Читать книгу The Psalms - Herbert O'Driscoll - Страница 9

Psalm 2

Now, you kings, be wise;

be warned, you rulers of the earth.

This is very much a song of its own particular age and society. It is full of self-confidence and a sense of unquestioned self-superiority. We are in the presence of a ruler sitting on his throne. Reports have been brought to him telling of restlessness among those whom he and his country have conquered. These oppressed people see a chance to break free.

“How perfectly ridiculous,” our ruler seems to say. “Don’t they realize that God is on my side?” “The Lord has them in derision … He speaks to them in his wrath … I myself have set my king upon my holy hill in Zion.” The sense of superiority goes further as our ruler professes to hear God say, “I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession.”

How are we to incorporate this psalm into contemporary society and worship? We are certainly not prepared to affirm the arrogant claims it makes. In this century we have sent armies into battle against such claims. Can we find a warning here?

Perhaps any society that has achieved a measure of empire fails to see when its own policies and actions, begun and carried out with the best of intentions, change into oppression; when certain people are regarded as enemies and subversives if they ask for nothing more than their freedom, whether in political or economic terms.

If we are prepared to sing this psalm in these terms and with this application, then it speaks to us clearly and directly in its last verses. “Be wise, be warned, you rulers of the earth. Submit to the Lord.” These words are addressed to all who hold power of any kind. And they are being warned not to make the mistake of seeing themselves as the repository of power.

All seeming authority and power derive from the ultimate source of authority and power—whom the psalmist names “the Lord.” In this way the psalm can be ours to sing, and its warning ours to heed.

Recall a time when you may have been oppressed by power and authority. Consider someone you know who is oppressed by power and authority. Ask God to show them a way through their suffering and to soften the hearts of their oppressors.