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This Psalm belongs to the class called Messianic. It is full of that great national hope of the Jews concerning Him who was to come. A nation without hope is like a man without hope. Cut off hope from any man, or any group of men, and at once you paralyse the worth of everything. The Jewish nation was full of vitality. The noblest kind of national hope, the highest idea of "manifest destiny," is not simply a great event, but a great character. It is the ideal of a great character that is to come to them, and then to create great character throughout all the people. The hope of the coming of such a being was the ruling idea of the Jewish people. A character is always nobler than any event that is going to happen. A great nature remains as a perpetual inspiration. Every Jewish child that was born might be the Messiah; every king might hold in his hand the Messianic sceptre. Through all their life there ran this great anticipation, this inextinguishable hope. We do not know of whom this second Psalm was written; we do not even know by whom it was written. What is the philosophy of the Messianic Psalms? Shall we say that back in those distant days men anticipated just what was going to come when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and did His work in Galilee? There was nothing so monstrous as that. The whole of the Bible is much more natural than we are apt to make it. This Messianic Psalm was taken and applied in its completeness to the Messiah, who had really revealed Himself at last. The words then found a kingship worthy of them, and were sung of Christ. There are three speakers, or series of utterances. The first is the writer of the Psalm, who stands, as it were, to call the attention of the people to the two great speakers. These are the Lord Jehovah, and the Coming One, the Anointed, the King, the Messiah Himself. The writer stands as the chorus in the great tragedy. It is a great cry of astonishment from one who sees a great mercy coming to the world of guilt, bringing in redemption to the world, and the world setting itself against it. It is the everlasting wonder of the soul that knows Jesus Christ, that this world, with Jesus Christ waiting at its doors to save it, can set itself against Him, and not let Him in. But God's great purpose of making Jesus King of the world is unchanged and unchangeable. Whether the world will have Him or not, Christ is to be King of the world. The world has heard that, and it has brought a certain deep peace into the soul of mankind. The third speaker is Christ Himself. He says, "I will declare the decree." Christ is in the world, and He is sure of the world. Sitting upon the throne, recognising clearly who set Him there, He will never leave it until all the nations shall be His nations. Among the wonders of these last nineteen centuries has been the quiet certain confidence of Christianity. It cannot be crowded out and lost among the multitudes of mankind who are careless or hostile. It possesses Divine grace, which some day will be sufficient for the healing of the nations. At the close we come back to the writer or the chorus that tells us what the meaning of it all is. The Messianic Psalm presses itself into the lives we are living, and declares that if we are wicked we shall be powerless. If the most humble man puts himself upon the side of righteousness in company with Christ, if in his own little lot he does things pure and good and kind, he shall have a part with Christ in His great conquest of the world. He whom we worship as Christ is the centre of the world. Everything is verging to Him. All the past, however unconsciously, is ruled by Him; and all the future, however little it may now know its Master, will ultimately recognise Him. He who is everything, sanctification, redemption, in the fortunes of the individual soul, is the world's redemption.

(Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

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KJV: Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

WEB: Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot a vain thing?