just means that he has not identified himself with wicked counsel and sinful ways and a scoffing seat. It doesn't mean that he's not around people who do that. It means that he himself is not implicated in these actions.

Yeah, I mean, you are talking about Jesus here. He is the friend of all these people, but he is not any of these people. Yeah, right. Perfect way to say it. So if he doesn't do that, what does he do? And that's where we have the contrast, which is verse two. But his delight, so what gives him the deepest joy, his delight, is in the Torah of Yahweh. Most of your translations will say law, but as we've talked about many times, Torah just simply means teaching.

So his greatest delight, his joy is in, to put this in New Testament language, is in the word of his father, in the teaching of Yahweh. And then in that teaching, he is going to, he meditates day and night. when you meditate in a Hebrew sort of way, you are taking the word of God into you and you're digesting it, you're reflecting upon it, you're speaking it. So the Hebrew here is haga, which is used in some context to describe like the roaring of a lion or the cooing of a dove. In other words, it's something that you vocalize. So he's vocalizing the law. That was, he's speaking it, he's ruminating upon it. He's making it a part of himself. And this happens basically constantly. So day and night. And what's kind of cool about this is that there's a couple of other places in the scriptures

in the Old Testament where this kind of activity is described. In fact, the closest parallel that you can find to the idea of meditating day and night upon the Torah is in Joshua. Joshua, chapter one where the book of the Torah this is god speaking to Joshua the book of the Torah shall not depart from your mouth but you shall meditate on it day and night that's pretty cool because this is what Joshua was to do he was the leader of Israel and of course the hebrew name of Jesus is Joshua and he's the he's the leader of Israel so a nice parallel there too but i think even more fitting So if you go to Deuteronomy 17, this is where God is describing what the future king of Israel is to not do and is to do. One of the things he is to do is to make a copy of the Torah.

And it shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life. And I think the reason that's important is because what we're going to see in Psalm 2 is that this blessed man is also the king. So already we're introduced kind of to a royal theme here when he's making the Torah of the Lord his meditation day and night. Yeah, and I know we've brought this up a lot, and I don't know I'm saying it bothers me, but do you think it just reads,

for just like the average person that's just reading this, to say that his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night, If you were to read that, and I think you can read that, but his delight isn't the word of the Lord, and on his word he meditates day and night, which of course includes the law,

so don't think I'm just trying to get rid of the law here. That's not what I'm doing. It includes the law. But it is beyond the law, too, because God has more than just the law to say. And actually, you don't want to just meditate. This would be horrible. To just meditate upon the law all day and all night

is going to get you nowhere. You want to meditate on the entire word of God. Yeah, because if you're just meditating upon the law day and night, what's the law going to show you when a wicked sinner you are? That meditation is not going to lead you anywhere other than, yeah, I mean, a realization of your sin and confession, but you need more than that. You need the promise of God.

You need the gospel. You need the entire word of God to, to speak to speak to you. Yeah. And of course, I mean, you, this is talking about Jesus, and we certainly see that reflected in his teaching. He certainly speaks the law, but he also speaks words of grace,

words of promise, words of forgiveness. And so the fruit of Jesus meditating upon the Word of God day and night is seen in the way that he lives, in the way that he speaks, and the way that he tells parables, all of these ways that he is relaying the word of his father, that's reflected in the fact that he's meditating upon this day and night.

Verse three, then we switch to a picture, kind of an extended metaphor here. So what's he like, we might say, this blessed man who doesn't do those other things, but does this meditation. He's like a tree, a tree that's planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit and its season and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. I can't, I never can read this verse without thinking back to the Garden of Eden and the tree of life, just the way, it's exactly where my mind goes. Or, you know, thinking ahead to the end of Revelation where the river of life flows from the throne of God and the lamb, you've got the trees on every side and they're bearing fruit all year round. Their leaves are for the

the healing of the nations. My mind always just jumps to Genesis and then to Revelation when I hear Jesus described as a tree by these streams of water. I mean, the metaphor itself just communicates the fact that there's stability in him, there's fruitfulness in him. He's always tapped into God's resources, his father's resources, and then whatever he does, it's going to, whatever he does, he prospers. He is going to be wise. He's going to accomplish that which he was sent to to accomplish. But just look at this morning, by the way, just an interesting connection. So Isaiah 53, which we covered, I don't know, probably a few months ago, has the same verb in Hebrew where it's Isaiah 5310, where the will of Yahweh shall prosper in the hand of that suffering servant.

that word for prosper in Isaiah 5310 is the same Hebrew word that's used used here. So whatever he does, he's doing the will of God and it's prospering. It's actually accomplishing that, which he was sent to accomplish. Yeah, I mean, the imagery of trees, good and bad and fruit on those trees is not like a foreign thing to the scriptures. I mean, it returns to this image a lot. Jesus himself will talk about you're going to know a tree by its fruit, right? And it seems like what this is saying. He's like a tree, the very best tree. I mean, he's right there by the water. Oh, it's going to have fruit when he's supposed to. He didn't even have leaves that weather. I mean, this is the healthiest best tree that you can imagine. This is Christ. And all he does,

he prospers, kind of do your Isaiah 853 thing. Even when you cut this tree down, is to, It's still prosperous. Yeah. Yeah, you like cut it down to a stump, and then three days later, it's full grown again. That's right. So good luck trying to take down this tree. Well, all of that metaphor of the tree, it's fruitfulness, its stability, its connection to water, it's prospering, all of that, is then set in very stark contrast to what comes next. So after this tree, this messianic tree is described.

Verse four then gives us this jarring contrast. The wicked are not so. Okay. Well, what do they like? They are like chaff, which the wind drives away. And I love the fact, not only you have a stark contrast, but that you have all these lines describing the tree. One, two, three, four, five different lines in verse three.

And then you get to the wicked. and it keeps it really brief and blunt. The wicked? Yeah, not so much. What do they like? Chaff that the wind drives away, period. That's it. No further explanation needed.

And you're like chaff is. Chaff is just like a little, you can breathe on it, and there it goes. You know, it's gone. It's ephemeral. It's rootless. Of course, chaff. What do you do with chaff? Nothing.

Chaff is just. going to be junk in the wind, more or less. It's not going to produce any fruit. It's not going to help anybody else. It's just going to be there and then gone. So the wicked are then contrasted with this messianic tree. And they're depicted then as this easily blown away chaff. Yeah.

I mean, it's basically saying the wicked, where they like nothing like that. Try to think of the opposite of that. And that's what it is. Yeah. And this also sets up, since this is Psalm 1, we've already heard, you know, about the wicked. And earlier in verse 1, the counsel of the wicked.

We've heard about sinners. We've heard about scoffers. And now the wicked are brought up again. It's important to point out to a theme that you're going to see in, I don't know, almost every Psalm, not every Psalm, but almost every Psalm, where the Messiah is opposed. and he's typically opposed by this group that's called by various names. Sometimes they're called the wicked.

Sometimes they're called sinners. But we would typically refer to this group as, I guess, the unbelieving world or sometimes the powers of darkness. So when you hear about the sinners in the Psalms or the wicked in the Psalms, don't think that there are certain people who are sinners and certain people who are wicked and other people who are not. That's not what this is talking about. Of course, we're all, we all have a, we all have wickedness. We're all sinners. This is describing those who are outside Christ opposed to Christ, who, of course, the desire is that they be brought into the Messiah, but the way they are described here as those who are like chaff or, as we'll see in a second, won't stand in the judgment. I think, too, like when in the Psalms,

and kind of in the description general, when you hear the wicked, right? So if you hear sinner, you might be able to be like, yeah, like I'm included in that group. Then it talks about the wicked, and you probably think of like something else, you know,

like something real, real bad. And that's not what it's trying to do. It's not trying to like have you put together two different categories of people here. So the wicked are, is the everybody, everyone's default that way. I mean, this is what Paul will tell us, right? Is that, yeah, you were like a son of the devil, which is, sounds pretty wicked at birth. Don't think of some kind of unique wickedness when it's talking about like, therefore the wicked won't stand in the judgment. That's talking about you,

apart from Christ. You are in that category. Yeah. And that becomes really clear when you uh well i just read it so let me read five and six so we'll have another another category another description that comes up so verse five says therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous and that word is is in the plural so this is talking about a group that are called the righteous well why so why won't the wicked stand or sinners for the lord knows the the way of the righteous, that the way of the wicked will perish. And now we have this different description that comes up, this group that's called the righteous.

Well, who are the righteous? We'll hear more about them at the end of Psalm 2, but they're the ones who are blessed because they take refuge in this blessed man in the Messiah. And therefore, even though by nature and by action and by thought and deed and everything, they are wicked, they're actually described as righteous. Why? Well, because they have taken refuge in the blessed man, the righteous one, and he has given them his righteousness. Well, you know, it's pretty easy for the Lord to know the way of the righteous since he is the way of the righteous. The Lord knows himself, see? This is how this works. He is the way of the righteous. He's familiar with

it. All other ways. will perish. Yeah. And that's really, I mean, that's that's the message of the, of Psalm 1. You've got one and only one, blessed, righteous man. And he's the one who's not like the wicked or sinners or scoffers. He's not like the chaff. But he is meditating upon his father's word. He is this fruitful tree who always prospers. And there are some who won't stand in the job. judgment because they are outside Christ and there are those who the Lord knows the way of the righteous because they are in this blessed man. And verse 5 and 6, I mean, it's it's both present as well as ascotological. You know, if you think of the judgment or you think of the end,

well, that's what is being being described here. So there's a bunch of history and theology that's in Christology that's packed into Psalm 1. There's more, though, to come. in Psalm 2. All right. Let's do it. Let's do it. All right. So one thing to note, and if you're listening, you probably wouldn't pick this out unless you

happen to be using the podcast for Bible study and actually looking at your Bible. But one of the things that it's worthy of pointing out is it unlike almost every psalm in book one, as well as a lot of the Psalms outside of book one, notice there is no heading between Psalm 1 and Psalm 2. So Psalm 2 doesn't begin, you know, a Psalm of David according to such and such a tune or doesn't give any historical description of what gave rise to Psalm 2. And that's on purpose because those who were divinely guided to put together the Psalms in the way that they did made sure that there was no, there was a seamless transition from Psalm 1 to Psalm 2. And that is the, that's the way to read these as I've referred to Psalm 2 is really Psalm 1B. It's just kind of the second.

It's a separate Psalm. It's a different saloon door to use my favorite metaphor. But it is not to be read apart from Psalm 1, nor Psalm 1 to be read apart from Psalm 2. And we can point out some of the connections between these as we go along. One of these is going to hit us right away. It begins this way. Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against Yahweh, against the Lord, and against his anointed, against his Messiah. And here's what they say, verse three, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords or their ropes from us. Now, one of the things in verse one that immediately connects this Psalm with, yeah, verse

one that immediately connects this Psalm with Psalm 1 is the word that's usually translated as plot. But in Hebrew, it is the same word for meditate that we saw back in Psalm 1. So you could translate the first verse, why do the nations rage and the peoples meditate in an empty sort of way in vain. So Psalm 1 is describing the Messiah who meditates upon the word of his father day and night. And then it begins by contrasting this with the nations and the peoples who are not just raging, but they're doing their own kind of meditating, but not meditating, of course, upon the word of the

father, but meditating with emptiness. And we hear more about exactly what they're plotting, meditating in the next two verses where they kind of gather together, they set themselves, and they take counsel together. This is more of this wicked counsel that we hear about in Psalm 1. And they say to each other, and they're taking the counsel against Yahweh and against his anointed king, against the Messiah. And here they say, well, let's burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords or their ropes from us. We're not going to be bound by them. And we're going to have, we're going to do whatever we want to do.

And one of the things we want to do is to rebel against God and against His Messiah. Yeah, I kind of read this. If you're taking it right in to Psalm 2, you have a, so you have this, these nations raging, which is, you know, that's a pretty vivid picture. So you have, you know, the nations are in a rage. This is, they're, they are very angry. and they have this really empty, vain thing that they are contemplating. They are deeply meditating on this thing.

And what is that thing? That thing is, how are we going to chop down this tree? That's what we've got to figure out. Let's chop this tree down so we can be rid of this tree for good. That's good. This is what's happening here. Yeah. And just to confirm, I mean, not that we need any confirmation, but it is kind of nice when you have a New Testament verse that actually confirms that indeed this is what this is talking about.

And you guys probably covered this in 30 minutes in the New Testament, just probably, I don't know, a couple months ago or something like that when you went over Acts. But if you look at Acts 4, this is right after Peter and John were released from prison. So they get back to the believers and tell them what happened. and they lift their voices to God and they begin this way. They say, Lord, who made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything that's in them? Who through the mouth of our Father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, and then they quote Psalm 2. Why did the Gentiles rage and the people's plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His anointed. So they quote Psalm 2. And here's how they interpret it. For truly in this city there were gathered together, against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. Of course, cutting down the tree, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's pretty cool how the early church,

when they gathered together and were reflecting upon what had just transpired of all the passages they could have referred to, actually chose Psalm too. describe what had been plotted and meditated in vain that they wanted to accomplish. Verse four, like the response of God to the plot, this vain plot of against him and his Messiah is pretty good. So God is not taking any of these plans. Seriously, this goes to your point in Acts where, yeah, but, you know, even when you chop this tree down, like this is going to prosper.

In fact, that's my whole plan. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because God, this is one of the great lines. God sits in the heavens or he who sits in the heavens when he, you know, sees what the people is doing. What does he do? Does he like ring his hands? Is he, you know, think, oh, what am I going to do?

No, he's got a great big belly laugh. Or maybe it's a mocking laugh is a better way to put it. He who sits in the heavens laughs. Yeah, it's like, good luck with that. And then he holds him into. You could also translate that. He mocks them. So God is, God is a chuckling with this mock laughter at the peoples for thinking that they could in some way stop his plan of salvation from, from happening. And then he's going to, he's going to turn to them, it's going to stop laughing and he's going to

speak to them in an angry sort of way, in his wrath. It's going to terrify them in his fury. And here's what he says. As for me, uh, I, uh, I, uh, I don't know. If I were to paraphrase that, I would say something like that. Now, listen up, guys, here's what I've done. As for me, this is what I'm doing. You can try and do all you want. But as for me, I have set my king, this blessed man, this anointed one. I've set my king on Zion, my holy hill. So it's a done deal. You can try all you like, but my king has been established. He is on Zion, my holy hill. That is, the Messiah has been established. as the king in the kingdom of the father.

And there's nothing anyone is going to do to reverse that. Yeah, I love that as for me, because it's in contrast to, as for you, a bunch of vain plotting. As for me, out here doing permanent things. Yeah. So I've done the permanent thing. My king is established. Now, this king is going to speak in verse seven. So the king, the Messiah, who's been established, is going to tell of the decree.

So I will tell of the decree. What's this decree? Yahweh said to me, so this is Jesus speaking, this is the Messiah speaking. Yahweh said to me, you're my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will give the nations your heritage, the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron. and you could translate that scepter as well.

You should break them with a rod or an iron or a scepter of iron, and you shall dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. So verse 7, where the Lord said to me, you are my son today I have begotten you. There's a couple things going on there. This is quoted in Hebrews chapter 1. And when it's quoted in Hebrews chapter 1, in the very same breath, 2 Samuel 7 is quoted where God promises David, to set one of his sons upon his throne.

So when the Lord said to me, you are my son, it's kind of speaking dual things. Of course, the Messiah is the father's son from all eternity. And he's also the father's son in the sense of he's raised him up to be this son of David to sit on his throne. And then he's going to have not just Israel or Judah, but the nations, all the ends of the earth, in fact,

as his inheritance, as his possession, and he's going to rule them or break them with an iron scepter and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. He's going to do some breaking as well as some mending and a lot of ruling because he's the king established over this worldwide kingdom. Yeah, the reemergence of the word nations here is interesting because you have like these nations,

they're raging and they're plotting and they're doing all this vain things. and God is like, listen, I've done permanent things already. Like I've already established my anointed one in Zion. And check it out. I've already made you his heritage. So you can, you know, kick against the goads all you want. But like this is, this is already done.

Like it or not, yeah, you are part of the Messiah's heritage. Yeah. It's pretty good. Pretty good. So in the wrapping it up, I'll read 10 through 12. So on the basis of all this, so now therefore, because of all this, O kings, be wise, be warned, O rulers of the earth. Don't do the stuff you were doing before, right? If you want to be wise, then here's what you need to do.

Serve the Lord with fear. Rejoice with trembling. Kiss the sun lest he be angry and you perish in the way. For his wrath is soon, or you can. you translate that quickly kindled. And then it ends this way, echoing the opening verse of Psalm 1, blessed are all who take refuge in Him. So the blessed man of Psalm 1 also blesses others, the others who take refuge in Him. And this is the instruction that God gives. So if you want to be wise, then serve the Lord with fear. Rejoice with trembling. It's kind of a,

a cool combination of awe as well as worship going on, trust as well as this worshipful kind of fear. And then you kiss the son, you express your devotion to him, your faith toward him. Yeah, that's an S-O-N, son. Yeah, that is S-O-N, yes, right, to be clear. And then you're blessed when you actually take refuge, find refuge in him. So a beautiful beginning to the whole book of Psalms, one and two are teaching us tons of Christology, theology, about the Word of God, about Christ, about His kingdom, everything. There's so much compressed into these two songs. Yeah, not to Bunny Trail as we're out of time, but this last verse here, you know, like, kiss the sun unless he be angry, between your parish in the way. And then you have this promise of, hey,

blessed is, you can't be the blessed man, but you can be in. the blessed man, and this is how you will escape, the wrath of God. It is interesting that when you think about kissing the sun, like for this for me, the first thing that comes to mind is Judas. Yes, yes. And how the devil, you know, like when you have the Last Supper, you know, it says that Satan entered Judas and all the stuff, and I don't know this, but it does seem that what a weird thing to do.

Like, I'm going to point this guy out. How are you going to do it? Well, I'll go up and kiss him. What? Like, what is that? That's weird. Because that's not what a kiss is for. Kisses aren't meant for that.

And you have, like, you have this in Psalm 2 where kissing the sun is supposed to be, the way you got to set it up, is supposed to be this thing that, uh, brings you in to the salvation of the Lord, where Judas uses that very thing as a way to mark Christ out, who then goes and dies for the sins of the world so that you can be brought into him. It is interesting how this works. Even the devil can't get it right. It seems like he's out to do this thing, to be an insult to God,

that it's also just playing in his hands, which also shows you that God is like, No, I have already done all this stuff. This all is done. Yeah, yeah. Even the devil is meditating and plotting in vain, right? Yes. No matter what he does. In the end, he can't stop the blessed man and his father from making sure that everything is established for salvation.

Good? Yeah. Great stuff. All right. We are well out of time, so we will leave it there. We'll be back next episode starting off in Psalm 3. Chad, I'll see you then. All right.

See you then. Thank you.