Psalms 2 Footnotes

Ps 2 Royal psalms focus on some high point in the life of the king—here his coronation. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, the NT writers saw that he is the Messiah or anointed King, Son of David par excellence (e.g., Ac 2:22-36). Accordingly, they understood that these “royal psalms” found their fullest meaning in Christ (e.g., Mk 1:11; 9:7; Heb 1:5).

2:7 The Davidic covenant (89:26-27; 2Sm 7:5-16) declared that the king would be God’s “son.” When the king ascended the throne he declared that God called him his son. This was a way of saying that God has installed him as king, heir to the kingdom. Earthly monarchs consistently fell short of this high calling, and the writers of Scripture realized that the coming Messiah would be a “Son” as no other king had been or could be (Is 9:6). When the voice from heaven declared Jesus to be the beloved Son at his baptism (Mt. 3:17), the Messianic Age was introduced. And when John described Jesus as the “the one and only Son,” he was speaking of Jesus’s divine nature (Jn 1:14). But Ps 2:7 is used specifically in the NT for Jesus’s resurrection and exaltation to the right hand of the Father—his coronation, in harmony with the meaning of the psalm (Ac 13:32-33; Heb 1:3-6; 5:5-6).