It’s a new year and a perfect time to start spending time in Scripture each day. I’m going to post a short devotional on the Psalms every day until we run out of Psalms. You can use the subscribe options at the bottom of this post to if you’d like to receive these devotionals in your email inbox, or you can subscribe to receive all blog categories. If you’re already subscribed to my blog posts, you will not receive these daily devotionals in your inbox unless you subscribe separately to the “Daily Devotions” category below.
Psalm 2:1-12
(Click or hover over the above Scripture reference link to read passage)
We often forget when we read the Psalms that these were written in a real time and a real place. That real time and real place was God’s Old Testament people of Israel that he had made a covenant with (which you can read more about here). They were an earthly nation chosen by God to shine his light to the rest of the world. Within this relationship, an agreement was made (the Mosaic Covenant or “old covenant”) where Israel was to obey God’s commands and if they did, their nation would prosper. But if they worshiped other gods (which they did often!), they would be under God’s judgment and the nation would falter. Most of the years of Israel that the Old Testament spans is of the faltering variety, not the prospering variety. In fact, with the exception of a very brief window of time (David and Solomon’s reign), Israel got its rear end repeatedly kicked by the neighboring nations and the regional superpowers. It’s important to keep this context in mind when we read the Psalms, especially one like Psalm 2.
Israel’s military defeats were directly tied to their corporate disobedience, but that didn’t mean there weren’t still faithful individuals within the nation. We run into these individuals often in the Psalms. The world is crumbling around them, yet they know God is still faithful, even though the crumbling isn’t going to let up anytime soon. This is a significantly different message than you often hear in contemporary feel-good sermons that go something like this: Are bad things happening to you? Trust God and all the bad things will stop. That’s just not the story of the Bible and the Psalms are the place we see the most vivid emotions of individuals facing this quandary: we serve the most powerful God, the King of Kings, yet things all around us are falling apart. What gives?
So when Psalm 2:1 says the nations conspire and the people plot, this is a very literal event taking place as the psalmist writes. On a daily basis, the surrounding nations and people groups are literally plotting to come in and kill you or enslave you and take your land. This was life in the ancient near east… talk about stressful! It puts some of our stressors in perspective.
The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his annointed…
This has the feel of a classic Bible story beatdown where the evil kings rise up and God destroys them all. While that type of episode certainly happened, and Scripture records those thrilling events, that was simply not the generation-to-generation normative experience of Israel and Judah, especially as they muddled through their own disobedient king after disobedient king.
What I love about Psalm 2 is the confidence in who God is, no matter what threat is facing us, and no matter if that threat brings real destruction in its path. God’s power, love, and promises (and eternal judgments) transcend temporary suffering and struggle.
Toward the evil kings…The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.
This whole section reminds of me Daniel 2:20-23. The earthly nations do their thing, just like today, yet God always is the King of Kings, operating in a plane of reality that transcends, that is more real, than what’s right in front of us. This was especially true for Daniel, who literally just saw his home nation destroyed by the Babylonians with his own eyes and is abducted to a foreign land to serve a foreign king. Yet God is still God and the earthly kings have nothing on him.
Midway through, Psalm 2 takes a turn where we as Christians have a great advantage in knowing Jesus is the ultimate King of Israel that the Old Testament prophesied of and the Mosaic Covenant was always pointing toward. There continues to be advice given to earthly kings, reminding them that God is their judge, but there’s also this unlimited promise in verses 8-9 of the whole earth and all the nations bowing their knee to God. It would have been unthinkable for little Israel to picture the superpowers of Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt bowing down before them and Israel taking captive all of their land. Yet this picture shows that God is truly the one on the throne. And as Christians reading back into the old covenant, we can see that this is ultimately pointing toward Jesus’ Kingdom. A Kingdom where the whole earth truly is his.
The son in Psalm 2:7 and 2:12 is referring to the Israelite king and/or to all of Israel, but it also gives us a great reminder of God’s relational nature that has always been there. He has always desired to be his people’s father and they his child of inheritance. God has always desired to share all of himself and his Kingdom with us. He has always desired to adopt us as Romans 8:14-17 and Galatians 3:23-29 describe so beautifully, showing what we get to experience when we put our faith in Jesus and enter God’s family.
When the evil kings of this world are winning, when the nature of a fallen world is capsizing you, remember that God is on the throne, wins, and is your loving Father. He has an ultimate victory for those who are in Jesus. And he walks with you as his child here and now, loving you, speaking to you, comforting you. As we see so often in the Psalms, we can praise God for who He is no matter what good or ill we are facing.
Prayer for the day: God, you are the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Help me when I fear the earthly kings that are right in front of me. Help me when my anxiety spikes and I can’t sleep and I forget you win and that you have ushered me into your victory and that you love me with your incredible love. Help me when I forget that you are my hope and my joy. Lord I worship you for being my hope and my joy! I worship you for defeating Satan and conquering sin and rescuing me from the brokenness of my sin and the brokenness of this world! Thank you that it won’t always be this way. Thank you that your Kingdom is advancing in this world even as I pray this. Father may your kingdom come, may your will be done, here in this place, in my life, in my city, in my church, the way your will is done in heaven. May your kingdom come here. May your kingdom of heaven come here, where we love as you love. Where I love as you love. Thank you for adopting me as your son / as your daughter. Thank you being my loving Father.
Subscribe below to receive future posts from this category only:
He is:
Author of Beyond the Battle: A man's guide to his identity in Christ in an oversexualized world
Host of the The Flip Side Podcast
Join an online men's small group led by Noah and team at BeyondTheBattle.net
Leave a Reply