And the utter impotence of their struggle against God is revealed in the quietness and brevity with which their defeat and capture are told. Satan's great earth leader and his chief who deceived the people with his miraculous power, both are taken and forever put away. And then Satan himself is chained and fastened securely in the abyss. Such is the tremendous consummation quietly told in a few lines. And then follows the setting up of the glorious kingdom on earth.
Whatever the immediate circumstances under which the Second Psalm was penned, it will be readily seen how it fits into this situation at the end.
"Why do the nations tumultuously assemble,
And the peoples meditate a vain thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against Jehovah and against His Anointed, saying,
'Let us break their bonds asunder,
And cast away their cords from us.'"
But their efforts seem so puny, and the result so one-sided, that
"He that sitteth in the heavens will laugh:
The Lord will have them in derision."
And we remember that, in these Revelation pages, it is always with the sword of His mouth that the Lord Jesus is said to fight, as we read on:
"Then will He speak unto them in His wrath,
And vex [or trouble] them in His sore displeasure; [saying]
'Yet I have set my King
Upon my holy hill of Zion.'"
Then the Son speaks:
"I will tell of the decree:
Jehovah said unto me, 'thou art my Son;
This day have I begotten thee.
Ask of me and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance,
And the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron;
Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.'"
And the writer of the Psalms closed with a word of earnest counsel to the kings of earth: