Session 5 - Module 2 - Meditating on Psalm 2:1-6 - Reading the Bible as Meditation Literature

All right, we spent two sessions on Psalm 1. We could have actually spent a lot more, couldn't we have? But it's time to move on, and we are going to take in Psalm 2 over the next couple sessions. So it's truly now for something completely different, maybe. We're going to find out, I guess. Psalm 2, same approach. It's broken into parts. We're going to look at each part, ask how it's put together, meditate on the things that are matching or connected to one another, and see what happens. There you go. This group of people has never come around this poem ever in the history of the universe. Like, what's going to happen? You know what I mean? Yes, okay. And all of you who are taking class online, this is a one-off moment in the history of all things. Okay, Psalm 2. So a little bit different than Psalm 1. I have already grouped it together into its main sections as opposed to going verse by verse, mostly for time efficiency so we can take in the whole thing. So the first little bundle, you could say, is verses 1 through 3, which go like this. Why do the nations rage and the peoples meditate emptiness? The kings of the land take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against Yahweh and against His Anointed One.

Let's tear apart their bonds. Let's cast off from us their cords. Okay. We've got a little story, a little poetic narrative scene. We have, notice the density of language about people groups. We have nations and peoples and the land, usually translated as the earth in our English Bibles. Notice how this works. You have the nations and the people, so this is like the masses, but then you have kings and rulers. So you have the leaders and the led, right, or the many and the one when it comes to representation, rulers as representatives of the nations and of the peoples. So we have the nations rage, the peoples meditate emptiness. This might feel to you like an odd thing to say. Notice the word haggah, it is haggah. So let's pause for a moment just on the shape of verse 1. Nations and peoples. So nations, it's the word goi, goyim, usually talking about the association of people connected with land. So nation is actually a pretty good one. It's not the exact equivalent of the modern nation state, but a people or group associated with a land, or a particular stretch of land is usually what goi refers to. Whereas peoples is just like our word, maybe the masses. But notice the verbs, rage and meditate emptiness. That is an interesting pair, isn't it? We have kings of the land and rulers, that feels like a fairly clear connection. So kings referring usually to like the top of the chain,

rulers referring to like maybe the, what do you say, staff team, the cabinet. Taking their stand, taking counsel together. So we have synonyms, you could take counsel for a good thing. You could take counsel for a bad end. But this phrase take your stand is definitely an oppositional language. So let's just pause, let's just look at these lines first and then we'll take it up. What do you notice about verses 1 through 2, these sections as a bundle right here, both the nouns and then the way these verbs connect together? How would you talk about the relationships? I sort of see the connection to some. One, that that's what happens when the council of those who are wicked eventually turn into nations or, you know, from them, out of them, come kings and rulers who are, it's like a way of life that just grows almost. But not like that tree, but grows like, it's like a, like almost like a bush or something with thistles and thorns that is like filled with rage and filled with selfishness and filled with hatred, that same hatred and, and is willing to go against God. I noticed, at least I think, tell me if I'm wrong, you began there from noticing a relationship between meditating and taking counsel, and then that sent your mind to Psalm 1, am I right? Yes. Yes, yep, yeah, that's great. So, another thing to notice in that relationship is then rage and taking a stand. Notice how the verbs almost kind of work in a pattern that way. Rage, meditate, take stand, take counsel. There's like a oppositional stance, rage, taking your stand, and then like a mindset underneath it, right? Meditating, emptiness, taking counsel. Most English translations render meditate emptiness as plot something vain or plot in vain. Which is a good interpretation, right, of what's happening here, but it does provoke the question, but why did they use this, why did the poet use this same word as Psalm 1's meditate, which is about the quiet recitation? But you remember there's those uses of planning secretly, quiet in regard to secrecy. So, emptiness must have to do with the fact that this plotting will come to no end, it will come to nothing, as it were. You're plotting, but the plotting nature of this doesn't really become clear until you take in verse 2 and you realize, oh, this is a rebellion. It's a good example of odd phrase actually requires the following lines to then go, ah, I see, and you kind of go back and this is a regular move that biblical authors do is they'll use an odd phrase or word that really is meant to strike a moment of like, huh, that's a weird thing to say, or that is a weird way to say that at this point in the poem and the story. And often that's there on purpose to mess with you and that there'll be something that's coming later that will clarify and that forces you to go back and hug out the whole thing again. I'm noticing some symmetry between 1 and 2 regarding peoples and nations and rulers and kings. So, it's almost like the gathering of the people meditating on emptiness leads to nations raging and rulers taking counsel who are ruling these nations and the kings. I just thought it was interesting that one step up for both verses, because rulers report to kings. Yes, I see. Yes. Yeah, that's a great observation. This sounds silly, but I'm just, I don't think I've like often read it like this. Verse 2 is the answer to the question asked in verse 1. Is that right? Like, the nations are raging, people are meditating on emptiness. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Because like from up here, there's like the kings of the land taking their stand and the rulers are taking counsel together against Yahweh. So, in other words, it's a question answer structure. That's what you're wondering. Yeah. Why is it that the nations are raging and the people's plotting? Well, let me tell you, their leaders are. Well, I've never looked at it that way. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. way, because it does begin with a question. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. And I guess the question, pun intended, is if it's a rhetorical question, or are we No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. meant to imply the question here? Why do the nations rage? Why do the kings take their stand? But it's also, too, doesn't begin with a question. So that's a great... Thank you. I need to think about that. That's great. Yeah, on that note, I was just thinking, why is it a question? Like, it just, to me, it's such a stark difference than one. One feels so declarative, like, here's wisdom, be this person. And then all of a sudden, two is like, why do the nations rage? It just feels like such a different literary kind of structure.

So I was like, oh, why is it a question? And they're supposed to be, like, read together. It just felt like a weird, inserted question. Yeah. So, yeah, let's finish how two and three work. So who are they rebelling against and planning against? Yahweh and his anointed one. So it's the word, Hebrew word, mashiach, which gets rendered in the Greek as messiah. And then our English, our word messiah comes from, it's the word messiah. Referring to the, so in Hebrew Bible, this is the king anointed, mashiach means to have oil poured on your head in a, like a commissioning ceremony. So we're in the thought world of God's choice of David's line to be the kings over Israel, ruling from Jerusalem, because that's going to become clear as we go on. We're meditating on the king, royal lineage from the line of David. And so to rebel against one is to rebel against the other, Yahweh. Notice the tight join. To rebel against Yahweh means rebelling against his anointed one, vice versa. And then it's as if we get a little quotation. What does it sound like when the rulers get together and counsel? What's their plan? Their plan is, and then we get, it's like a little speech, a little imagined speech. So it's like the dark secret war room of the kings and the rulers, and they're making their plans and the maps are out and the little pieces on, you know, whatever, I don't know what I'm thinking of. And they're saying, let's tear apart their, that is Yahweh and his anointed, their bonds and their courts. So the kings of the world are subservient to Yahweh and his anointed one, and they don't want to be. So they are going to cast off the authority of Yahweh and his anointed one. I sometimes read that verse the other way around, as if the kings and the rulers are

thinking among themselves that God is saying, let us tear apart their bonds, the bonds between the kings and the rulers. Oh, I see. The other way around, because then verse four says, the one sitting in the skies, he laughs. I thought that's like in the mind of God, let us tear that apart. But I may be wrong. Yeah. Bonds and courts are images of enslavement or service. So these are the kings who are in service to Yahweh and his anointed one, and they're wanting to break out of that. Yeah, yeah. But the word bond in English can also refer to a positive connection between somebody. And this is the word for like an actual, like metal cuff, a shackle, yeah, yep, shackles and cords. Maybe shackle would be a better English word. So interesting little portrait. You get the one and the many, the leaders and the led, rage and rebellion, meditating and plotting against Yahweh and his anointed one, and then a little speech that like gives you a window into what they're plotting. Psalm 2 verses 1 and 3, such an interesting little scene. The world's gone crazy. It's a violent, dangerous place. And why is it that the world looks the way that it is? Because the kings of the nations won't submit to the kingdom of God. That's basically, that's the little portrait here. Verses 4 through 6. When the kings plot their plans and make their little speeches of, done with serving Yahweh. Like, who cares about Him? What is the response of Yahweh and His Anointed One? Well, the One sitting in the skies, He laughs. And the Master

mocks them. Then He will speak to them in His anger, and in His hot anger He will terrify them. As for me, I have anointed my King upon Zion, my holy mountain. Okay, so I'll just play tour guide for a moment here. The One sitting in the skies is God. The laughter has how verse 4 to 6 connect back. So the King's just made there. Think of like a parent responding to an angry toddler who's throwing a tantrum. And, you know, for that toddler the whole universe is collapsing, you know. And then mom or dad is just like, that's cute, you know. Actually, that's not usually my response. But sometimes it is to be like, really? This is what's happening right now? Anyway, He laughs. The point is that's a response. So notice, again, the parallelism. The One sitting in heaven laughs. The Master mocks. So notice the parallelism. The One sitting in the skies. It's a pretty common image of God's heavenly throne. And then this word, Master. Laughing and mocking. That's interesting. So that laughing can just neutral. Like, oh, that's funny. Mocking is more like making fun of. So apparently I don't want to sit in the seat of mockers. But then there is a place where God, who has full knowledge of hearts and minds and contexts, isn't afraid to give back the same medicine that people are giving out. Something like that. It's an interesting image. We'll have to keep, as we go through, process how God's portrayed in this poem. And just let's sit with it. Yeah. Well, His motive is different. Right? Being righteous, His mocking would come from a different place than sinners. That's just a thought. Yeah, no, that's a good observation. Yeah, I don't want to dismiss the tension too easily.

But also for God to look at kings of the world crushing the innocent, not submitting to what they know is justice and right and wrong. You know, God plays hardball with leaders like that in the story of the Bible. And mocking them. Really? Like, you think of His response to the king of Babylon when He turns him into a beast. You know, like, how is that not mocking the king a little bit? You know, anyhow. Then you also see opposites of the one sitting in the sky versus the kings of the land. Yes, excellent. Land versus sky. Very good. Excellent. Thank you. Okay, perfect. Hold that observation. So the one sitting in the skies, He laughs. The master mocks. Then we have this, well, what's He going to do? That's God's sort of like internal response. Then He addresses them in His anger. In His hot anger, He terrifies. That's an interesting pairing, isn't it? So anger and then like the metaphor of your body heating up, which of course God doesn't have a body that heats up, but it's a powerful image. Look at this pairing, speaking and terrifying. Not all speaking is terrifying. Not all terrifying is speaking. But sometimes, some forms of speech can truly be terrifying. And then you get a speech from God. As for me, I have anointed my king on Zion, my holy mountain. It's a good example of two lines, but they are not in like a parallelism. But you have God's done something to somebody and the somewhere is in the second line. I think about speak versus His... This hot anger, I think God speaks to us to give us a chance to choose him or to change or to repent. But then there's a moment where that option is no longer available, which is, kind of reminds me of Psalm 1.

It's where the chaff is going to disappear. It is no longer, it's like a point of no return. So in his hot anger, because he actually wanted the nations and the rulers to be his, but they chose not to. So he gives us that option, but then in making that choice, we also have to remember that we pay the consequences of our choices. Well said. Yes, you just summarized a core theme in the Hebrew Bible. Yep, yeah, yeah. And at the same time, Yahweh, Yahweh, gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, but abounding in loving kindness and faithfulness. So slow to anger doesn't mean he never gets angry, but it takes a long time. And in this case, when kings of the earth are doing this kind of business, the unspoken subtext is who usually faces the consequences, not the kings, it's the people who live in their kingdoms and don't have the influence to be able to avoid the fallout, and they get crushed. And Yahweh doesn't take kindly to that. We're just gonna look at one through six as a whole to pay attention to what both of you just noticed. Verse four, in the skies, the one sitting in the skies is definitely in contrast to the kings of the land. And that's the heaven and earth. The kings of the earth, the one in the heavens.

And heaven and earth are like a very common contrast pair. What's also interesting is that if I'm just looking at verse four and six, notice how the one sitting in the skies appears in the first line, and Zion, my holy mountain, is in the last position. Because what do I know about the holy mountain? The holy mountain is where the one Yahweh's anointed has stationed that king. So it's as if the one sitting in the skies has anointed a king so that Zion, it's on the land, but it's a portal of heaven and earth. It's like the union point of heaven and earth in the person of the anointed king. So it's interesting, you have skies at the beginning, mountain at the end, with the king in between them. That feels like an intentional design feature here. And both of them in contrast to the kings of the land. It's like Zion is a part of the land, but it's the heaven on earth part of the land. So let's take in all of one to six here. I'll just notice something, or draw attention to something you may have noticed. We have these two little narrative portraits. It's almost like two little Polaroids, images next to each other. The first is nations and peoples with the ones that lead them in a large scale rebellion against Yahweh and his anointed one. And then a little speech. And then you get Yahweh's response

and what he's gonna say. And then you get a little speech. And that invites me to do is then compare and meditate on the speeches. So notice that we have mocking and laughing in relationship to raging and meditating. That is fascinating. We have verse two with taking a stand and counseling in relationship to speaking. That's interesting. And then let's tear off their shackles and cords versus the place where God's anointed a king. And I guess the whole point is this is a king who is in service to Yahweh as Yahweh's heavenly agent on the land, as it were. Something like that. But it feels, this feels, somebody made it this way. Especially the speeches are kind of conspicuous at the end. Is that speech? And six, is that supposed to be Yahweh speaking or the narrator speaking? That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I think we're meant, notice it's unmarked speech. So it doesn't, there's no little word that says, and they said, or, and God said. You're just supposed to, um, so yeah, because verse five would make you think that what we're going to hear is God's speech to the kings, but maybe this is God's speech to the kings. Right.

I don't, I didn't know. I'm unsure. Yeah. Well, what I know is that verse four tells me this is God's response to verses one through three. So the nations are raging, especially the kings, and they have a speech. Yahweh is not that worried. He thinks it's kind of cute that the kings can, like, think that they're so powerful. In fact, he's going to respond in a way that's going to actually, what, expose their powerlessness, terrify them. And what that revelation is, is that I have a king on the land, and I've already, you could say, set in motion a plan to respond to the rebellion of the earthly rulers. Notice how much work we have to do to fill in the gaps, to create a coherent little scene here. It's like so much is left to be implied. This is a good example of aspective versus perspective. Like, you have to work at it. But once you sit with it, you kind of begin to see a picture emerging. I'm struck at this image of, like, bonds and cords and shackles, which feels like this kind of enslavement. And then in verse 4, a referencing to Yahweh as master, is that a connection there? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Why not the divine name? Which one version of my past self thought that it was when I created one of these handouts. Yeah. It's the word that could refer to human masters of slaves, or of using that metaphorically for the heavenly master. Yeah.

So great observation. Yes. Another interesting move that I have often found, when you get two little bundles set next to each other, is often the thing in the middle of one panel will get split up and put at the beginning and the end of the next one. So notice how Yahweh and the anointed king is at the center of verses 1 to 3, but then split up as at the beginning and the end of verse 4 to 6. Does that make sense? Yeah. Mm-hmm. I think another important thing that stands out is that in verse 5, it sounds like, okay, God is going to respond in anger. And in His hot anger, He will terrify them by punishing them. But the action that He actually does is to anoint His king. Yeah. That's great. Great observation. So it's actually a picture of salvation, like His love, actually. That in His, even at that moment, He is offering this solution by anointing. I mean, where they're meditating and they're counseling, plotting in vain, He's not thinking, okay, how am I going to punish them? He's thinking, how can I save them? Excellent. Yeah. You would think after verse 5, verse 6 would be, and He sends thunder and lightning from heaven and smashes His enemies and so on. Now notice, we're only halfway through the poem. So let's keep on going. But it is interesting that the king provides an opportunity for the kings of the land. Or maybe you could say, they're going to have a choice to make.

And lo and behold, that's what the poem is going to go on to say. But instead of immediately responding with ruin or judgment, He first responds by giving them a choice. Yeah. That's where I love about God. That's you and me both. Yes, you and me both. Lord have mercy. Yes. Okay. So notice how this poem has a different feel from Psalm 1. There's also a story being told here, but it's like two... little vignettes. It's like, here's the thing, nations in rebellion against God. And here's another thing, God's response in his appointing a king. And once you put them together, your mind creates a coherent narrative out of both of them. And the structuring of it is a part of how your mind begins to bind them together. That's the how, the design. So, okay, we've made a bunch of observations. A lot of them are pretty open-ended, though, which, of course, this is just the first half of the poem. So, I'm going to have us conclude our observations for the moment on verses one to six. We're not leaving one to six. We'll, I think, have to process it all over again once we take in the next few panels. But this is our story. The world in rebellion, God's response is that he's not worried, and he has set in motion a plan by appointing a king who's like the portal of heaven and earth. So, what results from that response is what the rest of the poem is going to be about. And what it is about will then make us have to go back and re-take in this first half of the poem in the first place. Okay, so let's pause

before we move on.