[PSALM II.]
1 Why do the nations muster with tumult,
And the peoples meditate vanity?
2 The kings of the earth take up their posts,
And the chieftains sit in counsel together
Against Jehovah and against His Anointed.
3 "Let us wrench off their bands,
And let us fling off from us their cords."
4 He who sits in the heavens laughs;
The Lord mocks at them.
5 Then He speaks to them in His anger-wrath,
And in His wrath-heat puts them in panic.
6 ... "And yet I, I have set my King
Upon Zion, my holy mountain."
7 I will tell of a decree:
Jehovah said unto me, My son art thou;
I have begotten thee this day.
8 Ask from me and I will give thee the nations as thine inheritance,
And as thy possession the ends of the earth.
9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron,
Like a potter's vessel shalt thou shatter them.
10 And now, O kings, be wise;
Let yourselves be warned, O judges of the earth.
11 Serve Jehovah in fear,
And rejoice in trembling.
12 Kiss the Son (?), lest He be angry, and ye perish in [your] way;
For easily may His wrath kindle.
Blessed are all who take refuge in Him!
Various unsatisfactory conjectures as to a historical basis for this magnificent lyric have been made, but none succeeds in specifying events which fit with the situation painted in it. The banded enemies are rebels, and the revolt is widespread; for the "kings of the earth" is a very comprehensive, if we may not even say a universal, expression. If taken in connection with the "uttermost parts of the earth" (ver. 8), which are the King's rightful dominion, it implies a sweep of authority and a breadth of opposition quite beyond any recorded facts. Authorship and date must be left undetermined. The psalm is anonymous, like Psalm i., and is thereby marked off from the psalms which follow in Book I., and with one exception are ascribed to David. Whether these two preludes to the Psalter were set in their present place on the completion of the whole book, or were prefixed to the smaller "Davidic" collection, cannot be settled. The date of composition may have been much earlier than that of either the smaller or the larger collection.
The true basis of the psalm is not some petty revolt of subject tribes, even if such could be adduced, but Nathan's prophecy in 2 Sam. vii., which sets forth the dignity and dominion of the King of Israel as God's son and representative. The poet-prophet of our psalm may have lived after many monarchs had borne the title, but failed to realise the ideal there outlined, and the imperfect shadows may have helped to lift his thoughts to the reality. His grand poem may be called an idealising of the monarch of Israel, but it is an idealising which 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 (vv. 1-3) the conspiracy of banded rebels is set before us with extraordinary force. The singer does not delay to tell what he sees, but breaks into a question of astonished indignation as to what can be the cause of it all. Then, in a series of swift clauses, of which the vivid movement cannot be preserved in a translation, he lets us see what had so moved him. The masses of the "nations" are hurrying tumultuously to the mustering-place; the "peoples" are meditating revolt, which is smitingly stigmatised in anticipation as "vanity." But it is no mere uprising of the common herd; "the kings of the earth" take their stand as in battle-array, and the men of mark and influence lay their heads together, pressing close to one another on the divan as they plot. All classes and orders are united in revolt, and hurry and eagerness mark their action and throb in the words. The rule against which the revolt is directed is that of "Jehovah and His Anointed." That is one rule, not two,—the dominion of Jehovah exercised through the Messiah. The psalmist had grasped firmly the conception that God's visible rule is wielded by Messiah, so that rebellion against one is rebellion against both. Their "bands" are the same. Pure monotheist as the psalmist was, he had the thought of a king so closely associated with Jehovah, that he could name them in one breath as, in some sense, sharers of the same throne and struck at by the same revolt. The foundation of such a conception was given in the designation of the Davidic monarch as God's vicegerent and representative, but its full justification is the relation of the historic Christ to the Father whose throne He shares in glory.
That eloquent "why" may include both the ideas of "for what reason?" and "to what purpose?" Opposition to that King, whether by communities or individuals, is unreasonable. Every rising of a human will against the rule which it is blessedness to accept is absurd, and hopelessly incapable of justification. The question, so understood, is unanswerable by the rebels or by any one else. The one mystery of mysteries is that a finite will should be able to lift itself against the Infinite Will, and be willing to use its power. In the other aspect, the question, like that pregnant "vanity," implies the failure of all rebellion. Plot and strive, conspire and muster, as men may, all is vanity and striving of wind. It is destined to break down from the beginning. It is as hopeless as if the stars were to combine to abolish gravitation. That dominion does not depend on man's acceptance of it, and he can no more throw it off by opposition than he can fling a somersault into space and so get away from earth. When we can vote ourselves out of submission to physical law, we may plot or fight ourselves out of subjection to the reign of Jehovah and of His Anointed.
All the self-will in the world does not alter the fact that the authority of Christ is sovereign over human wills. We cannot get away from it; but we can either lovingly embrace it, and then it is our life, or we can set ourselves against it, like an obstinate ox planting its feet and standing stock-still, and then the goad is driven deep and draws blood.
The metaphor of bands and cords is taken from the fastenings of the yoke on a draught bullock. One can scarcely miss the lovely contrast of this truculent exhortation to rebellion with the gracious summons "Take my yoke upon you and learn of me." The "bands" are already on our necks in a very real sense, for we are all under Christ's authority, and opposition is rebellion, not the effort to prevent a yoke being imposed, but to shake off one already laid on. But yet the consent of our own wills is called for, and thereby we take the yoke, which is a stay rather than a fetter, and bear the burden which bears up those who bear it.