Psalms 2:10

_BE WISE NOW THEREFORE, O YE KINGS: BE INSTRUCTED, YE JUDGES OF THE EARTH._ Be wise ... O ye kings - offers of grace ever accompanying threats against sinners in this day of God's long-suffering. NOW THEREFORE - seeing that ye cannot by opposition overthrow Messiah's kingdom, but must be "dashed to pieces" in making the attempt. BE INSTRUCTED - take warning....

David having, as a preacher of the judgments of God, set forth the vengeance which God would take upon his enemies proceeds now, in the character of a prophet and teacher, to exhort the unbelieving to repentance, that they may not, when it is too late, be compelled to acknowledge, from dire experience, that the divine threatenings are neither idle nor ineffectual. And he addresses by name kings and rulers, who are not very easily brought to a submissive state of mind, and who are, besides, prevented from learning what is right by the foolish conceit of their own wisdom with which they are puffed up. And if David spare not even kings themselves, who seem unrestrained by laws, and exempted from ordinary rules, much more does his exhortation apply to the common class of men, in order that all, from the highest to the lowest, may humble themselves before God. By the adverb now, he signifies...

10-12 Whatever we rejoice in, in this world, it must always be with trembling, because of the uncertainty of all things in it. To welcome Jesus Christ, and to submit to him, is our wisdom and interest. Let him be very dear and precious; love him above all, love him in sincerity, love him much, as she did, to whom much was forgiven, and, in token of it, kissed his feet, Luke 7:38. And with a kiss of loyalty take this yoke upon you, and give up yourselves to be governed by his laws, disposed of by his providence, and entirely devoted to his cause. Unbelief is a sin against the remedy. It will be utter destruction to yourselves; lest ye perish in the way of your sins, and from the way of your vain hopes; lest your way perish, lest you prove to have missed the way of happiness. Christ is the way; take heed lest ye be cut off from Him as your way to God. They thought themselves in the way; b...

Verse Psalms 2:10. _BE WISE - O YE KINGS_] An exhortation of the Gospel to the rulers of all kingdoms, nations, and states, to whom it may be sent. All these should listen to its maxims, be governed by its precepts, and rule their subjects according to its dictates. _BE INSTRUCTED, YE JUDGES_] Rather, _Be ye reformed _- cast away all your idolatrous maxims; and receive the Gospel as the law, or the _basis_ of the law, of the land....

BE WISE NOW, THEREFORE, O YE KINGS - This is to be understood as the language of the psalmist. See introduction to the psalm, Section 3. It is an exhortation addressed to the rulers and princes whom the psalmist saw engaged in opposition to the purpose of Yahweh Psalms 2:1 - and hence, to all rulers and princes - to act the part of wisdom, by not attempting to resist the plans of God, but to submit to him, and secure his friendship. The psalmist cautions them to take warning, in view of what must certainly come upon the enemies of the Messiah; to cease their vain attempts to oppose his reign, and, by a timely submission to him, to ensure his friendship, and to escape the doom that must come upon his foes. The way of wisdom, then, was not to engage in an attempt in which they must certainly be crushed, but to secure at once the friendship of one appointed by God to r

EXPOSITION HERE we have again a psalm without a title, and, so far, we are left to conjecture its age and author. The Jews, however, have always regarded it as Davidical; and there is evidence in Scripture itself (Acts 4:25) that the early Christians were of the same opinion. Modern critics, for the most part, agree, although there are some (Ewald, Paulus, Bleek) who ascribe it to Solomon, and others (Maurer, Delitzsch) who suppose it written by Hezekiah or Isaiah. The psalm is certainly Messianic. It is assumed to be so in Acts 4:25; Acts 13:33; Hebrews 1:5;...

BE WISE NOW THEREFORE, O YE KINGS,.... This address is made not so much to the kings of the earth in David's time, as to those who would be under the Gospel dispensation, and times of the Messiah; and particularly who would rise up, and set themselves against the Lord and his Anointed, Psalms 2:2; and with these are to be understood their subjects: for if they are to serve the Lord, and be subject to Christ, then much more those that are under them; and they are rather spoken to particularly, because their examples have great influence on those over whom they rule, whether for good or evil these are exhorted to be wise, or to act the wise part; for great men are not always wise; wisdom, riches, and honour, do not always go together; men may be in high places, and yet be of low understandings; however, they do not always act wisely, and particularly those kings did not, when they rose up...

Psalms 2:1. _Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us._ This was what they did when they took the Lord of life and glory, dragged him to the judgment seat, and then nailed him to the accursed tree. «This is the heir,» said they, «let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.» They thought that they had destroyed the power of Christ, the appointed and anointed King, and that he would never reign among the sons of men. Psalms 2:4. _He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision._ God might well laugh at their folly, for the

Psalms 2 THE REJECTED KING _ 1. The rejection and the coming confederacy (Psalms 2:1)_ 2. Jehovah's attitude and interference (Psalms 2:4) 3. The coming of the King and his inheritance (Psalms 2:7) 4. Warning and exhortation (Psalms 2:10) Psalms 2:1. The rejection of the perfect Man, the Son of God, by man, is here revealed. It is the first psalm quoted in the New Testament. See...

II. MESSIAH'S REIGN. Also without a title. Here we have a distinctly Messianic Ps., put in this place, possibly, as an introduction to other Messianic Pss. which follow. Messianic it is in the strictest sense of the word, for it does not look forward to a dynasty of Davidic kings (_cf._ Jeremiah 23:4 ff., Ezekiel 34:23), or to the direct intervention of Yahweh, as 2 Is. and Malachi do. Rather the Kingdom of God is to be founded and maintained by an anointed King who is the Son of God and His vicar on earth. The poet speaks as if the ideal King had already ascended His throne. But we cannot be sure that the Ps. refers to an actual king then alive. He is present to the imagination of the Psalmist: that is all we can say. Much less can we point to any contemporary in whom his dream was already realised