It’s All About Relationship
He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
“As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”
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— Psalm 2:4–6 (ESV)
Imagine you and some friends sitting together after class, or after work, trying to decide what to do on a free Friday night.
One friend immediately suggests the sports bar — boisterous, with beer, the big game on the big screen. Another friend nods slowly at his suggestion but offers an alternative: somewhere calmer, more intimate, quieter. “You know, where we can actually talk.” You notice she looks worn out from the week. The sports bar guy nods back and says, “Okay, what about that new Indian place?” The next friend winces. “Oh, no. Too spicy for me.” She sits back with her arms crossed. And you, meanwhile, really, really, really wanted Italian — your favorite brick oven place.
Eventually you all reach a compromise and head off together. Then you’ll need to agree on a movie.
If you sit with that vignette for a moment, you notice something about people. We are enormously diverse. We want different things. And yet relationships work anyway — because each of us gives a little for the sake of the people we’re with. Every meaningful connection requires some sacrifice. The sacrifice is not a burden. Adaptation to another is what love looks like when it’s working.
Now consider what the natural version of a relationship with God looks like. On their own, people don’t want a God who has his own personality. They want a God they can define — a God shaped to fit what they already want. To re-engage our image above, they don’t want a God who would prefer a different restaurant. They don’t want a God with preferences at all. They want a God who always agrees with their order, never suggests anything different, and certainly never pushes back.
This is exactly what Psalm 2 is about.
In verses one and two, the nations and peoples are strategizing about how to throw off God’s authority. They want out of the relationship — but only the relationship part. They’d like the benefits without the bond. They want to be able to draw upon God’s sovereignty so they can get what they request in their prayers, but without the submission. They desire the benefits of God’s love without the inconvenience of the God who actually loves them.
In response to this rebellion, God laughs. Indeed, he holds them in derision — and this response makes people angry and uncomfortable. Derision sounds harsh or contemptuous. It sounds like the opposite of love. In fact, some people would read this and object. “I thought God was supposed to be loving.” (The concept of “the loving God” is one of the most mainstream misconceptions out there.)
But think about what derision actually is, in the context of someone who created you and knows you better than you know yourself.
The laughter does not contain contempt. Instead, you can imagine how a parent feels watching their child announce, with complete seriousness, that they are going to run away from home. The child proceeds to stomp off down the sidewalk and stop at the corner because they don’t know what comes next. The laughter holds no cruelty; instead, it is tinged by grief, mixed with the calm assurance of someone who can see the whole picture and knows exactly how the story ends. It is the laughter of love that has not been threatened, aimed at rebellion that was never going to work.
But here is the reality that should shock us.
True! God laughs at the rebellion of the people he loves, but the truly shocking truth is hidden in the background. Why would the God of the universe want a relationship with the people he created at all, especially people so prone to rebellion?
He gets angry because he wants connection. The rage he feels at the rebellion of the nations is not the rage of a ruler whose authority has been questioned, though his authority has been repudiated. His response is the rage of someone who loves the people who are walking away, who knows what they are walking toward, and who will not simply stand back and watch. By all rights, God could leave the rebels in their defiance, or even destroy them as they deserve, but instead, he speaks to them.
Like any loving parent, God stays in the conversation. If you have ever loved someone who was pushing you away — if you have ever refused to leave someone alone with a bad decision because you loved them too much to pretend it wasn’t happening — you understand something of what this looks like.
At first, his message is perplexing. The nations want to debate freedom and sovereignty — the chains they intend to throw off. God doesn’t engage. He turns and points to something else entirely: a king and a hill. “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.”
In a sense, God will not let you go to the wrong restaurant, or, at least, he doesn’t want to let you go to the wrong restaurant. He is certainly not a tyrant enforcing arbitrary rules — his response is rooted in the fact that he made you and loves you. He knows what is good for you. He knows, better than you ever will, which choices will nourish you and which will wreck you. The bonds that every human wants to throw off are not chains — they are the conditions of the relationship that makes flourishing possible.
A person wanting to throw off God’s conditions might see Zion as a prison, but no, Zion is the place of redemption. The king God establishes on Zion is not just an authority installed to overthrow human defiance. He is established in the one place where God can demonstrate the full depth of what he is willing to do to get his people back. The king in Zion is how the story gets from rejection to restoration.
This is why, at the end of this terrifying passage, there is still an open door.
The God who laughs is the God who wants you. The God who speaks in wrath is the God who refuses to stop speaking. And the king set on Zion’s hill is not the end of your freedom.
He is the way home.
Next: You Are My Son — Psalm 2:7–9
