Session 6 - Module 2 - Meditating on Psalm 2:7-12 - Reading the Bible as Meditation Literature

Okay, should we take in the second half of Psalm 2? And now for another thing. Another little Polaroid vignette we put up. Verse 7. Somebody starts talking to us. And that somebody is apparently the Son of God. I will surely tell of the decree of Yahweh, He that is Yahweh said to me, quote. So we're hearing a speech from the Son of God about what God said to him. So it's a quote within a quote. My son are you, I today I have birthed you. Ask of me, and I will give the nations as your inheritance, and your possession the ends of the land. You will break them with a rod of iron, like a vessel of a potter, you will shatter them. We have a little speech introduction here, don't we? Dear readers of this poem, if you're not thoroughly lost yet. I'm going to recount to you something that Yahweh decreed about me. You're like, well, okay, this is not Yahweh speaking, because the last words we just heard were Yahweh's, right, response to the nations. So the speaker just shifted suddenly without anybody telling you. Have you ever noticed this in the Psalms? Where you're just like, God, or in the prophets, and you're just like, God's talking. Then it's Jeremiah, and then it's some other character in a little poetic narrative, and then it's God. The Psalms often do this. So there you go. It's just good biblical style. You got to work for it. So apparently, as once I take in this, you're like, oh, it's the king. Like the king is telling us about, apparently, his anointing day.

So this is like a window in when God said, I have appointed or anointed my king on Zion. You're thinking inauguration ceremony, and it's as if 7 through 9 is giving us the coronation speech from the heavenly father to the earthly representative, son of God. So let me tell you what Yahweh told me. He said three things. My son, you are, today I have birthed you. I don't know what that means. Okay, well, let's think on one level. Son, birth. Why did he, I mean, why did he choose that word versus today I've anointed you or today I've placed you? And I don't know. Yes. It's curious to me. I'm sure there's meaning. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's ponder. So remember the previous paragraph, we had the heaven and earth relationship. The one sitting in heaven has an earthly representative. But that representative, as you're noting, Isaiah, is on this unique place on the land that's like the high and holy place. So we're in like the sacred mountain. One way to think about the relationship between the one in heaven and that earthly representative is the family bond of like parent and child, father and son. So like a filial family bond. And of course, fathers don't give birth, but fathers, along with mothers in union, create birth. So this is all rooted in a number of things that are really interesting. If this were a class on Messiah in the Hebrew Bible, we actually would have to like learn

about ancient Near Eastern like royal language, about how people talked about their relationship to the gods and the kings being appointed as sons of gods. This language was in the air. But the way the biblical authors take this language and develop it, and certainly the way Jesus picked up this language and developed it, we started taking some leaps and bounds in the stake of the claims being made here. So we have, so here I'll just, we have, remember we have heaven and earth, yeah? And then the whole thing is about the relationship of heaven and earth and the relationship of God's heavenly kingdom and then the kingdoms of the world. Like that's kind of the base opposition here. And when things have gone off the rails with the kingdoms of this world, what is God's response? So we have then this moment of the sacred mountain. They didn't have like volcanic mountains like we over there, like we do here in the Cascades, but I'll draw one anyway. But the idea is that there's this portal type of place where heaven and earth overlap, as it were. And that's where this sacred mountaintop is. And this is all connected to the concept of Jerusalem, which is Zion, where the temple is. And the temple is the meeting place of heaven and earth. Who built and designed the temple? David and his son Solomon, the anointed king. So we have heaven and earth relationships here. But now we have another set of images here, which is father and son imagery. And here we'll just, we've got a king, you know, he's got our crown and he's Yahweh's anointed one. So he's an earthly figure, but he's anointed, which means he's soaked in the life and presence of heaven. So what better metaphor could there be for the intimate union of heaven and earth in the form of a person? That heaven, as it were, is generative of someone who's the perfect representative or image, to use the language of Genesis 1. There's a reason why these are all the key ideas that are going to get drawn on by Jesus and the apostles and in the development of Trinitarian doctrine in the history of the church, all locked in on these exact words. Because there's a mystery here that actually we have no idea of what we're talking about. But these are very important words. They certainly rule out possibilities. We're not just talking about an average guy who just got so friendly with God.

He's like, you're my son. But son refers to someone who comes from the parents, literally comes from them, so are of them. But then also are distinct from them to go be and do something other than what the father and mother does, right? And so what would it mean for God to have an earthly representative, but who fully embodies the heavenly rule and presence and person of the father? Son. Son's a pretty good image. So I think that's what this king is telling us. It's as if the day that this king is installed, it's like the birthing day. Now, if you're telling somebody that today I gave birth to you, like you didn't actually give birth to them in that day because you're telling them, right? So birth here, like son, is we're talking about something happening on earth that issues from the presence of heaven. Where this line goes in Christian conversation about the Trinity, well, in the creeds, well, actually, essentially that today refers to the eternal generation of the son from the person of the father. That today is forever. That today is eternal. And I think that actually is a legitimate kind of extension of the basic idea here. And so you got a king and he's got a rod. And I'll just finish drawing our picture here, because why not? So he's got a rod that symbolizes that kingship. And what this heavenly son on earth is going to do is get all the land as his possession for his kingdom. But remember, we've got a problem here on the land. Remember the first little panel of the poem. We've got all of these kings, yeah? And these kings are super mad. And they're like, you know, whatever. I won't try and draw curse words, but, you know, like that kind of stuff. But it's the idea of like the kings, right? And there's all this rebellion. There's all this stomping on the innocent that's implied. because that's what kings usually do and God's response is this heaven on earth king

who is going to bring severe consequences to the rebel kings of the land and that holds open the last panel of the poem so we got to wait but this is God's response. How you doing? A little confusing. Okay, yeah. I think I have 10 questions right now, sorry. One is the readers at the time were they like shocked to be hearing this like were they like oh like Jesus did they understand this at the time then I know we read this now knowing context but like what did they think when they're reading this? Yeah, that's a great question. Yep, so the phrase son of God is a rich term in the Hebrew Bible and in its ancient context and widespread to mean a number of different things so in that sense there wouldn't be a surprise so what this poem is drawing on is like a load-bearing story from the Torah and the prophets which is about when God grants David the gift of a kingship over Israel and in second Samuel chapter seven what he says is I'm going to provide a place it's actually a restatement of God's promise to Abraham but to David now so I'm going to give you a great name like the names of the greatest kings on earth I'm going to give my people a place I will plant them do you hear the Eden language I'm going to plant them wicked people won't oppress them anymore Yahweh is going to build a house for you when your days are over and you rest with your ancestors I will raise up your offspring it's the word seed to succeed you your own flesh and blood I will establish his kingdom that is your seed he is the one who will build a house for my name I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever I will be his father he will be my son so that's the anchor text for this Yahweh is establishing an intimate bond with this particular royal family which went from the nations in Genesis to Abraham and now it went from Abraham of his many sons to the sons of Jacob and the kingdom of priests and now we're going from the sons of Jacob to one sub-family clan and now we're going to one royal lineage from that and that lineage is called God's son so that's one so so it means um it has a royal or or king um association however check out a passage like exodus chapter 4 when God says to pharaoh in exodus 4 verse 22 this is what Yahweh says Israel is my firstborn son I told you let my son go so he may worship me but you refused and you refused and so this is the warning about the last plague I will take the life of your son you kill my sons I will threaten the life of your son so this um apparently a whole people group can be called the son of God um and then just to top off how nuanced this concept is um all the way back in Genesis chapter 6 that crazy what we think of as crazy story about the giants and the Nephilim

and all that that whole weird story begins with the sons of God seeing the daughters of humans and taking and choosing them and so on so apparently spiritual beings can also be called the sons of God so what we're talking about is a created being that's so closely participating in relationship with the divine that this that this parent child metaphor is like the most powerful way to express it and it can refer to um kings as representatives it can refer to a people that God chooses as representatives it can refer to spiritual beings who are spirit like God and then it can can refer in terms of the whole biblical story sense to like the capital S like God the Son who is eternally generated by the Father and together they are the one God So that's where the Son of God goes. Sorry, I just summarized the whole story of the Bible for you. I love it, yes, that's what I wanted. I have no idea if that responds to how many of your ten questions This is important so I'm happy to camp out here. When I'm thinking about it potentially meaning just like a king like David, where is Psalm 1 in this timeline of David's life? Psalm 1? Or Psalm 2, sorry. Oh, got it. Oh, we have no idea. But again, the point is you're supposed to know about the promise of David within the collection so this, as it were, it's a way of reflecting on the significance of God's selection of this royal line and of the promise that God invested with that family.

Of course, you also know already, having read the Samuel narrative, that this family completely blew it and never lived up to any of this potential. David did some. I mean, he brought the hammer on a number of Israel's neighbors that were really dangerous and violent but never anything like the cosmic scale, you know, of this. Think of this whole little scene here that I've depicted as like an ideal portrait that's similar to the way that humans are depicted as the image of God in Genesis 1. And actually, there's an important parallelism between the two. In Genesis 1, humans are male and female, let them rule as kings and queens over the forces of chaos and bring order and God's rule to the land. Genesis 1, hooray! Be fruitful and multiply, what could go wrong? Right? And it's almost like a portrait of the ideal and then what actually happens, Genesis 2, is that all goes terribly wrong because of the choices that humans make. In a way, Psalm 2 is giving us a little snapshot of what the promise and the potential

of the family of David was within Israel's story and they never lived up to that but then the promise just hangs there waiting like a glove waiting to get filled with a hand in the same way that Genesis 1 gives us a picture of humans that no humans in the story really ever live up to. Psalm 2 was a crucially important poem for Jesus and the apostles and they draw on its language regularly. When the Hebrew Bible keeps putting in front of us in the narratives then after 2 Samuel 7 all of these kings from the line of David who just keep so royally failing. That itself, but yet Psalm 2 just hangs there in the Hebrew Bible saying well what about God's decree about this family? And the tension between the actual history of the line of David and then poems like Psalm 2 we're looking at the seedbed of the birth of messianic hope in the Hebrew Bible and why it is Israelites so long after the life of David were anticipating someone

to come. That wasn't just about a king in Jerusalem it's about what humans are here for and what humans are. Should we take in the last part of the poem? Okay, 10 through 12. And now kings show discernment and be warned O judges of the land serve Yahweh with fear and rejoice with trembling kiss the sun lest he become angry and you perish in the way for his anger burns hot in an instant how good is life for all who take refuge in him so remember those kings you had the rebellion of the kings you had God's response now you have the speech of that king, and all of this leads up to a moment of decision for the kings.

And then notice that God didn't answer with thunderbolts, what he responded with was the king, who forces a decision, and now the poem ends by talking to the kings. The warning is, use your brains here. There's only one good outcome, and it's not going to be you continuing to do what you're doing. Show discernment and be warned. You can continue to rule in a way that spreads violence and injustice, or you can, as it were, humble yourselves. So notice that pairing, show discernment and be warned. Notice they're called judges. They were called rulers up above, but this is our word judge, like people who are supposed to bring justice. What a farce. But the ones bringing justice are the ones spreading injustice. So serve Yahweh with fear, and rejoice with trembling. What an evocative. So serve with fear, that kind of feels like something I might expect to hear, like be somebody's servant and kind of be afraid. But what on earth is this second line here? And rejoice, but with trembling? Let's pause on that one. Haga on that one. What does that mean? Yeah, in the Catholic tradition, fear is understood. We bifurcate it in two ways. One, we define it as, well, what do we mean when we say fear? And the discussion is, well, there's servile fear and there's filial fear. Servile fear is the type of fear that you have for one who can destroy your body, who, like a master, can punish his slave. And that's not what we're talking about when we talk about fear the Lord.

Because filial fear is the fear that a child has for their parent of, I so deeply love you that I fear upsetting you, I fear offending you, I fear disappointing you. And so when we talk about, well, what is the fear of the Lord? It's that I don't want to offend you because I love you. And that's the type of fear. I fear offending him whom I love. And so I, you know, in this, serve Yahweh with fear, fear that I love him so deeply and out of that profound love, I rejoice with this trembling intensity. Yeah, this is great. Thank you. In the name, the poem is sitting in front of us, two different emotional responses that we experience as opposites, like joy and fear, like what could be more opposite? But really someone wants us to think, is it possible that those two experiences can actually be one in certain unique moments? And what if it was the moment where you encounter someone who won't let us continue doing what we're doing to each other in this world, but it's also someone who is purposed on giving us the choice to be delivered. We experience mercy and judgment as opposites, but it's somehow biblical authors want us to hold those together. I love verse 11. It's just a paradox waiting to be, you know, intact. I do feel like it's possible tension, like two examples came to my mind. Like if you suddenly found like a surprise birthday or something, the moment when you are about to be surprised or something, and you know what's about to happen, you're about to walk into something. Oh, I feel like a surprise is about to happen. Like the energy. Yeah. Oh, I'm about to walk into something. Or like, I just thought of even like the first time I preached a sermon, I was so nervous,

but so excited. Like there was a rejoicing and trembling all at once. Maybe it's that. Maybe it's both. Like, God, I love you so much. And like, it's so humbling. It's like this nervous anticipation, excitement all together. Yeah. Maybe it's like you're naming when you walk into moments that, you know, are like almost just overloaded with meaning or that the stakes are high. This is a moment that matters. And it's both terrifying. And it's so sacred and beautiful and awesome and rejoice with trembling. What a great way to name that. Because the outcome of the kings and Yahweh is that they could reconcile, right? This could end in joy. Or it could end poorly. Which is then what verse 12 goes on to then give the option. So this image of kissing the sun, like kissing the royal ring, it's a powerful image. I was thinking that word birth. This is actually what came to mind for me, where it said, you're my son today, I've birthed you. And that's the feeling when you give birth. It's this trembling and fear, but also great joy and anticipation at the same time. That is interesting to me that both those words, that's where it came to me. Yeah, no, that is interesting. I think off the top of my head, I don't recall the word trembling,

or adah, I would want to do a little concordance search to see if it's a synonym for birth pangs. There's a whole vocabulary of birth pangs in Hebrew Bible, and shaking, trembling, writhing. And I don't know off the top of my head if this word tremble is. If it is used in other places, that would be fascinating, a connection between the two paragraphs. Notice how the shape of verse 12 has a different kind of shape than, it's not two lines, it's not even three lines, it's five lines. And they're arranged in a beautiful little symmetry. Kiss the son, lest he be angry, and you perish. Anger again, anger. How good is life? So you have the positive relationships to the son. You kiss the son. How good is life for those who take refuge in the son? Lest he be angry, his anger burns hot in the moment, and then the center line is perishing. So the son, how you relate to the son with a positive result is on the outer side. And then the anger bit surrounds the negative result on the inside. And notice that it ends with this beautiful image of taking refuge in the son. So let's back out and then think about the whole thing. We've got our negative rebellion against Yahweh and then the speech of rebellion.

God's response to them and then the speech of response. And then it's about appointing that heaven on earth king. You get a speech. So these are really parallel, these two right here. It's almost they work as two little opposite panels of like a back and forth. The earthly rebellion, the heavenly response with the speech at each one. Then speaking of the king on Zion, you get this first person speech of the son of God narrating coronation day when he was appointed to rule over the kings of the world. That day of reckoning for the kings is the last point of verse nine. And then a challenge to the kings, which warns of judgment, but it ends with also then the positive promise of those who take refuge in him. This is so different than Psalm 1. Notice it has four parts instead of three. Although each of the four parts has three parts. And then the way that it works is just different, but can you see the same principles of juxtaposition, parallelism, binding, key words are all inviting you to compare and meditate on the comparison. So in that sense, the poetics of the poem, the style of composition, even though it's such a different poem, different topic, but the instinct of how you read and make sense of it is exactly the same as Psalm 1.

And notice the same thing that's happening between like the beginning and the ending, like the kings of the earth are addressed at the beginning and the ending, the speech from the son is in the middle, but there's also little parts that bind the first to the middle and then the middle to the end, and then the beginning to the end. This is how every single paragraph, chapter and section of every biblical book works. It's like a little system. And it is the biblical author's way of helping guide you to learn how to read. The most useful skill in reading the Bible is noticing the repetition of words and the repetition of similar ideas, even though it might be different words. And honing that skill alone will unlock things that you've never noticed before, at least in my experience. And speaking of embodied acts like Haga, you know, the embodied act of reciting, a ritual act of kissing, you're not likely to forget important moments of that. And that's the image. is used of the invitation from the Son, right? To the Son. It's really intimate, actually. It's such a striking line. And that kissing is associated with taking refuge in. Think of the contrast between the beginning and the end. What a dangerous world to live in. Actually, verses 1-3 sounds like every generation of human history, including our own as far back as we can remember. So, what's the way out? So, it's both like the way out is both trusting that there is a just reckoning that will take place and is taking place, but that

also that the God who's appointed the Son has provided something that the kings of the land rarely offer, and that is a refuge, right? A safe place. An intimate union with God's own anointed one. Much to meditate on here. It goes to show so much about God's character that is sort of hidden in these words, and you have to almost dig it up. It's not like out front. It's not forceful. Kind of reminds me of like when God appeared to, I think, was it Elijah? He was searching for him in a big thunder or fire, but he appeared as a whisper. So, this is almost like God whispering his love to us, but it's beautiful poetically. Agreed. Okay. We need to conclude our sessions on Psalm 2, but we're not done. We have been looking at the smallest level, look at the parts, relate them to each other, and take in the next bit, but then back out and relate those parts to each other, and then back out a little more. Relate, right? This kind of thing. So, this is the core of the skill set of I think what meditating means. So, now let's back out and look at the two parts called Psalm 1 and 2, and let's do a little of that. So, let's do that next, but for the moment let's pause and give our brains a rest.