He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision.
In Psalm 2 God answers the world's revolt with a sound, not an army. It is laughter from a throne that nothing on earth can shake. The verse raises sharp questions. How can God laugh at rebellion? Who is the One sitting there? And why does the laughter not turn at once into judgment?
The psalm has just shown the nations in uproar and the kings taking counsel. Verse 4 turns from the noise below to the quiet above.
From a world in revolt we pass to the calm of heaven to learn God's thoughts of man's vain efforts. The great men of the earth — its political leaders, its scientists, its philosophers — may join together to throw off all recognition of God. But their efforts do not move Him. The Christ of God "sits in the heavens," and holds man's revolt in derision. Men rage on earth; God laughs in heaven. Human ideas here show us heaven's contempt for man's folly.
Laughter is a response to something absurd. The absurdity is the gap between what the rebels announce and what they can do.
Well might the God of heaven and earth laugh at their stupidity! For they are like little children who gather against their national government and tell the authorities, "We are cancelling every law you have ever passed. We will refuse to obey anything you say." Of course, this would only be laughable. They have no power to carry out their schemes. But it is amazing how long God bears with this evil before judging it outright.
The word behind "the Lord" in this verse is Adonai — a title of lordship, and one commentators connect with Christ exalted as man. Some therefore read the derision of this verse as His.
"He that sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision." That is, Christ Himself shall have them in derision.
That seat explains why the psalm's threat has not yet fallen. The One whom men rejected on earth is waiting, not absent.
Heaven is silent till the appointed time comes. Here we have the exalted position of the rejected Christ, as in Psalm 110. He sits in the heavens. His place is at the right hand of God. He shares the Father's throne. In infinite patience He is waiting, silent about all that wicked men do in dishonouring His Name. But when the final rebellion takes place on earth, then He will laugh at them and hold them in derision.
Commentators differ on when the laughter comes. Some read it as heaven's present answer to man's folly. Others place it at the final rebellion.
God laughing is rare in Scripture, and it is never light-hearted. It points forward to a reversal that will be public.
The Bible rarely pictures God laughing. Three times in the Psalms they do so, and once in Proverbs, and in each case the same thing is in view. If men refuse His mercy, mistreat His people, and defy Him and His Anointed, mocking His authority and His Word, God will judge them in due season. He will not only judge them. He will bring them down in a way that makes them look utterly ridiculous — an object of scorn to every created being. The "laugh" will be on God's side in that day.
Between the laughter and the wrath, God is doing something the rebels never expected.
Futile and wicked effort! The murderous violence of man only fastens tighter the bands and cords he would tear apart. … But this is far from all in the second Psalm. Then He will speak to them in His wrath and terrify them in His fury. This, however, is not yet. God is not now sending judgments to punish their evil and crush their pride. Instead His grace is sending out the gospel — repentance and forgiveness of sins preached in the name of Jesus to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
If God is unshaken, the believer watching a hostile world can be unshaken too.
Eternal confusion will mark all the opposition of men and devils. This gives sweet rest to the heart, in a scene where everything seems so contrary to God and so contrary to faith. We look at the circumstances and influences around us in the world. Our spirits would often sink, if we did not have the settled assurance that "the wrath of man shall praise" the Lord.
- Seated — the nations rage below, but God does not stand up to defend Himself. He sits, and heaven stays calm. That calm shows how little the revolt threatens Him.
- Seated and laughing — the laughter is not cruelty. Rebels cancel God's authority with their words, but they have no power to do it.
- Seated as Christ — commentators name the One on the throne: the rejected Christ, now at God's right hand. He waits in patience for the appointed time.
- Seated while grace runs — the wrath has not come yet. In the meantime God is sending the gospel of forgiveness to all nations.
- Seated until He speaks — the silence will break. He will speak in wrath, and the mockers will become the mocked.
Then will he speak to them in his anger, and in his fierce displeasure will he terrify them
Psalm 2 has just shown heaven laughing at a world in revolt; now the laughter stops and God opens His mouth. That turn from patience to terror raises two questions: when does it happen, and why is God silent now?
The striking thing here is not that God acts, but that He speaks. Until then He stays quiet while men speak against Him.
God not only holds these efforts of men in derision, but the time is coming when God will "speak to them in His wrath." For long ages God has been speaking in grace. He has kept silent while man rebels against His authority. God, however, has not been indifferent to "all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." God will break His silence. When God speaks it will be in wrath, showing "His fury," and men will be silent in terror.
Note the reversal. Now men speak and God is silent; then God speaks and men have nothing to say.
The verse does not say where God speaks from, or what He does next. One writer supplies both.
These worldly powers band together to throw off all allegiance to Jehovah and His Christ. Adonai (Jehovah's title as "Lord of all the earth") treats their plot with contempt (Ps. 2:4-6). He will speak to them in His wrath from heaven (see Heb. 12:25-26). They organise their hostility against Jehovah and His Anointed, and He answers by setting His King on Zion, His mountain of holiness. So the "counsel" of man's might and wisdom comes to nothing.
God's answer to the plot is not only wrath. It is a King set on His holy hill, and man's best plan comes to nothing.
The little word that opens the verse is a date-stamp. One writer marks what that word rules out: this wrath has not fallen yet.
Futile and wicked effort! The murderous violence of man only fastens tighter the bands and cords he wanted to burst. He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. But this is far from all in the second Psalm. Then He will speak to them in His wrath and terrify them in His fury. But this is not yet. Instead of judgments to punish their evil and overwhelm their pride, His grace is meanwhile sending out the gospel — repentance and forgiveness of sins preached in the name of Jesus to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
So the gap between verse 4 and verse 5 is the age we are living in. The delay is not weakness; it is the gospel going out.
That leaves the question of what kind of scene this is. One writer answers it by naming what this psalm is not.
Psalm 2 is the time when the judgment is ending, and the Son puts government right by the power of His wrath. "Now therefore, O kings, be wise," for if the Son's wrath kindles, all will be over with you. This has nothing to do with the gospel of God's grace. The kings of the earth are not in relationship with the Father and the Son, but in rebellion against Jehovah and His Christ. It is a direct question of judgment — the closing scene.
The verse is prophecy, not history yet. So the psalm's closing lines still offer men a way out.
Psalm 2 is a prophecy. What does it say? It says that the kings of the earth and the rulers are going to plot together against Jehovah and His Anointed. It says Jehovah will "speak to them in His wrath, and terrify them in His fury." If men do not "kiss the Son," they will perish "when His wrath is quickly kindled."
Older translations end that line "when His wrath is kindled but a little."
- Silence — God has been quiet through long ages of rebellion. That silence is grace, not indifference. He has kept account of every hard word spoken against Him.
- Speech — God speaks at last. He speaks from heaven as Lord of all the earth, and terror leaves men silent.
- Timing — "then" is not now. Between heaven's laughter and heaven's wrath, His grace sends the gospel to all nations.
- Judgment — the Son enforces government by His wrath. This scene is not the gospel of grace; it is the closing scene.
- Refuge — the "then" is still future, so the psalm's own answer stands open: kiss the Son before His wrath kindles.
And *I* have anointed my king upon Zion, the hill of my holiness.
God answers a world in revolt with one sentence. It is not an argument but an announcement: the throne is already given. Three questions follow. Who is this King? Why Zion? And how can God call a thing done that no one can yet see?
Verses 1–3 describe nations and rulers plotting to throw off God's authority. This verse is the reply, and its force is that the plotting changes nothing.
The rage, the plotting, and the plans that kings and rulers make all come to nothing, and God's counsel stands. His purposes are not delayed one hour, and He sets His King exactly as intended on Zion, His holy hill... The rulers and the kings will depart in judgment. The shouting and the uproar will die away. And Jehovah will anoint His King, just as the decree said.
The word "set" really means "anointed," and man's opposition to God cannot defeat His purpose. How puny man is — all his efforts to dethrone God will come to nothing. The rightful king of Israel will reign in Zion.
The word "my" is deliberate. It sets God's choice against the king the people chose for themselves.
Jehovah loves to say "My King." He is the true David, the man after God's own heart, whom He chose to feed His people. Saul was the opposite. Saul was the people's own choice, made when they had rejected Jehovah as their king. God has a king in store, and He will show Him at the right time. He will take everything out of the usurper's hand and give it to the One whose right it is.
Zion was not a neutral address. God chose this hill at the lowest point in Israel's history.
No mountain in the Old Testament stood in such formal contrast with Sinai as Zion. Sinai was the unforgettable scene where the nation was put under responsibility to the law. Zion was where Jehovah stepped in with grace for His king, at a time when everything lay in ruins. People and priests alike were wicked. The Philistines had taken the ark. Ichabod was confessed. Israel's king and his sons were killed. And the Jebusite was not only in the centre and stronghold of Jerusalem but defiant and insulting. Then it was that Jehovah, as He chose David, so also chose the mount Zion which He loved. And there He will set His king, on Zion, His holy hill.
So what does that hill hold? Another writer lists it plainly.
"You have come to Mount Zion." What do you get there? What is said of Mount Zion is that it is the hill of grace. It is where God finds His rest. It says, God will dwell there forevermore. He loves it. Blessing is there; there God commands blessing, life forevermore. It is the hill on which He places His king. And why do you think He has set His king there? It is for blessing. If God raises up a king, it is for blessing, not for the destruction of man... No doubt the rebellious must suffer judgment, but God's thought in a kingdom is salvation.
Zion is one hill, but the psalm does not stop there. It goes on to give this King the nations, and it describes a rule unlike the gospel that goes out now.
Two things are set forth here. First, God anoints the Son as King on Zion, His holy hill. Then He gives Him the nations as His inheritance. Zion is His throne; the nations, His inheritance. Second, His way of dealing with the nations is the opposite of the gospel — "You shall break them with a rod of iron." In the gospel, the rod of Christ is a rod of goodness and love. It is everything that is sweetest and strongest in His love. It is not a rod of iron.
Commentators read the past tense as certainty, not as something already visible. The world rejected this King, and His throne is still ahead.
In Psalm 2 you find Christ spoken of as come to this world, and rejected... In that character as King in Zion, and Son of God, as born into this world, He was utterly rejected; yet God will set Him on His holy hill in Zion.
Why then can God speak of it as finished?
God's counsels will prevail so surely that He can speak of them as already done — "I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill." Divine power carries out divine counsels.
- As for me. God speaks for Himself: kings plot, and His counsel is not delayed one hour.
- Set. The word means "anointed" — the King men reject is the King God commissions.
- My. God's own choice, the true David, over against the king people choose for themselves.
- Zion. The hill of grace, chosen when everything else had collapsed, where God sets a king for blessing.
- Done. Spoken in the past tense because divine power always accomplishes divine counsels.