This Sounds Like the Evening News
We naturally tend to assume that the ancient world is separated from us by an impenetrable barrier of historical distance and cultural difference. When we look back on ancient people, or even medieval people, the logical conclusion is, “They are nothing like us.” We are confident to assume that, lacking the modern advances in science, technology, and the Enlightenment understanding of humanity, people from the past were gullible, superstitious, ignorant, and unenlightened. They were fooled by silly religions and followed absurd practices. But now, fortunately, we understand.
One might stop and consider that if an average modern person were dropped into ancient Mesopotamia, the folks there would quickly find the modern person utterly lacking in understanding and abilities that an average five-year-old of that time would consider natural. It is a matter of perspective. What one generation considers basic knowledge is alien to another — and it does not take thousands of years for this gap to appear. Young people today cannot dial a rotary phone. I have watched them try.
Why do the nations rage?
When you read Psalm 2, you immediately realize that the psalmist is describing a world that is not distant and unrecognizable. It is close and familiar, even frightening in its similarity. The rage described, the division, the spectacle of powerful people doing reckless things three thousand years ago looks just like the six-o’clock news. The psalmist was living with people who are just like us.
The Hebrew word translated “rage” carries the sense of violent, tumultuous noise. This is not a reasoned disagreement, nor a peaceful protest. It is a surging uproar — people behaving like animals in panic, a crowd that stopped listening to reason a long time ago. The political elite are gathering. Not casually, but deliberately — in formal strategy sessions, with a single purpose stated plainly: to throw off the authority of God himself.
“Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”
This rejection of authority is one of the most central desires from the depths of the human heart. Many will raise an objection, claiming that this is not true. But pretending that this impulse is unfamiliar will not work. Any parent who has made the request, “put away your toys,” has seen how deep-seated self-will is. Take a drive on any interstate, at the speed limit, and observe how many people want to comply with the most simple rule. Reluctance to submit is a beast that lives deep within, straining against bit and bridle. The beast is in your heart, and in mine.
The psalmist, however, is watching all of this from somewhere else entirely. He writes with no panic, no despair — not a single word of hopelessness. Indeed, the question he asks is remarkable:
Why do the nations rage and the people plot in vain?
Notice that he does not ask, “Why do the nations rage?” He asks why they rage and plot in vain. Rather than being undone or frightened, he is watching the chaos of his world from a vantage point that gives him enough stability to ask the most intelligent question without reacting in fear.
That vantage point is everything. And it is available to you.
In the next post, we will look at where it comes from — and at God’s response to all of this uproar. I will warn you in advance: it was not what I expected.
Next: He Who Sits in the Heavens Laughs — Psalm 2:4–6
