Psalm 2 / Rick McNally / June 2025

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Person 1: Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 are different.

Person 2: Yeah, they’re different, there are different Psalms, buddy.

Person 1: No.  I know that, but they are different. They are the same, but they are different.  The message is strikingly similar, yet their perspective is from a vastly different vantage point.

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Psalm 1	Psalm 2
is peaceful, pastoral, earthy	is warlike
is driven by wisdom	is driven by political language
is about gaining life	is about keeping life
is friendly	is intimidating
mentions natural consequences	mentions political consequences

Psalm 1 is about rivers and trees, Psalm 2 is about bonds, cords, rods of iron, and laughing and derision.  It is not a friendly psalm.  But there is hope before it is done.

Psalm one and two are the introduction to the book of Psalms.  

When you walk through the first one, you feel like you are walking through a glen; you could easily lie down in the grass and pick at the moss.  You hear the wind gently blowing through the trees.  You hear the babbling brook.  

Therein, you are encouraged there to not listen to the other voices around you and to deny them.  Then, you are encouraged to listen and follow “the Law of the Lord.”  To meditate on it, to listen to its counsel, to follow its way, to sit in its seat.  We are told that when we do this, we find life, and life abundantly.  

Then, walking from the first, that garden of Eden, we find ourselves in the second; the war-room of the king.  The brook is gone.

The People: “We want Freedom and Autonomy” / 1-3

The peoples of the earth don’t like the Lord’s reign. The “counsel of the wicked” continues as the leaders of the earth set themselves against the Lord and his Anointed.  Remember, in context this was Israel and her Messiah.  The nations raged against her.  The nations still tend to rage against her.  The people of the earth don’t care for the Lord very much either, unless he can be just mentioned generically and in inoffensive ways.

They desire to overthrow the Lord and “burst their bonds” and “cast away” their cords from them.  They want freedom, they want control.  Can we really cast away the controls and bonds of the Lord, of God?  He made us and we are all subject to his laws; can we burst the bond of gravity?  Can we burst the bonds of aging, or death, or consequences of bad decisions?  Can we free ourselves from our creator?  We are trying.  But we cannot succeed.

We want to be king.  We make good attempts to be king.  So do the people in this passage. 

The question is asked right off the bat in verse 1, “why?”  What good do they think this will do? Why do we try to take the kingship for ourselves?  

Notice too, there is mentioned in this passage the “Anointed,” not God the Father but another entity.  He is the “anointed” one, the one chosen by God to be as unto the King himself.

“I’ve Already Chosen The Leader, and It’s not You” / 4-6

The true king has a few responses to this plan.  First and foremost, it is ludicrous, for the God of heaven has made life, wrote the code of life, and has given it structure.  There is no true freedom outside of him; there is no one who could possibly rule better.  Not you, not me, not them.

He laughs, he mocks this thought.  It is hilarious.  If you’ve ever watched desperate men, they do desperate things and are ultimately kind of funny.  It’s not a good funny, but it is humorous.  Maybe you’ve done things like this too, things that make no sense.

His response is first to laugh, then anger. In his anger, he calmly says he has “set” this King on Zion, his “holy hill.”

This King, this Anointed One, is already chosen.  God chose.  We didn’t get to vote.  God didn’t send out surveys or host focus groups.  He established him.  Period.

“It is my Anointed Son, He Will Inherit the Nations” / 7-9

God has a pronouncement: a law, a decree, an official statement.

This Psalm is an adjusted chiastic poem.  Its structure is like this:

A 

  B

    C

       D – center

       D – center

    C

A

  B

The significance of the structure is that the center pieces are the centerpiece.  It is the focus of the Psalm: the highlighted, the bold text, the poetic point.  Verse 6-7 are the heart of the psalm.

As for me, I have set my King

On Zion, my holy hill.

I will tell of the decree:

The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;

Today I have begotten you.

God has put his Son, the Anointed (the “Christ” in Greek) on his throne and has chosen him to rule.  The idea of “begotten” here is not the idea of “given birth to” but rather the idea of “installed” or “coronated”.

The nations are to be his inheritance.  He will have the “power” to break the nations.  They will be his.  His rule is absolute.  He is going to be unchallengeable.  

When we meet this King in the New Testament — he comes not with an iron rod but a healing hand, meagerly dressed in a humble towel washing people’s feet and dying on an old, rugged cross.  We see his “army” go to the nations with a message of grace, a message of God’s love for his creation.  We eventually see in heaven people from every tribe and tongue.  He rules them in love.

But here, his power is emphasized.

“Be Wise, Serve Him, Rejoice, Take Refuge” / 10-12

Now the warnings:

Be wise / be wise, be successful / In your ventures succeed. Going against the king of heaven is a bad idea. Change your mind.  Turn around. 

Be warned / be disciplined, be corrected, be reformed / God is good, but he is not safe.

Serve the Lord with fear / deep respect, reverence, piety / God is God, you are and should be a servant of his.  We don’t need any more kings.  He sees all you do and all I do.  We are accountable to him.  This should engender a holy fear.

Rejoice with trembling / quaking / Worship the Son with a trembling attitude.

Kiss the Son / the idea here is to recognize his kingship and submit to him, to pull away from a rebellious attitude and freely serve.  If he is cruel, why submit?  Is it just power that compels?  No.  The suffering servant of the Gospels is also the conquering king on horseback in Revelation.  He is beautiful and powerful; yet terrible.

In Finale / A Beatitude

Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

How can you and I be happy?  Don’t we want to find happiness?  Don’t we want to find peace in this “peaceless” world?

Take refuge in him.  There is a storm brewing; we need a place to hide.  There are warriors coming to attack us; we need a place of safety.

The Son is the refuge we all need.

Every person.  Every tongue.  Every tribe.  Every nation.

You.  I.  Them.

Conclusion

Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 are a set.  They tell us to…

1. Listen only to the word; let it alone give you counsel.
2. Obey only the Anointed Son; let him alone give you command.

The wisdom of the Word and the authority of the Son.

It’s so easy to listen to other voices.  It’s so easy to become obedient to other movements, voices, authorities. 

Serve him alone.

Our world needs this message.  I need this message.