Why are the nations in tumultuous agitation, and [why] do the peoples meditate a vain thing?
Psalm 2 opens with a question rather than a statement: why are the nations in uproar, and what do they expect to gain? The psalm answers its own question, and the answer ends with God's King set on Zion.
Older translations read "heathen" where the ESV has "nations." One commentator explains the word and gives a more literal rendering of the line.
The word translated "heathen" often appears in the Old Testament for the various nations of the earth apart from Israel. A more literal translation renders the opening words like this: "Why are the nations in tumultuous agitation, and why do the peoples meditate a vain thing?" With this simple explanation the words become clear. They say just what any one of us might want to ask about the agitated nations of today.
One word ties this verse to the psalm before it. Where the ESV has "plot," older translations read "imagine."
"Imagine" in Psalm 2 is the same word as "meditate" in Psalm 1:2.
Nations fight for many reasons, and those reasons change with each generation. The psalm looks under all of that to something that never changes.
There are countless causes of strife among the nations. They lie on the surface of things, and they vary from age to age, even from year to year. The inspired psalmist probes beneath the surface. He sees that the real root of it all is the built-in lawlessness of fallen man. It is the desire to be rid of any restraint that the Lord and His Anointed might place on them. This lawlessness is the very essence of sin.
The verse calls the plotting empty before it says how it ends. The rest of the psalm shows why.
The nations rage, the peoples plot in vain; the kings of the earth and the rulers would break free from the bonds of Jehovah and His Anointed. But this rising only brings wrath and displeasure, and all resistance to it will fail. He who sits in the heavens will laugh; Adonai scorns them. Despite it all, Jehovah has set His King on His holy hill of Zion. Such is the sure counsel of God made good by His power. Man's pride in resisting only brings his own ruin.
History has already seen this coalition once. One writer points to the crucifixion, and to a further alliance still to come.
The first stanza (Psalm 2:1-3) predicts that Israel and the nations will join in open resistance to the claims of Jehovah and His Anointed. The earthly powers agree together to break their bonds and throw off their cords. This prediction came true when Jews and Gentiles joined to crucify the Messiah, Jehovah's Anointed, and the apostles quoted it that way in their prayer to the Lord (Acts 4:24-28). The evil alliance against Jehovah and His Christ foretold in this psalm will have a further fulfilment in the future agreement between the Jews who have turned from God and the head of the revived fourth Gentile empire (Revelation 13).
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Commentators differ on how far the events of Acts 4 match the psalm's own scope.
Their quotation from Psalm 2 does not apply directly. The psalm speaks of the bitter hostility of Gentiles, Israel, kings and rulers at the time of the coming tribulation. Yet the rulers of Israel were already showing that hostility... But in beautiful triumph the disciples add, "to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place." The emptiness of man's hostility and pride is tragic: it is God in control, not they.
The psalm does not leave its opening question hanging.
This psalm does not merely ask the question. It answers it in full. What is more, the answer comes with prophetic insight that goes to the root of things. It also gives foresight that carries us to the end of things, when the agitation and rage of the nations will cease. If we profit by this prophetic insight — above all if we see the contrast between this psalm and Psalm 1 — we shall gain much moral instruction. And if we profit by the foresight it gives, we will not be too troubled, even while we live in the middle of the unrest.
- Question. The verse asks why the nations rage, and what their plotting can ever achieve. Any reader could ask the same about the news today.
- Root. The surface causes of strife change from year to year. Under them lies the built-in lawlessness of fallen man: the wish to be free of any restraint from the Lord and His Anointed.
- Empty. The plotting is empty because it fails. All resistance runs into wrath, and man's presumption only brings his own ruin.
- Fulfilled. Jews and Gentiles united to crucify God's Anointed, and the first believers prayed this psalm in Acts 4. Commentators differ on whether the psalm reached its full scope then, or waits for a last alliance still to come.
- Settled. God has set His King on His holy hill. Take in the psalm's foresight, and you need not be shaken while the noise goes on.
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the princes plot together, against Jehovah and against his anointed
Psalm 2 opens with the world in revolt against God, and verse 2 names who is behind it: not mobs, but kings and rulers, sitting down to plan. Who is this "Anointed" they plot against, and what do they hope to gain?
The verse names "kings of the earth" and "rulers." One writer reads these as Gentiles and Jews, and points to the day two old enemies became friends:
The Gentiles are "the nations" of verse 1 and "the kings of the earth" of verse 2. The Jews are "the peoples" of verse 1 and "the rulers" of verse 2. They agree together, but only in carrying out the oppressive persecution of the Lord's Anointed. If we turn to Luke 23:12 we find that "Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day." What were they made friends about? They wished to put out the light of grace and truth which shone in the Person of the Lord's Anointed. That brought them together and made them friends, who had been enemies before.
One writer explains the word and what the anointing means:
I change the word "Anointed" to "Messiah," as the more usual and correct word for the Psalms. Messiah and Christ both mean "the Anointed." The former is Hebrew, the latter Greek. The anointing is consecration. In His case, first as Prophet, for He carries the word of the Most High. Second as Priest, the one who leads divine worship. Third as King, the one who governs. "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power" (Acts 10:38).
The next verse states their aim: to break bands and cords. One writer explains what those cords are:
What do they plot together to do? To break in pieces the bonds and cords of God's restraining power (v. 3). Men do not see God at work restraining evil, but they feel it in their consciences, and many resent it deeply. They try hard to silence conscience. They refuse any reference to God's word, which they say is an intrusion into their private rights. They see this as an effort to tie them up when they want to be free to do as they please. In this the nations — people, kings and rulers — unite together, intending to do away with the authority of God.
The first believers prayed these words back to God and saw them fulfilled in their own day:
The first stanza (Ps. 2:1-3) predicts the coalition of Israel and the nations in defiant resistance to the claims of Jehovah and His Anointed. The united counsel of the earthly powers is to break Their bands and cast away Their cords. This prediction came true when Jews and Gentiles joined together to crucify the Messiah, Jehovah's Anointed. The apostles quoted it that way in their prayer to the Lord (Acts 4:24-28). This Psalm also foretells a further evil alliance against Jehovah and His Christ. It is a future agreement between the Jews who have turned away from God and the head of the restored fourth Gentile empire (Rev. 13).
Verse 4 shows God's reaction to all this plotting:
The Scriptures do not often present God as laughing. Three times in the Psalms they do, and once in Proverbs. In each case the same thing is in view. If men refuse His mercy, if they mistreat His people, if they lawlessly deny Him and His Anointed and mock His authority and His Word, He will judge them in due season. And not only judge them, but cast them down in a way that makes them supremely ridiculous, objects of derision to all created intelligences. The "laugh" will be on God's side in that day.
Their planning runs into a decision already made. The same writer points to one word in verse 6:
The ragings, the imaginations, the counsel taken by kings and rulers, all comes to nothing, and God's counsel stands. His purposes are not delayed one hour, and His King is set exactly as intended upon His holy hill of Zion. The word "set" is literally "anointed," as the margin of a reference Bible shows. The rulers and the kings will depart in judgment, the shouting and the tumult will die, and Jehovah's King will be anointed according to the decree.
Writers see the psalm reaching beyond Calvary to a final, open version of the same alliance:
Even today the nations are throwing aside the truth of the word of God as of no serious consequence. So after the Lord takes believers home to heaven at the Rapture, the kings of the earth will be fully ready to "set themselves" in determined hostility against God (v. 2). God's anointed King also, who was once cast out and crucified, will be the object of their hatred, for they know they have not really got rid of Him. Though they rejected Him from the earth, He has been received in heaven, though they don't like to admit it.
- Counsel — The rebellion is deliberate, not accidental: kings and rulers sit down and plan against the LORD and His Anointed.
- Cords — What they want broken is God's restraint, felt in conscience and resented as an intrusion on their freedom.
- Christ — "Anointed" is Messiah in Hebrew, Christ in Greek: God's consecrated Prophet, Priest and King.
- Cross — Pilate and Herod became friends over one thing, and the apostles prayed this psalm as fulfilled in the death of Jesus.
- Crown — Their counsel comes to nothing; God's counsel stands, and the King they refused is anointed on Zion exactly as decreed.
Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their cords from us!
Psalm 2 opens with the nations in uproar. Verse 3 gives the words of the revolt — spoken not by one tyrant but by the whole human race. So what are these "bonds" and "cords"? Who put them there? And what happens to those who throw them off?
These are not chains put on by an enemy. The "their" of the verse points back to the Lord and His Anointed — this is God's own hold on people.
In Psalm 2 the kings and the rulers of the earth take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed. They say, "Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us" — that is, the bonds and cords in which God held and restrained them.
Men do not feel this restraint as an outward force. They feel it inside, in the conscience — and they resent it.
Men do not see God at work restraining evil, yet they feel it in their consciences. Many resent this. They try hard to silence conscience and to shut out every reference to God's word, which they call an intrusion into their private rights! They consider this an effort to bind them by cords when they want to be free to do as they please.
Nations quarrel over a thousand shifting issues. Verse 3 goes underneath all of them to name one cause.
The inspired Psalmist probes beneath the surface. He sees that the real root of it all is the inborn lawlessness of fallen man — the desire to be rid of the restraint which the Lord and His Anointed might impose on them. This lawlessness is the very essence of sin.
The motive is not intellectual. It is practical — men want room for what they already know will not stand inspection.
The psalm shows the nations in an uproar against God and against Christ, trying in vain to throw off divine authority and restraint. They say, "Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us." Men want to banish every public recognition of God so they can pursue desires that, as conscience tells them, will not bear the light of God. In Acts 4:26-27 the Spirit of God applies this Scripture to the rejection of Christ by "the Gentiles, and the people of Israel." Men formed this alliance against God and Christ at the cross, and it is still the principle that governs the world.
Few people today say these words out loud. But the same attitude shows up in how people handle the Bible.
God holds and exercises the consciences of men by His Word. But suppose men refuse to accept the Word as the Word, and claim the right to keep or reject whatever parts suit their moods and whims. What hold has God upon them then? They have in this cast away His cords from them and burst His bonds apart, and they imagine that they are free.
The Psalm looks forward as well as back. Commentators expect the loose drift of today to harden into one deliberate act.
There is to be one last great rising against Jehovah and against His Christ. Its aim is to rid mankind once for all of those bonds and cords. Men feel them to be leftovers from a less enlightened, less scientific age, and so an unbearable check on human progress and glory. A day is coming when almost the whole world will treat the Christian religion as a leftover from a darker age, no longer to be tolerated.
The verse treats God's limits as an insult. Read the other way round, those limits are the reason the world still stands.
God Himself places restrictions upon men, and when God acts in this way men begin to say, "Let us burst Their bonds apart, and cast away Their cords from us." Yet how thankful we should be for the restraining hand of God! In creation and in the moral realm we owe much to the limits God sets in His power and His wisdom.
Heaven shows no alarm. The next verse answers the revolt.
This is how He will fight all man's enmity against Himself and against His Anointed. What divine irony! "Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us!" God answers: "He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision!"
- Cords — the bonds are God's own restraint on men, felt in the conscience, not chains from an enemy.
- Root — that wish to be rid of restraint is the deepest cause of human unrest, and it is the essence of sin.
- Motive — men push God out of public life to chase desires that cannot bear His light.
- Reach — that alliance took shape at the cross, still rules how men handle the Bible, and will end in one final rising.
- Result — the restraint men resent is the mercy that holds the world together, and God answers their revolt with laughter.