Psalm 2:10-12 - Fear and Joy

10 Now therefore, O kings, be wise;

be warned, O rulers of the earth.

11 Serve the Lord with fear,

and rejoice with trembling.

12 Kiss the Son,

lest He be angry, and you perish in the way,

for His wrath is quickly kindled.

Blessed are all who take refuge in Him.

The second Psalm is not attributed to an author in the Old Testament, but the New Testament attributes David as the author. Luke pens in Acts 4:25 (and later 13:33) You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: ‘Why do the nations rage…’ So while the psalm appears anonymous in the Psalter, the apostles themselves identify David as its writer, speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Though this psalm was penned by David, through the Holy Spirit, it explicitly speaks of the Messiah, the Son of God who we know as Jesus. Spurgeon writes in The Treasury of David, “it sets forth as in a wondrous vision the tumult of the people against the Lord's anointed, the determinate purpose of God to exalt His own Son, and the ultimate reign of that Son over all His enemies”

The twelve verses of Psalm 2 are broken into four stanzas of three verses each. The first three verses describe the nations rage, the next three show the Lord laughing and holding them in derision, verses 7-9 of the Son, receiving the nations as His heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession, and the psalm concludes with advice to worldly kings to be wise; be warned, and to serve the Lord with fear, rejoice with trembling, and kiss the Son.

The rulers of the earth, the kings of this world, are nothing compared to the King of kings, the Lord of lords, Jesus Christ. Earthly thrones rise and fall, but His throne is eternal. Jesus is the true ruler and instructor of all. The warning sent by David is explicit: Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.

Fear and joy are tied together here. This pairing seems strange to our modern ears, yet it is a recurring biblical theme. In Psalm 34:7 David writes that the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and delivers them. If we want joy, we must fear the Lord. So, how do we fear the Lord?

Fearing the Lord in a Biblical sense is not oppression. Fearing the Lord is reverence, not terror. Fearing the Lord is trusting Him through obedience, not cowering or hiding. Ultimately, the world cannot understand this kind of fear because it rejects the God who defines it. The world wants the joy of the Lord without the fear. Proverbs 9:10 says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. Fearing the Lord is the doorway to truly understanding reality. Until we see God rightly, we cannot see anything rightly.

Fearing the Lord and rejoicing in Him sounds backwards to the desires of our world. The world teaches to be fearless, so we may boast. But fear in the Lord requires humility. The world honors self-definition and exaltation, but fearing the Lord is recognizing that He is God, and I am not. The fear of the Lord is not shrinking away from God; it is bowing before Him.

I personally struggle with pride, and through my youth have searched for a way to define myself on my own terms. We all have heard it before, “follow your heart” or “nobody can tell you how to live” and most appallingly to “live your own truth.” To truly fear the Lord, we must lay aside, I must lay aside, my pride and my boast. Our culture tells us to look inward when we should be looking upward. Truly, what do we have to be proud of, when it is the Lord who sustains our every breath and brings any success we may encounter?

The second Psalm concludes in verse 12 with a promise: blessed are all who take refuge in Him. Psalm 2 invites us into fear that does not drive us away, but instead draws us to God. Fearing the Lord calls us to take refuge in Him. Psalm 2 also invites us to joy - joy not rooted in current circumstances, but in God’s eternal rule. Fearing the Lord and rejoicing in the Lord are not meant to be separated. The fear of the Lord humbles us, and the joy of the Lord lifts us. They come together when we surrender to Him and take refuge in His Son.

“Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” - Augustine, Confessions