BibleProject - Yahweh’s Response to Corrupt Kings in Psalm 2

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

Psalms 1 & 2 E2 — Psalm 2 presents a crisis perpetuated by a long line of corrupt empires in the ancient Near East. Every one of these empires makes a practice of conquering, murdering, raping, and pillaging across the known world, while ancient Israel is just one small nation conquered and occupied again and again. So how do Yahweh and his anointed king respond to this injustice? Surprisingly, a lot like how the evil imperial rulers do: with mocking laughter, hot anger, and by smashing them like pottery! But why? In this episode, Jon and Tim explore Psalm 2 as a minority report from an oppressed, ancient people group and an intentionally provocative portrait of God within the broader context of the Hebrew Bible.  FULL SHOW NOTES For chapter-by-chapter summaries, biblical words, referenced Scriptures, and reflection questions, check out the full show notes for this episode. CHAPTERS Why Do the Nations Rage? (0:00-22:47) Yahweh’s Laughter and Decree (22:47-39:28) A Warning for the Kings (39:28-55:26) REFERENCED RESOURCES Check out Tim’s extensive collection of recommended books here. SHOW MUSIC “Pivot” by Styles Davis & Venuz Beats “Hypha” by invention_ BibleProject theme song by TENTS  SHOW CREDITS Production of today’s episode is by Lindsey Ponder, producer, and Cooper Peltz, managing producer. Tyler Bailey is our supervising engineer, who also edited today’s episode and provided the sound design and mix. JB Witty writes the show notes. Our host and creative director is Jon Collins, and our lead scholar is Tim Mackie. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Bible Project podcast. We're in a short series on Psalm 1 and 2. And today, Psalm 2 is up. We call it Psalm 2, but in early Jewish tradition, it was known by its opening words. Lama Rajshu, which is, why do they rage? Who's raging? And for what reason and against what? Let's find out.

It turns out this is the nation's raging. That is, the ancient warrior kings building their ancient empires, like Assyria, Babylon. and Persia. But what does it mean to rage? We know what the nations do. The nations organize the military industrial complex. They conquer territory that doesn't belong to them. They rape and they pillage. They take all our stuff. And then they leave a heavy tax burden behind for the people that are still alive. And while the ancient rulers seem to be winning, Psalm 2 tells us of a true king who's really in charge. A figure God calls his son.

Yahweh is the ultimate ruler of heaven and earth. And all of these kings down here on the land, who are spreading violence and thinking that their gods are, in fact, the rebels. Now, Psalm 2 is intense. God laughs at the kings from his heavenly throne. He terrifies them with his hot anger. He breaks them with a rod of iron. The description of Yahweh's laughter and mocking and his anger is actually borrowing from the world of language and rhetoric of the imperial overlords. So this is a way of saying what these ancient imperial kings of Assyria and Babylon, the way they are,

and what they've done to others will be done to them. It's a measure for measure justice response of Yahweh. And while the poem is intense and scary, it ends with a sudden shift in tone, a call to kiss the sun and to rejoice. Serve Yahweh and rejoice is the poet's way of winking at you and linking up to the bigger, more robust portrait of God's character in the rest of the Hebrew Bible, which is, listen, when you serve Yahweh,

what you'll find is that service to the real ruler of heaven and earth is the key to the fulfillment of your purpose and joy. Today, Tim Mackie and I read Psalm 2 together. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey, Tim. Hey, John. Hi. Hello. So we're going to look at the second Psalm in the collection of Psalms.

It is. It's the second poem called, well, we call it Psalm 2. Yeah. The numbering came way later in the manuscript tradition. Oh, no numbers. How would you refer to them? The numbering system that came into Bible manuscripts happened first in the Christian tradition. In Jewish tradition, they didn't use a numbering system.

You mean chapters versus? Chapters and verses. Now today, in Hebrew, Jewish Bibles, it's there. But in the Second Temple period, they would alert you to what section they're quoting from by just quoting the first words of a sentence or a paragraph. So the system in your head was a whole list of the first words or sentences of basically every literary unit or paragraph in the Hebrew Bible. So you just be, as it says in,

Asherah Shisha share. Yeah, that's right. Instead of, as it says in Psalm 1, you would say, as it says, an Asreashish, something like that. Yeah. Anyway, pretty cool. You've got to be a nerd to know the system. Yeah. So this poem, an early Jewish tradition, would be called Lama Rajshu.

Lama Rajshu. Which is, why do they rage? Why do they rage? Why do they rage? Which are the opening words of this poem. That's great. Yeah. Yeah.

I love these first sentences. They're hooks into a whole world of thought. Yeah. What's the good life? Yeah. Why do they rage? Why do they rage? Whoa, who's raging?

And for what reason and against what? Let's find out. Should we read Psalm 2? Yeah. I'll let you read it. Why do the nations rage and the peoples meditate on emptiness? The kings of the land take their stand. And the rulers take counsel together against Yahweh.

and against his anointed one. Let us tear apart their bonds, and let's cast off from us their cords. The one sitting in the skies, he laughs. Yahweh mocks at them. Then he will speak to them in his anger, and in his hot anger he will terrify them. As for me, I have anointed my king,

upon Zion, my holy mountain. I will surely tell of the decree of Yahweh. He said to me, you are my son. Today I have birthed you. Ask of me, and I will give the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the land as your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron, and like a vessel of potter you shall shatter them. And now kings show discernment. Be warned, O judges of the land, serve Yahweh with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the sun, lest he become angry, and you perish in the way, for his anger burns hot in an instant.

How good is life for all who take refuge in him? Well, that's intense. This is an intense psalm. This is an intense psalm. Intense poem. Name a couple intense things for me. Okay. There's a survey kind of scam-proof.

I mean, Yawa's angry. He's mocking. Right. A mocking, angry God. That's fascinating. Interesting picture of God. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

not typical of the picture of God in the Hebrew Bible. Okay. Well, you know, it is a lot of people's typical... It's caricature. Characterature of God. You know, and it's often the case that our most intensive emotional displays are what leave a mark on our family and friends. Right. Okay.

Yeah, what else? And then he's going to break the nations with a rod of iron, shatter them like pottery. Yeah. I mean, this is the angry, mocking warrior god. Yeah. Which is just like, really? That's the god of the Bible? That's how we're going to describe him.

This feels like the poem of an Assyrian king, you know, like an empire generating war machine king. Yeah. Yeah. It feels like it's speaking in that register of language. that mode of talking. Yeah. Okay, that's good. Let's pay attention to that.

That's an intense poem. It's an intense poem. Remember our conversation about Psalm 1. However, social location matters. By whom, for whom, to whom is it written? Right? I mean, and that's true of all human speech. If you see a really emotional parent

standing like on the corner, right, of the street, angry. There's so many stories that could be told of that moment, right? It could be that they're at the end of their rope and they lost their temper. It could be their kid

almost ran out in front of a truck. Right. And they're just processing the emotions, right? Of fear and love. But it's the same emotional display. Yeah. Right?

So I think it's important always when we're talking, especially about intense emotional portraits of God to step back and ask ourselves those kinds of questions. So let's be sure we do that as we work through the poem. Should we just kind of start working through it part by part? Sure. Okay. So there's four stanzas as a whole and we'll work through each of them at a time. Okay. So verse one to three, first stanza. First words are classic kind of biblical poetry parallelism. Why do the nations rage? and the peoples meditate on emptiness. You introduce this as, why do they rage? Why do they rage? That's right. Is the word nations there, or is it just a they? Oh, in Hebrew, the actors of a verb come after, in word order, come after the verb. Why do they rage the nations?

Why do they rage, namely nations? Oh. That's how it is in Hebrew word order. In English, we flip the word order. You want to know who's doing what before you want to know what they're doing. In Hebrew, you know what they do before you know who's doing it. That's interesting. So why do they rage, that is the nations?

And the peoples meditate on emptiness. So this is a 30,000-foot view. You're looking at all the nations, and what you see is war machine. Violent nations. Yeah, let's remember. This is a time in human history where the war machine empire nations

were first invented. Oh, sure. Yes. Yeah, the Assyrian Empire, specifically around the 8th century, 9th to 8th century, BC, was the first super-organized military-industrial complex. Yeah.

And then the Babylonian Empire that followed after them in the 6th and 5th centuries was made in its image. And then the Persian Empire, which again was 4th and onto Alexander's, Gray was also imitating Assyrian military style. So this was the first imperial age, truly,

at least in that part of the world. Yeah. So the assumed picture here is, we know what the nations do. The nations organize the military industrial complex. They conquer territory that doesn't belong to them. They rape and they pillage and they take all our stuff and then they leave a heavy tax burden behind

for the people that are still alive. There you go. Yeah, they're raging. That's what's on the brain. But why do they rage? Why do they rage? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Why? So the force of that question could be, I'm looking for a reason. The force of question could be, what's the point? It's Hevel. Because it's empty. They think that they're ruling the world and doing what they want the way that they want it. But in fact, all their planning and whispering and spy networks about how they're going to conquer the world, it's. empty. It actually comes to nothing, which seems quite, that's a counterintuitive thing to say,

because they're building some empires. Totally. I mean, pretty much from their age to ours. The imperial age has produced the built environments that we all inhabit. So that doesn't sound empty. It's filled the world with its likeness. Here it's, we're poking fun. Oh, nations wide. Why do they rage, it's just empty. It's empty. Why is it empty? Well, here's the thing. The kings of the land take their stand together. They're like standing up and the rulers are all taking counsel together. Yeah. The idea is all the kings of the land lining up together, which of course they never do unless they're about to try and kill each other. Whoa. They create alliances, right? No. Oh, that's true. They create alliances. And that's what this is about. Okay. All the kings of

the land that normally are fighting each other, they're all allied together against Yahweh and against his anointed ones, the word Mashiach or Messiah, an anointed king. So you got Yahweh and his representative king, and the kings of the land resist Yahweh's rule in and through his anointed king. And so what's the first way I should be thinking of who this anointed one is? Is This comes out of nowhere. Hmm. This figure. In this poem it does.

In the context of the Hebrew Bible. This is a well-established. Well-established. All the way back to Genesis 3, seed of the woman that's coming. There will be perpetual hostility between humans and the snake between those who listen to

and live by the lies of the snake, the seed of the snake, and those who listen to and live by the promises of God given to the human family, that is the seat of the woman. And that hostility will come to a climax with the seat of the woman crushing the head of the snake. But the snake's going to crush the heel of the seed of the woman.

And the seat of the woman is a human. That lineage gets traced in all the geniology of Genesis to Judah, where a ruler will come from Judah, who will all the nations will obey him. This Genesis 49. And then the lineage of Judah gets tracked all the way to David in 2 Samuel 7 where God says he's going to raise up a seed from the line of David who's going to bring peace and a new Eden to God's covenant people. And the sons of worthlessness will not oppress God's people anymore. And that son will build a house for God's name and will rule forever from God's.

capital city as it were. That's the promise. That's the anointed one. Yep, that's the anointed one. And then the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, they all develop that in a significant way. So you're supposed to have basically a whole bunch of messianic theology uploaded that's being hyperlinked right here

in the opening of the Psalm Scroll. Okay. So you then are talking about theointed one as his future promise. It comes through this lineage. Yeah. Whereas in this poem, Yahweh and the Anointed ones, they're the rulers of the world. Yeah. So is this like a flash forward? Or am I supposed to be thinking... That's a great question. Back to, well, David was an anointed one. So maybe this is a poem about David's rule. Sure. Yeah. And you could look at a section of David's story that's been organized in 2 Samuel chapter 5 through 8 when it feels very similar to Psalm 2.

where David subdues most of the hostile nations around Israel and Jerusalem, and then he is installed in a period of peace. And that's when God makes the promise of the future seed to him. So is this about that, or is it about a future version of that, or maybe David's experience of that in the story is itself an image of a future era of this? Let's hold that question open. Okay. So the assumption is that the poet comes from the community that's under the boot of the nations.

But what they trust and believe is who's really in control of history in the world is Yahweh and his anointed one. And then we get a little speech in verse three, as it were, of what the allied kings say. What they say is, let's tear apart their bonds. Yahweh and hisointed one. Yahweh, yeah. Yahweh and his anointed one have actually put chains and bonds on us. We want to conquer the world, pillage villages, flay the skin off of people and torture them and take all their money. That's our program.

Oh. And Yahweh and his anointed one are keeping us from plundering the earth. Oh. So let's cast off their cords and tear off their bonds. So in the world of this poem, Yahweh is in charge. Yeah. And his king is in charge. And the nations are squirrely going, we don't want.

you in charge. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yep. But this has never actually happened except for maybe one moment in David's story. Ah.

This is a way to think about all of human history. Of humans organized in planned rebellion against the kingdom of God. Why does the world look the way that it does? You have human rulers who act like they're gods and act like there's no authority over them except themselves. And the assumption is when nations do that, you get violent

conflicts and all the tragedies that we experience on these communal corporate levels. Okay, so in one sense, you look out at these violent warrior kings and you think they're just in it to just expand their territory and to make their name great

and they just want and desire and take. That's One way to view it, the other way to view it is to say they're rebelling against the true king of the universe. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. They wouldn't put it that way. Of course not.

Okay. Yeah, of course not. Yeah. The nations aren't going like, oh, Yahweh won't let us rage. No one's saying that. Mm. No. Nope.

This could only come from the imagination of someone who believes that Yahweh is the creator of heaven and earth and is the king of all creation. Mm-hmm. Yeah. This is the minority. But it's also kind of an alternate universe kind of imagination. Totally. Totally. All right.

Yeah. It's like a little parable, as it were. This poem is assuming a political scenario that actually happens all the time in human history, but was very common in ancient world, which is one empire after another. So now I'm dealing in the world just... The real world. The real world. which is you have an imperial ruler,

and there's a bunch of nations that rebel against that imperial ruler. And now we're taking that scenario, and we're putting it on analogy to like a cosmic upside-down view of reality coming from a Yahweh believer, poet in Jerusalem, who says, Yahweh is the ultimate ruler of heaven and earth. And all of these kings down here on the land, who are spreading violence and thinking that their gods are, in fact, the rebels.

They're the rebels in alliance with each other. So this is a creative twist on perceived reality. Totally. Yeah. Because reality is... What else is the Bible? Except that. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. We're taking what actual allied kings would say when they're trying to rebel against Assyria. Okay. And we're putting those words creatively in the mouths of imagined kings who don't even acknowledge Yahweh.

They would never say, let's throw off Yahweh's bonds and cords. They're like Pharaoh, like Yahweh who? Exactly. Actually, right, right. Yeah, this is a picture of like Pharaoh in the opening of Exodus.

Who is Yahweh? I don't acknowledge him. Assyrian kings never for once imagined that Yahweh was their lord. In fact, go read the king of Assyria's speech in 1st Kings, 18 through 20, when he's about to take Jerusalem.

He laughs at Yahweh. He's just like, you think Yahweh, your little regional deity is going to protect you? He's like, where are the gods of Sephaviam and all these other cities I took over? So, yeah, this is notes from the underground. Notes from there. This is a minority report of this enslaved, beaten down group of people saying, you know, if they could really see how reality actually exists. Yahweh is really in charge.

Yeah. And are they saying there's going to be a day where this is going to be a reality? 100%. We got to keep reading the poem. Okay. Let's keep reading. So all this opening sanza does is paint the crisis. But I feel like it's good to get clarity because the rest of the poem is going to be a response to this crisis.

The crisis meaning. Crisis is Yahweh is the real creator and ruler. And all the kings don't want him to be. And the kings of the earth are raging against Yahweh's rule and his anointed one in active rebellion. And how do I know this? Man, look at the world. It's just one empire after another spreading violence. Who's going to deal with this?

Is this how it is? Does might make right, actually? What's Yahweh going to do? That's the crisis. Okay. So if you went to any, like, neighboring king and told them, hey, you know what, as you go and rape and pillage and destroy, what you're trying to do is tear off the bonds of the real cosmic king. Yeah. In that very act, you are tearing off the bonds of your real king.

And they would say, what are you talking about? Yeah, that's not my master. Yawai's not my master. Okay. So I think what this poem is saying, Yahweh actually is in charge, even though it doesn't look like it. And every time it looks like the king is winning and is in charge,

he's really just ripping off the bonds of the one who truly is in charge. Yeah. And so that's a crisis. Crisis is that the kings are... Won't acknowledge who's really in charge. One acknowledge who's really their master. And the world is a mess because of that rebellion. Okay.

Mm-hmm. Yep, that's the opening scene right here. Yeah. Yep. So what's Yahweh going to do? Is Yahweh biting his fingernails? Is he stressed out? How is he going to bring order to the chaos?

What's God's response? Nextanza. Versus four through six. The one sitting in the skies, he laughs. And the master, that is the Adonai, the real master, he mocks them. So sitting, it's just the word for sit-down, but when a king is sitting in this palace, he's sitting on a throne.

So the one enthroned in the skies. So remember, these were the kings of the land. Kings of the land are taking their stand together, but then there's the king in the skies. And he is not worried, he's not actually threatened, he actually thinks it's cute. Well, he doesn't think it's cute. He thinks that it's silly.

He laughs. He laughs, and he mocks them. Yeah. Really? Really? You really think you're in charge down there. They are doing some damage. They're doing a lot of damage.

Yep. But to actually think you're in charge is such a warping of what's really going on. Yes, totally. Yeah. And they're all going to die. Yeah. And the one enthroned in the skies is watching them rage, thinking they're in charge until one day they expire. Yeah.

So I think the intensity and the picture of Yahweh that you're noticing here is that Yahweh is depicted here as an imperial overlord, who's the real master of imperial overlord. Yeah. Who think that they're the master. So the description of Yahweh's laughter and mocking and his anger is actually borrowing from the world of language and rhetoric about ancient. That's how the ancient kings act. Yep. And so this is a way of saying what these ancient imperial kings of Assyria and Babylon, the way they are, how they have acted and what they've done to others will be done to them. The one who digs the pit will fall into it.

It's a measure-for-measure justice response of Yahweh. So they laughed at the nation, right? King Babylon laughs at any resistance that anyone might throw his way, and Yahweh will do the same to him. That's a part of why this poem is depicting Yahweh in these ways that seem uncharacteristic to us as Christians. Yeah. I would imagine this poem could have been written.

And Yahweh looks down at them and just feels deep, deep sorrow, deep sadness, and just a desire for them to not destroy themselves. Totally. Yeah, totally. Yep, I'm with you. And so this is the wonderful example of how the Hebrew Bible is a composite, mosaic quilt or tapestry. and the meaning of any one little tile in the mosaic or any one, you know, little section, collection of threads, woven section in the tapestry, the meaning that it has is in light of the whole. But also when the whole has the meaning it has when you look at all the individual tiles. So you're saying that this tile, you've got a picture of the raging kings who are mocking and, like,

laughing and with their cynicism and their pride are just like, I could do what I want. Yeah. And this poet is saying, you know, if they just really could see what was going on, they're, they think they're mocking and laughing? Like what they're doing is making a mockery of themselves. Yeah, that's right. And the one who's really in charge is like laughing. Laughing at them.

At them. Yeah, totally. This is just within Psalm 2. Psalm 2 is in the same Christian Bible as Romans 5, which is God demonstrated his own love for us in this. While we were moral failures, sinners, God's enemies, he gave his only begotten son to die for our sins. That is also a portrait of God. And when I'm reading the whole Bible and putting Psalm 2 and Romans 5 together, I've got to make those talk to each other now. But that's not the stage of what we're doing.

And maybe it's artificial that I'm saying. Let's like hold that off for a second. But whenever I'm in one literary unit or poem in the Bible, I kind of like to go in steps as a reading process. First, just live in the world of this little poem. And then when I'm done making sense of that little mosaic tile by itself, step out and say, now let me read it in light of other parts of the Bible. And what I walk away with is like, whoa, Yahweh is serious about,

he takes seriously leaders who do harm to others, who leave a destructive trail behind them as they exercise their authority. That angers him. Yes, and anger in the sense of, because he loves his creation, and he will have an intense emotional display about leaders who use the power God's given them

to do as much harm. or more harm the good. Yep, that's the picture here. That's an important picture of God in the Bible. God is not apathetic to what leaders do in our world. Yeah. And that matters to me as a Christian. It is good to remember this is talking about the kings.

The kings. These are the ones who are equating themselves to God and doing just enormous, enormous damage. Yeah, you got it. So God laughs and mocks at them. Verse 5. He speaks to them in his anger. Even in hot anger, he'll terrify them. You think you're terrifying the nations?

Yeah. You're going to be terrified. Yep. And then we get a quote. Well, what is it? The God says to these violent rebel kings. As for me, I have anointed my king on Zion, my holy mountain. So God's response first is that he's not threatened.

he's enthroned in the skies. And then he has something to say to the kings, which is, I have installed my king. And I have a king on the land. So this stanza actually is arranged in a chasm shape. Because he's enthroned in the skies, that's the first line. But the last line of verse 6 is Zion, my holy mountain, which is a heaven meets earth place.

like Jerusalem as a sacred mountain. And Yahweh is the master of everyone, but God's role as master is being delegated to an earthly representative, which is the anointed king. And in the center you have, Yahweh's just anger at the violent kings. So that's the second stanza.

That's Yahweh's response to this situation. I'm not threatened, and I have my own king. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yep, which means if Yahweh is their master, then this anointed king is their master too. But let us remember, this was written in a time where Zion, Jerusalem, was... It was a bit player. Yeah.

Bit, meaning a minor petty kingdom on the political scene of the ancient Near East. Yeah. So this is a unique take on reality that no other... king in the ancient world would have... This is the little scrawny kid on the playground yelling, I rule this playground. This is Joseph having dreams. The younger brother having dreams that he's actually like the ruler of the whole family

and of the world. And his brothers that are older than him all get angry and want to kill him. This is a group of beaten down people saying, God made us a promise that the savior of the human family is coming through us

is going to come from our lineage from David's lineage even from the ancient yeah royal lineage of our family that's who Yahweh is going to annoy as the ruler over all these kings and David's own story was just a little

blip of a moment that looked like the ultimate future reality of when the king, future king, comes from the line of David. This doesn't say I will anoint my king. I have anointed my king. Yeah, speaking of that future scenario as if it is, yeah. It's happened.

Yeah, and that's the we're in a little poetic dream world here. All right. All right. So notice in these two stanzas, they are parallel to each other. So you have the nations raging, verse one. They take their stand against Yahweh and his anointed one. And then a little quote in verse three, let us tear off their bonds, right?

Let us cast off their cords. Second stanza, here's God's response to the raging. He laughs. They are angry, raging. He's laughing. The kings of the land take their stand together like they're in charge.

Yahweh will speak to them in his anger. The nations had a little speech. Let's tear off their bonds. Yahweh has a little speech in verse six. here's my response. I've already installed your ruler on Earth. So the two stanzas are all set in parallelism to each other.

All right. Stanza number three. How are we doing? Great. Versus 7 through 9. All of a sudden, a me starts talking, an unidentified me. Hey, everybody, I'm going to tell you

a decree that Yahweh made to me. It's the king, installed on Sion who's talking to us, but it's unmarked. It doesn't say... And then the anointed one says... No, you're just supposed to put it together. This is a great example of meditation literature.

You're just supposed to put it together. So the king starts talking to us, and the king says, hey, you guys, you should know a decree. So this is a Hulk. This is the word decree. It's literally the word like to scratch or inscribe on stone. Okay. So think an official inscription on the palace that Yahweh said about me, the king, ruling in the palace.

What is the decree that Yahweh made about me? He said to me, you are my son, and I today have given birth to you. Okay. So this is the inscription on perhaps his palace or this. On the throne, on the base of his throne. You walk into his throne room, and you see this anointed one, and it says, this is my son. Yeah, this is my son. Today I have birthed.

Today I have birthed you. Ask of me, God says to my son. And I will give you the nations as your inheritance. And your possession will be the ends of the land. You will break them, that is the nations. Remember, why do the nations rage? It's opening line. Yep.

The king, who's God's declared to be God's son, will get the nations as his inheritance, and he's going to break those nations with a rod of iron and like the vessel of a potter, you will shatter them. That's the decree. Okay. There's a lot there.

There's a lot there. So once again, we're firmly within the imaginative world of intense imperial throne, to Rick. So Yahweh is the real imperial overlord in the skies. And he has installed a delegated earthly overlord who is the son of God. And today I have birthed you. The son of God. The son of God. The son of God. Yeah. You are my son. I have birthed you. This is Yahweh speaking. That's right. Now the very fact that it's like today I'm giving birth to you, but I'm talking to someone that already is born.

Yeah. So on the very first level of meaning, this is ancient Near Eastern enthronement rhetoric, where kings would identify themselves as a son of God that is an earthly representative of heaven. And when they were coronated, when they were like established as king. Yes, this coronation language. There would be this moment of saying,

you're being birthed as the son of God. That's it. That's right. So you can track the first occurrences of son of God or divine birthing of a king occurs in ancient Egyptian literature and then ancient Mesopotamian literature. But the point is it's a well-worn tradition in the ancient world that the biblical poet is adopting. And so as of this day, this king is now the divine sun, an image of God on earth, as it were. and that son is going to get the nations as his inheritance. Oh, but the nations are... What does that mean to get the nations as your inheritance?

Ah, I'm the ruler of all the nations. God is. And you, my son, this is your future inheritance. You are going to be the true empire king. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you're the true lord of the land. All these other kings are trying to take over as much territory as possible and essentially inherit the land.

Yeah. for themselves. Mm-hmm. And Yahweh is saying, no, no, no, no, I own everything. Yes. And I'm going to give everything over to this one king. Yep.

That's it. And then, well, I guess whatever nations are raging and violently rebelling against your rule, then you'll take your rod and then with that... This is like the scepter. Yeah. You'll take your scepter that's like the official, you know, ruling scepter.

But, you know, most ancient scepters were like ornamental. versions of like an actual battle mace. Yeah. Huge mace that you smash your enemies with. And so that's the image here. You're breaking the rebel kings. Shatter. Shatter them.

Yeah. Crashing some snakeheads. Hmm. Yeah. Let's remember. These are pretty evil kings. Yeah. I mean, again, this poem is depicting Yahweh like an ancient imperial ruler

in Yahweh's response to ancient imperial rulers. And I guess maybe it's just, it's also, there's a realism here that people with a lot of royal or imperial power tend to pay attention only to people who are bigger version of themselves. Yeah. And so the poem is depicting Yahweh as like the biggest imperial ruler of all. but he's not responding this way to like your average Joe trying to like farm his fields you know and this is how Yahweh responds to Pharaoh and to the ancient imperial kings

the Nimrod yeah that's right yeah so this is the decree about the king okay so scene close final stanza verse 10 and following the poet now speaks up again So we've shifted out of the Sun's speech, and here's what the poet says. Okay, now kings, you better show some discernment. And all you judges of the land, you better take warning from Yahweh's response to you and from the decree that Yahweh made about his king. Be warned and show discernment, kings and judges. Most English translations, actually, and now, oh, kings, be wise.

and be warned with judges of land. So now the poet is addressing the kings. Yeah. Verse 11, serve Yahweh. Yahweh is your real authority. So serve Yahweh with fear. And rejoice with trembling. Which is such a weird combination of emotions.

So serving Yahweh, with fear is set in parallelism to rejoicing with trembling. So serving and rejoicing are set in parallelism to each other, which is surely a little riddle. Let's say I want to learn guitar and I start going to lessons to my teacher. When I acknowledge my guitar teacher as my authority and my guide in teaching me guitar. What I find in that type of authority relationship is that acknowledging their authority actually is my path to freedom and enjoyment of my guitar. So in that way, service to them is my joy or brings joy to me. That's the, I think, the riddle being unpacked here. Yeah. But the rejoice really does stand out. It does. Because everything else is.

is like fear and trembling. Trembal and then. Totally. And by the way, yeah. Yeah. Have some fun. In my mind, it's the little record scratch in the song so far. Yeah.

Because it looked like basically, you know, Yahweh's your master. You're in bondage to him. You better pay him your homage. Yeah. And verse 11 comes and just like, record scratch. Okay. It's almost like serve Yahweh and rejoice is the poet's way of winking. at you and linking up to the bigger, more robust portrait of God's character in the rest of the Hebrew Bible, which is, listen, when you serve Yahweh, what you find is that he's not trying to extract value from you at your expense.

You're going to find actual joy. What you'll find is that service to the real ruler of heaven and earth is the key to the fulfillment of your purpose and joy. as a human. Even you, warrior kings, can experience that. Yeah, because having authority over the land is not bad. It's actually what all humanity is made for.

Genesis 1. You're just doing it wrong. You're doing it in a really destructive way based on distorted desire and folly. But man, if you were to learn real discernment and serve Yahweh, the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom. verse 11 is kind of echoing that theme from Proverbs,

then what you'd see is that service to Yahweh is actually the path to joy. Now, it's just a little minor note here in this poem. Yeah. But it's a little, it's what do you say, it's the canary in the coal mine reminding you of, hey, dear reader, Psalm 2 is only one little tile in a bigger mosaic.

So that's verse 11. Okay. Verse 12, here's the end. Kiss the sun, lest he become angry, and you perish in the path or the way. For his anger will burn hot in an instant. How good is life for those who take refuge in him?

Verse 12 begins with a little scene of, as it were, approaching the throne of a king and you kind of kiss their ring. Okay. You're walking into the throne of this king. This is the anointed king of... of the true, like, ruler, creator of the cosmos, on his throne is inscribed, this is my son.

Yeah, totally. And the nations are an inheritance, and he will just shatter all those who get in his way. As you go into that throne room. Show be wise, oh kings, king of Assyria, king of Babylon. Yeah. As you walk up to your real authority. show wisdom and honor the sun

that God has established. Now, what is so fascinating is that the word sun here is not the Hebrew word for sun. It's the Aramaic word for sun. Here in verse 12? Verse 12, yep. Oh.

Yeah. Up in verse 7. Seven, it was the Hebrew word Ben, which is sun. Here in verse 12, it's the Aramaic word bar. What does that mean? Well, I'll give you the punchline,

which is highly debated. But I'm persuaded that we've shifted to the Aramaic word to echo the son of man vision from Daniel chapter 7, which is written in Aramaic. It's the bar on the Shah, the son of humanity. Okay. Who in that poem is exalted up into the skies and is installed to rule alongside God over the beastly violent nations of the earth? So what's so brilliant is this, this poet literally switches languages.

The last line of the poem as a hyperlink to Daniel chapter 7. Daniel 7 actually as a context for this poem makes it more palatable. Sure. When you're thinking of the beastly mutant kings rising up out of the sea. There you go. And you're like, yeah, I need a king who can just crush the souls. Exactly right. That's what the first stanza of the poem is supposed to make us feel.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. The dragon slayer. That's right. So what's so crazy is that the same anointed messianic son of God, how I respond to that king leads me down two opposite paths. One is that I'll be lost on the path.

The word perish in the way is exactly the same phrase at the end of Psalm 1. Which means your path leads you into nothingness, lost on the path. Or it could be that the sun is my refuge and the way to the good life. Okay. Like there's a way to live in which you perish. but there's a way to live and find true life. Yeah. And that's refuge in the sun.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Now, in here, though, it feels like a hot temper. Oh, because the sun's, yeah. The sun is angry. Suns, yeah. Well, yep, that's right. And in a moment. Yeah, and it's the same words that were used up early in the poem

of the divine heavenly king's anger. This is like, stop messing around. Mm-hmm. Like, this son has lost his patience with you. Yeah. Is what this feels like. Yeah. Yeah.

You can reach a point where you will be handed over by God's earthly delegated son king to your own self-ruin and destruction, perishing in the path. Yeah. I get that. Mm-hmm. And the depiction we often reflect on is that God is patient, you know? Slow to anger. slow to anger. That's right.

Abounding in love. Yeah. Here, in this world, he's, yeah. This is it. This is the like, no more warnings, kings. Yeah, that's right. Like, I've reached my wits end. Yep.

Like, this is the final moment. Like, you've got to make a call right now. Yeah, that's right. Because, like, if you don't, it's done. Game over. That's right. So let's back up. And with these four poetic lines in this poem about divine anger,

one, the heavenly kings and then one, the earthly. messianic sun. So, hmm, this poem is a note from the underground. So if I have lived for generations as part of a subjugated people on my ancestral lands, one imperial regime after another, each one of those regime changes as violent, bloody, results in a whole bunch more of my relatives dying. Taxes are getting worse every year. A poem that tells me that God and God's messianic representative has a short temper for leaders like that. That's good news to me. That brings me hope. I don't want patience for these guys. I don't want God to sit around doing nothing about kings and rulers like that. I want God to act.

I want God to do something. And I wonder if maybe our discomfort, you know, know, with this depiction, has as much ado just with our social location that I've never lived under conditions like that. But I don't have to go far or far back in time to imagine leaders like this. And I think that's just super important. This is a really important part of the portrait of God in the Bible. It's that God's anger is about his passionate love for creation. God's response of justice, and that leaders need to take that seriously.

That's the vibe of this poem. Yeah. Yeah, because Psalm 2 wasn't written to comfort the kings. No, exactly. Or to like... Those are, yeah, benefiting from the rule of these kings. Yeah, it's for the people who are being destroyed by them saying, you know, he always had enough. He hears us.

Yeah. That's the picture of Psalm 2. Now, is that all that Psalm 2 means? No. That's like what I would just call the first layer of meaning. We just tried to do a little imaginative experiment of thinking back to an ancient Israelite poet living somewhere in the kingdom period or maybe the exile who crafted or shaped this poem by itself.

However, this poem does not appear by itself in the Hebrew Bible. it appears right alongside Psalm 1 and in fact has all these important hyperlinks and connections to Psalm 1 and Psalm 1 and two together are the introduction to the Psalm scroll and they stand right on the seam of the pivot of the design of the whole Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh. Wait, said again, the Psalm scroll is on the seam. The Psalm scroll itself is page 1

of a major kind of of division within the Hebrew Bible itself. The Torah, the prophets, and the writings. So Psalm 1 and 2 are an intro to the whole collection called the writings. When you say it's at the seam, it's connecting all the prophetic books to all the writings. And it's connecting all of the Torah and the prophetic books to the Psalm scroll and to the writing. So what is the meaning of Psalm 2 when I back out and see how it fits into the larger mosaic? of the whole Hebrew Bible

and then of the whole Christian Bible alongside the New Testament. That is all a part of Psalm 2's meaning as well. And that's worth a whole other conversation. So, let's pause for the moment and meditate just on Psalm 2 as a little imaginative world unto itself.

And there's a lot to process. A lot. But it's not the final word. There's more nuance in this poem when we view it in these larger contexts. So should we do that next? Deal. Okay.

Thanks for listening to Bible Project podcast. Next week, we'll look at Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 and read them together. We'll see how these two poems are coordinated like mirrors to each other. And then we'll zoom out and see how they act as an introduction to the entire Psalm scroll and how they connect to the entire Hebrew Bible. The art of learning how to meditate on scripture. means learning how to appreciate every individual little paragraph or poem or story unto itself. But then also backing up and saying,

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