Psalm 2 is a royal psalm (Hermann Gunkel, Introduction to the Psalms: The Genres of the Religious Lyric of Israel, ed. Joachim Begrich, trans. James D. Nogalski (1933; Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1998), 99–120; Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 1–59, trans. Hilton C. Oswald, Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1988), 126. Scholars dispute the number of royal psalms, but they most likely include 2, 18, 20, 21, 45, 72, 87, 110, and 132. See esp. the discussion of Ps 110 in Levine and Brettler, The Bible With and Without Jesus, 154–164) that focuses on YHWH’s support of Judah’s king against his enemies:
תהלים ב:א לָ֭מָּה רָגְשׁ֣וּ גוֹיִ֑ם וּ֜לְאֻמִּ֗ים יֶהְגּוּ־רִיק׃ ב:ב יִ֥תְיַצְּב֙וּ׀ מַלְכֵי־אֶ֗רֶץ וְרוֹזְנִ֥ים נֽוֹסְדוּ־יָ֑חַד עַל־יְ֜הוָה וְעַל־מְשִׁיחֽוֹ׃ Ps 2:1 Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain? 2:2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against YHWH and his anointed. (NRSV with adjustments)
The first two verses set the foreign kings against YHWH’s משׁיח, “anointed one,” a term that means the king who was anointed (מ.שׁ.ח) with oil upon coronation. The reference is to the king of Judah (and not of [Northern] Israel), as verse 6 indicates by its geographical specification:
תהלים ב:ו וַ֭אֲנִי נָסַ֣כְתִּי מַלְכִּ֑י עַל־צִ֝יּ֗ון הַר־קׇדְשִֽׁי׃ Ps. 2:6 I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.
Using military imagery, the psalmist expresses his confidence in the Davidic king’s victory:
תהלים ב:ט תְּ֭רֹעֵם בְּשֵׁ֣בֶט בַּרְזֶ֑ל כִּכְלִ֖י יוֹצֵ֣ר תְּנַפְּצֵֽם׃ Ps 2:9 You shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.
Subsequent verses (10–12) warn foreign kings to be prudent, serve YHWH, and pay homage.
The psalm’s likely Sitz-im-Leben, i.e., its real-life setting, was the coronation of a new king. On this ceremony, see Marc Zvi Brettler, God is King: Understanding an Israelite Metaphor, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 76 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989), 125-135.
his context is suggested not only by the term מְשִׁיחוֹ, “His anointed one” (v. 2), which calls attention to the act of anointing a king . Another possibility is that the psalm formed a part of the Israelite new year festival, in which the king played a major role. See Karel van der Toorn, “Rosh Hashanah with the Early Israelites,” TheTorah (2019). Less likely is the theory that the psalm is post-exilic and thus about a messianic ruler rather than a Judahite king. See the excellent, though slightly dated, summary of the main scholarly theories about this psalm’s origin in James W. Watts, “Psalm 2 in the Context of Biblical Theology,” Horizons in Biblical Theology 12 (1990), 74–76.
Possibility 1: The King Becomes YHWH’s Son and so Becomes Divine
While several Hebrew Bible texts suggest the possibility of divine beings fathering children with human women, this meaning does not fit the context of the psalm. Yet, a more modest claim, that the king becomes YHWH’s divine son upon accession to the throne, does make sense here. Such a transformation follows Egyptian models, where upon assuming the throne, Pharaoh also becomes the “son of Ra” (one of Pharaoh’s royal names). While we know little about either Judahite coronation rituals or how the king may have been perceived in the First Temple period, the notion that the Davidic king was viewed as divine is explicit in Psalm 45, a royal marriage hymn, where the Davidic king is called אֱלֹהִים, “God”:
תהלים מה:ז כִּסְאֲךָ֣ אֱ֭לֹהִים עוֹלָ֣ם וָעֶ֑ד שֵׁ֥בֶט מִ֝ישֹׁ֗ר שֵׁ֣בֶט מַלכותך׃ 45:7 (or 6) Your throne, O God[10] is everlasting; your royal scepter is a scepter of equity.
If this conception stands behind Psalm 2, then YHWH is telling the new king in v. 7 that he is now YHWH’s son, and it is as if YHWH has just birthed him—“today I have begotten you.” Some scholars have suggested that YHWH is adopting the king in some legal sense. No biblical text, however, mentions adoption of children, and such an institution may not have existed in ancient Judah. See Jeffrey Stackert, “Adoption,” Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, 1.387–390 and Pamela Barmash, “Adoption,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Law, ed. Brent A. Strawn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 215), 1–9.
Several Hebrew Bible texts suggest the possibility of divine beings fathering children with human women: Most obviously in the brief anecdote about “the sons of Elohim” in Genesis 6:1–4. See Samuel Z. Glaser, “Demigods and the Birth of Noah,” TheTorah (2020); Benjamin Sommer, “Why Are There Demigods in a Monotheistic Torah?” TheTorah (2015). Another is the story of Samson. See Marc Zvi Brettler, “Who Was Samson’s Real Father?” TheTorah.com (2017); Naphtali Meshel, “Samson the Demigod?” TheTorah (2019). Certain biblical stories may even imply that YHWH fathered a child, though such readings are debated. See, Samuel Z. Glaser, “Isaac’s Divine Conception?” TheTorah (2018).
Possibility 2: YHWH’s Metaphorical Son
Alternatively, Psalm 2 is speaking metaphorically. Much biblical language about YHWH is metaphorical: He is, e.g., king, shepherd, warrior, etc (See Marc Zvi Brettler, “The Metaphorical Mapping of God in the Hebrew Bible,” in Metaphor, Canon and Community: Jewish, Christian and Islamic Approaches. Ralph Bisschops and James Francis (Religions and Discourse 1; Bern: Peter Lang, 1999), 219-32).
An instructive example of such a metaphorical depiction is YHWH’s self-description in Deutero-Isaiah as a woman in childbirth:
ישעיה מב:יד הֶחֱשֵׁ֙יתִי֙ מֵֽעוֹלָ֔ם אַחֲרִ֖ישׁ אֶתְאַפָּק כיולדה אֶפְעֶ֔ה אֶשֹּׁם וְאֶשְׁאַ֖ף יָֽחַד׃ Isa 42:14 I have kept silent far too long, kept still and restrained Myself; now I will scream like a woman in labor, I will pant and I will gasp.
The prophet is not asserting that YHWH is anatomically female, and experiences real childbirth pain (See Marc Zvi Brettler, “Incompatible Metaphors for YHWH in Isaiah 40-66,” JSOT 78 (1998), 97-120, and more recently, Sarah J. Dille, Mixing Metaphors: God as Mother and Father in Deutero-Isaiah, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 398 (London: T & T Clark, 2004); L. Juliana M. Claassens, Mourner, Mother, Midwife: Reimagining God’s Delivering Presence in the Old Testament (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2012), 41–63).
Instead, the verse expresses graphically how YHWH’s coming actions will suddenly but inexorably burst forth. Similarly, Psalm 2 expresses the boundless paternal support the Davidic king should expect from his God by having YHWH refer to him metaphorically as His son.
This interpretation fits with two intertwined biblical metaphors: YHWH is the father of Israel, and Israel is the son of YHWH. Although this father/son metaphorical relationship is not as common in the Hebrew Bible as it is in early Judaism and Christianity, it appears in texts such as:
שמות ד:כב כֹּ֚ה אָמַ֣ר יְ־הוָ֔ה בְּנִ֥י בְכֹרִ֖י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃ Exod 4:22 Thus says YHWH: “Israel is My first-born son.” דברים לב:ו הֲלוֹא־הוּא֙ אָבִ֣יךָ קָּנֶ֔ךָ ה֥וּא עָֽשְׂךָ֖ וַיכננך׃ Deut 32:6 Is not He the Father who created you, fashioned you and made you endure!
Thus, Psalm 2 would be utilizing the same father-son metaphor elsewhere used in reference to Israel to describe the intimate relationship between the Davidic king and Judah’s God.
Jesus as God’s Son in the New Testament
By the first century C.E., the Hebrew term mashiach/Greek christos, “anointed,” comes to mean not only anointed with oil at a coronation, but specifically “messiah,” an eschatological agent—a meaning it does not have in the Hebrew Bible. This change in the word’s usage is crucial for understanding the New Testament, which has few direct quotes from Psalm 2, but allusions to it permeate its books.
Mark has no story of Jesus’s divine conception. Consequently, this voice from heaven—what the rabbis call a bat qol (literally, “daughter of a voice”)—signals that at the moment of baptism, the “today” of Psalm 2, Jesus of Nazareth becomes God’s son. As Richard Hays puts it, his baptism could be seen as a “disguised royal anointing” (Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016), 47–48).
Mark signals once again that Jesus, not Caesar, is the divine son who deserves worship.
While Mark sees Jesus as having become God’s son at the baptism, other gospels see Jesus as always having been God’s literal son. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke each open with birth stories, offering variant versions of Jesus’s divine conception, and the Gospel of John also proclaims that Jesus is both God and God’s only begotten son. These texts may allude to Psalm 2:7, but this is uncertain, though the influence of this Psalm on the New Testament is explicit in other texts.