2:7-9 — 7I will proclaim the decree of the Lord:
He said to me, "You are my Son;d
today I have become your Father.e
8Ask of me,
and I will make the nations your inheritance,
the ends of the earth your possession.
9You will rule them with an iron sceptre;f
you will dash them to pieces like pottery." T
Abruptly the scene changes again. In the first two stanza, the psalmist tells us where we are and what is happening before we hear the voices of the actors involved: the rebels in the first stanza in v3, and "the One enthroned in heaven" in the second stanza in v6. Here, instead, we hear a voice out of nowhere, boldly declaring his intention to "proclaim the decree of the Lord," which turns out to be the Lord's personal word to him ("He said to me," v7).
But who is this voice? The psalm does not identify him for us, and it is not until we come to vv8-9 that we piece things together and conclude that he is most likely the "King" being installed on Zion mentioned in v6 and, possibly, the one referred to as "his Anointed One" in v2.
While we hear often of kings assuming the throne and wearing a crown we do not actually read much in the OT of the coronation ceremony itself.1 The nearest we come to such a description is the coronation of the seven-year-old king Joash during the reign of Athaliah:
Jehoiada brought out the king's son [Joash] and put the crown on him; he presented him with a copy of the covenant and proclaimed him king. They anointed him, and the people clapped their hands and shouted, "Long live the king!" (2 Ki 11:12).
For an adult candidate, we can imagine that, handed the copy of the covenant, he would publicly proclaim it before the gathered witnesses. This is perhaps what is envisaged here in the psalm, "I will proclaim the decree of the Lord. This decree turns out to be a deed of adoption. Adoption was never a common practice in ancient Israel. Nonetheless, adoption language to describe the relationship between Yahweh and Israel was first used by Yahweh when He commissioned Moses to return to Egypt to deliver Israel from bondage, "Then say to Pharaoh, 'This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, "Let my son go, so that he may worship me." But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son'" (Exo 4:22-23). While Israel herself was more reticent (and, perhaps, rightly so) to use such language of her own relationship with Yahweh, preferring similes ("as (ka'asher) a father carries his son" (Deut 1:31) or ". . . as (ka'asher) a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you" (Deut 8:5)), Yahweh had no hesitance in promising in His covenant with David that "I will be his [Solomon's] father, and he shall be my son" (2 Sam 14). Here, in this psalm, the idea of adopting is taken to its climax with Yahweh proclaiming the Davidic king as "my Son." The thought is heightened by the next line that shifts it away from the mere idea of adoption to unusual language of actual conception: "Today I have begotten you" (most modern EV except NIV which shifts this rendition to the notes). The verb yalad, in its narrowest sense refers to the birth of a child by a woman, but, as here, is also used of father's role in it. The force of these lines is unmistakable: the Davidic king is the crown-prince and regent of Yahweh. Whatever the nations, kings and rulers thought they might think to do, they had to know it is with the declared regent—with all the privileges and power of a son as set out in the promise as well as stating publicly his commimtment to uphold Yahweh's cause as heir of His kingdom—that they have to deal with.2
Yahweh's decree continues with the offer of a request, "Ask of me." The noun "nations" in the Hebrew lacks the definite article found in English translations suggesting that "the nations" should probably be understood as "all the nations." This comports with the all-encompassing breadth of "the ends of the earth." Ordinarily such an offer would be fantabulous. In a sense, of course, it is heightened language, appropriate in the context of political and diplomatic challenge arising from the nations' rebellion. Yet, of course, only Yahweh can make such an offer meaningful. But even as the ancient Israelites sing this song, they could not have visualized realistically such an offer being—or how it could be—fulfilled. It would have remained only an image of faith. The history of the Davidic kings shows no king with shoulders broad enough to think that they were anything near to being such a king.
This decree takes on particular significance when, on at least two occasions—first, immediately after his baptism and then, on the Mount of Transfiguration—a voice from heaven proclaimed regarding Jesus, "This is my Son" (Matt 3:17; Mk 1:11; Lk 3:22 & Matt 17:5; Mk 9:7; Lk 9:35). Particularly, in the light of Jesus's resurrection, the early church recognized that what this psalms says it says about Jesus. No passage of the NT makes this clearer than Acts 13:33-33:
"We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm: "`You are my Son; today I have become your Father.'"
It is true that we do not yet see all the nations submitting to Jesus. But here, of course, is the exciting part. Jesus's commandment to us to "go make disciples of all nations" makes us partners for the ultimate fulfilment of this psalm's vision. Are we in it or not? The more diligent we are in obeying His commandment the more surely we will see the nations bow to Him.
The author of the letter to the Hebrews takes Jesus as the fulfilment of this psalm in another direction. Faced with Christians wavering in their faith in Jesus, perhaps under the threat of persecution, he reminds them, first of all, of whom it was that they have believed; He is the one through whom God has spoken "in these last days, heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe . . . the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word . . . [seated] at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven . . . as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs" (1:1-4, cf. v5).
A few chapters down, the same author reminds his readers that Jesus "did not take upon himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, 'You are my Son; today I have become your Father'" (5:5). Obedient, and made perfect by what he suffered, the Son "became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek" (v9). What this means, the author argues, is that we may now "approach the throne of grace with confidence [and] receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need" (4:16). But, the author also follows this up with a more pointed remark, perhaps the more to jolt his readers to awakeness: "We have much to say about this," he says, "but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil" (4:11-14). Are we, then, awake to all the implications of the Lord's Anointed on the throne? Or are we ill prepared still for solid food?
The divine offer of inheritance and possession is now followed by a promise of divine empowerment (v9). We must be careful not to be distracted here by the apparent violence in the language in which this promise is clothed; given so much misconception about the Old Testament prevalent in the Church it is a trap easy to fall into. Contrary to appearances, the Old Testament torah actually takes a very dim of violence. It is highly significant that, after a comprehensive survey of the idea of 'vengeance,' in the Old Testament, and specifically with regards to the usage of the Hebrew word nqm ("revenge"), George Mendenhall concludes that:3
. . . the normative value system of the early biblical society would never tolerate an individual's resorting to force in order to obtain redress for a wrong suffered. Perhaps better, such usage is not found in what has survived in biblical language. On the contrary, the very many references to Yahweh as the one who acts with legitimate power, which is most characteristic of all usages in the Hebrew Bible, powerfully reinforces the main thesis of these essays that in the thought of early Israel Yahweh had actually succeeded to and replaced the kings and empires of the Late Bronze Age as far as His community was concerned. Yahweh was the sovereign to whom alone belonged the monopoly of force. Self-help of individuals or even of society without authorization of Yahweh was an attack upon God himself . . .
The verse is not, first of all, a license for royal belligerence or oppressive bellicosity. Secondly, the two lines of this verse contrast iron with pottery. The one is strong and enduring, the other is fragile and easily destroyed. Most of all, however, is that these two lines must be read, as the entire psalm should be, against the background of the nations' rebellion with which the psalm opened. These lines do nothing more than to emphasize in the most graphic language possible the divine empowerment and patronage that the king enjoys because he is Yahweh's Anointed and His Son.
As is the case with the gift of adoption and divine inheritance, so the history of ancient Israel saw nothing that bore even a shadow of the empowerment promised in this verse. Interestingly, no New Testament passage asserts expressly this promise to be fulfilled in Jesus. John on the island of Patmos, however, was given a series of revelations and in them he speaks of the one who would so rule. Concluding the letter to the church in Thyatira, John records (Rev 2:26-29):
To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations—
"He will rule them with an iron scepter;
he will dash them to pieces like pottery"
—just as I have received authority from my Father. I will also give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Here participation in the promise made to the Son is extended to those who overcome the temptation to compromise with the world. Psm 2 is, therefore, not an archaic poem of a people who no longer live with us but, in God's great salvific economy, a living promise and an encouragement to hope for us today. This, thankfully also, is not the end of the promise or its fulfillment. Rev 12:1-6 records this vision of the struggle between the woman with child and the dragon:
A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.
And then in the near-closing acts of the epic struggle at the end of time, John describes this scene (Rev 19:11-16):
I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. "He will rule them with an iron scepter." He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.
What more needs be said? Hallelujah!
Low Chai Hok
©Alberith, 2020