The third section of the psalm, verses 7-9, contains the words of God's Anointed, the Lord Jesus Christ. Scholars who see Psalm 2 chiefly as a psalm of coronation for a Davidic king take the words "You are my Son; today I have become your Father" (v. 7) as a formula for the symbolic adoption of the Jewish king by God at the time of his inauguration. But aside from the fact that nothing like this is ever said or suggested in the Old Testament, the Bible's own handling of the words is always in regard to Jesus.

In the second section of the psalm, verses 4-6, the speaker is God the Father, though the narrator sets up his words just as in the opening section he set up the arrogant words of the rebelling monarchs. What is God's reaction to the haughty words of these pygmy human rulers? God does not tremble. He does not hide behind some vast celestial rampart, counting the enemy and calculating whether or not he has sufficient force to counter this new challenge to his kingdom. He does not even rise from where he is sitting. He "laughs" at these great imbeciles. 

The outline of Psalm 2 is straightforward. It divides into four nearly equal parts, each uttered by a different speaker or speakers. In the first section, verses 1-3, the speakers are the rebellious rulers of this earth, introduced by the narrator. He asks why they engage in anything as useless as trying to throw off the rule of God's Anointed.

There is a debate among Old Testament scholars as to whether Psalm 2 can be considered messianic. That is, does it speak specifically of Jesus Christ? This is a complicated question which we will deal with again in our expositions of other psalms. But I say at the outset that if any psalm can rightly be regarded as messianic, it is this one. Psalm 2 speaks of the rebellion of the world's rulers against God's Anointed--the actual word is "Messiah"--and of the Father's decree to give his Son dominion over them.

The poet uses two images to show the result of these two ways. The first is a fruitful tree. It describes the man who delights in the law of God and draws his spiritual nourishment from it as a tree which draws its nourishment from an abundantly flowing stream. The land about might be quite dry and barren. The winds might be hot. But if the tree is planted by the stream, so that it can sink its roots down and draw nourishment, it will prosper and yield fruit.