Having concluded the first psalm with a reference to the ungodly, he opened the second in turn with this same reference so as to teach us that the aforementioned end of the ungodly lies in wait for both kings and rulers, Jews and Gentiles, who rage against the Savior.

The first psalm lacks an inscription. For the aim of what is said in it is obvious to the readers, namely, that it is an introduction to philosophy in that it advises separation from evil, coming to be in the good and becoming like God so far as possible. . . . The second psalm, which predicts the mystery of the gospel, is then appended, that we might be without impiety. Consequently, in a sense, the first psalm is an inscription of the second, for the latter speaks of the one who through flesh was begotten today because of us. (Now today is a division of time, but because the Son is always from the Father and in the Father, he is also God.) It also speaks of those not ruled by a king, who had been listed among the Gentiles because they did not serve God. These lived under their own laws, or rather without laws, since they did not accept the divine law but cast the yoke from themselves. (Now by yoke he means the commandment.) But when the kingdom that excels everything comes on them, those who once were without a master become the inheritance of God through faith in the one who was begotten today. I mean this one who was appointed king over them. And when they themselves have been begotten, they too become kings. When the rod of iron, that is, the unchangeable power, smashed that which was made of earth and clay, it transformed them into the undefiled nature, having taught them that trusting in him alone is blessed. Although this is the meaning that we have expounded of this psalm, one who wishes can test our opinion by means of the divine words themselves to see if what we have said fits with the inspired Scripture.

[The words of the psalm] come from someone deploring and censuring folly. . . . Despite their conspiring together and hatching a tawdry plot for the murder of the Lord, their schemes all came to nothing, as they were unable to consign to oblivion the one crucified by them: on the third day he rose again and took possession of the world.

The leaders of the nations throughout the whole world and the kings of the earth who have held dominion at various times have all been drawn into this impious alliance together, holding on to whatever insult or for whatever reason, or having suffered whatever offense, so that they devise treacheries, they enter into the wicked counsel against the Lord of the universe and God the King and against his anointed one.

They rage, therefore, and dwell on worthless ideas and have gathered themselves and stand united together. Not only by their appearance have they moved the crowds against Christ, but whatever has been done by them is counted as if they had assailed the Father. So, it is said that these had turned against the Lord and his anointed.

None of this is to be understood in a bodily sense, as though God laughed with his cheeks or expressed mockery with his nose; it must be referred to the capacity that he gives to his saints. They foresee what is to come, that the name of Christ and his lordship will spread to future generations and be acknowledged among the nations; and so they are enabled to understand that those others have devised futile schemes. This capacity whereby such things are foreseen is God’s laughter and derision.

The Lord God’s anger and rage should not be thought of as any disturbance in his mind but as the power by which he most justly punishes, for the whole creation is subjected to him and at his service. . . . God’s anger is the emotion that occurs in the mind of someone who knows God’s law, when it sees that same law being transgressed by a sinner. Through this emotion in the souls of the just many things are avenged. God’s anger could also reasonably be interpreted as the very darkening of the mind that befalls those who transgress God’s law.

God judges without getting upset, and he causes distress for others while maintaining his affection for them. He does not become enraged when some emotion rises within him against the wicked, but he withholds from them the influence of his grace. Since the blessed Godhead, which always remains the same, eternal and immovable, does not experience emotions, therefore the wrath of God refers to God’s retribution against sinners. But such a change of emotion is characteristic of human weakness so that someone becomes sad after being happy, irritated after being at peace, offended after being of good intentions. The phrase then he will say indicates the time when he will come to judge the world. Therefore the text speaks appropriately about wrath and rage since obstinate sinners will receive all that they deserve.

These are words of destruction that are pronounced in anger. Moreover, the evils that God had said he was going to inflict, he promises that he will withdraw if the listeners will become penitent. God in his anger spoke through Jonah to the Ninevites,^[1] and since they repented in ash and sackcloth, they endured nothing of those things about which they had heard. Actually, God knew beforehand when he sent Jonah that they were going to repent if he sent Jonah for their deliverance. Right now he also is speaking deliverance to those sinners who are in his wrath. For it did not say, He will punish those in his wrath even if they will repent.

The first four verses are spoken by a prophet or an angel wondering why human rashness had risen up against the Son of God. From the fifth verse, though, the Lord himself responds, exhorting the Gentiles and all the people from the Jews who are going to believe in him, so that they may loosen the binding chains and cast off the heavy burden of the law that their own ancestors were unable to carry, so they may follow him whose yoke is easy, and burden light.^[1]

[This] verse . . . is expressed in human fashion: as God he possesses his kingship by nature, as human he receives it by election.

Truly, God did not establish the Word as King at that time, whose power did not just begin at a point but who was and always is powerful, who as in his nature had power to create whatever he wished; so also in his nature he had power rightly so to rule over all things that were made by him.

The word today indicates the present time in which he was made in the flesh—he who nevertheless in his own nature was the Lord of everything. John testifies to this,^[1] that he came among his own, calling the world his own. Having been called into a kingdom in accordance with his accustomed glory, he said, I have been made king by him, that is, by God the Father. Furthermore, he fulfilled this by being made the Son in his humanity even if then he was the Son in his own nature. He smoothed the way for human nature to participate in adoption, and he called to himself people oppressed by the tyranny of sin. Just as we, since we are weighted down by curse and death, have received the evils of the transgressions of Adam like a certain inheritance handed across the generations to the whole universe from the ancestors, so also the splendid gifts of Christ flow down to the generations of humankind into the whole universe. The Only Begotten receives them not wholly for himself but for us. He is fully God as to his nature, nor does he lack anything whatever. He himself becomes richer than all creation with good things from above.

To be sure, God the Word had the name only-begotten Son before the ages as connatural with his condition, yet while still possessing the title of the Son as God, he also receives it as human being. Hence in the present psalm he added the words [of this verse]. Now no one who believes the teaching of the divine Spirit would apply this verse to the divinity of Christ the Lord. In fact, let us listen in this regard to the God of all speaking through David, From the womb before the morning star I begot you.^[1] So as man he both receives this verse and hears what follows.

There is no evening of God possible and, I think, no morning, but the time, if I may put it this way, which is coextensive with his unoriginated and eternal life, is today for him, the day in which the Son has been begotten. Consequently neither the beginning nor the day of his generation is to be found.

In eternity there is nothing that is past, as though it had ceased to be, nor future, as though not yet in existence; there is present only, because whatever is eternal always is. By this phrase, today have I begotten you, the most true and catholic faith proclaims the eternal generation of the Power and Wisdom of God, who is the only-begotten Son.

Begotten from the eternal Father, begotten from eternity, begotten in eternity, with no beginning, with no ending, with no space of extension, because he is what is, because he himself is who is.

I have begotten you refers to the birth about which Isaiah speaks, Who will tell about his generation?^[1] He is Light from Light, Almighty from Almighty, true God from true God, from whom, and through whom, and in whom all things exist.

He willed that he who existed before the ages in heaven should be begotten on the earth—that is, that he who was before unknown should be made known. Now, certainly, Christ has never yet been born in those people who have never perceived the manifold wisdom of God—that is, has never been known, has never been manifested, has never appeared to them. But if these also should perceive the mystery of grace, then in them too, when they were converted and believed, he would be born in knowledge and understanding.

It may perhaps be a dogma of some kind that no one receives a divine gift who does not request it. The Father, indeed, through the psalm, urges the Savior to ask that it may be given to him, as the Son teaches us when he says, The Lord said to me, You are my son; ask from me, and I will give you the Gentiles as your inheritance and the ends of the earth as your possession. And the Savior says, Ask and it will be given to you . . . for everyone who asks receives.^[1]

In contrast to the preceding verse, this one is to be understood in a temporal sense, of the manhood he took on himself, he who offered himself as a sacrifice to supersede all sacrifices and intercedes for us still.^[1] The words ask of me, then, may be referred to the whole temporal dispensation made for the benefit of the human race, namely, that the nations are to be joined to the name of Christ and so redeemed from death and become God’s possession. I will give you the nations as your heritage means May you possess them for their salvation, and may they bear for you spiritual fruit.

Therefore, let us rejoice in the day of our salvation, dearly beloved. We have been taken up through the new covenant into participation with him who was told by the Father through a prophet, You are my Son; this day I have begotten you. Ask it of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession. Let us glory, therefore, in the mercy of the one adopting us.

The words, therefore, Ask of me, and I will give to you, are spoken for our sake, not for the Son’s. They indicate that something is given not to the Son but to the peoples who belong to him.

Now it is possible to discover an appropriate fulfillment for this prophecy, too: the number of the Jews who came to faith was not only the 12 apostles but was as well the 70 disciples, the 120 whom blessed Peter addressed in assembly,^[1] the 500 to whom he appeared on one occasion after the resurrection according to the statement of the divinely inspired Paul,^[2] the 3,000 and the 5,000 that the chief of the apostles made his catch through addressing them and the many myriads of whom the mighty James exclaimed, You see, brother, what countless numbers of Jewish believers there are. These, to be sure, and in addition to them those of the Jews throughout the whole world who have come to faith he declares a holy people, and through them he takes possession of all the nations, thus fulfilling the prophecy in the words Rejoice, nations, with his people. In addition to this, however, he fulfills also his own prophecy, which he made in regard to the Jews in the words, Now, I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. Those, too, I must gather; they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd.^[3] This, too, he says in the present psalm. But it occurs to me to lament the faithlessness of the [unbelieving] Jews, who though hearing the prophecy that made specific mention of the ends of the earth, and realizing that none of their kings had had such sway, but only Christ the Lord, David’s offspring in the flesh, blind the eyes of their mind according to the prophecy that says, They grope about, as blind people do for the wall, and not as they will do who have the benefit of eyesight.^[4]

Are not, therefore, those words that were spoken by blessed David appropriately applied to the Lord whose kingdom extends to the farthest outposts of the earth and the whole world? [It is he] who, like the rod, threatens and punishes the broken condition of the nations and of the Jews, not in order to destroy them but in order to bring them back together and reshape them, as when the old man is put off and the new man takes his place through the sacrament of baptism. David really said this: just like a pot of clay you will break them, showing the parallel, since by their contrition there had been no destruction, but a renewal was about to follow. This is likened to the intention of every potter: that the vases, if they do not follow the will and hand of the one making them, while they are yet new and not hardened by the kiln, the potter breaks them and puts them back on the wheel to be re-formed.

You will dash to pieces in them earthly desires and the muddy preoccupations of the old man and whatever has been contracted or implanted from the slime of sin.

Remember the rod of correction and discipline, and do not get conceited and proud when you have been filled with the good things of God’s gifts and start grumbling against him; because in his anger he will shatter you with it like a potter’s vessel.

It is necessary to consider how the Father gave the nations to the Son as an inheritance and the ends of the earth as a possession. He says to him, You will break them like a clay pot. For who gives an inheritance so that it may be broken by the heir? It must be demonstrated from Scripture, therefore, how the contrition of certain people proved so beneficial. We find in the fiftieth psalm, Having brought a spiritual sacrifice to God, a contrite and humble heart God will not despise.^[1] And it is said in another prophecy as instruction, You will wail for the brokenness of your spirit.^[2] There is a spirit within us, therefore, that it is necessary to destroy in order that it may become a contrite sacrifice to God.

It is to your [you kings of the earth] advantage that you be subject to him by whom understanding and instruction are given to you. It is also to your advantage not to exercise lordship irresponsibly but to serve the Lord of all with reverence and rejoice in most certain and most pure blessedness while exercising due caution and consideration to avoid falling away from it through pride.

How, then, do kings serve the Lord with fear except by forbidding and restraining with religious severity all acts committed against the commandments of the Lord? A sovereign serves God one way as man, another way as king: he serves him as man by living according to faith; he serves him as king by exerting the necessary strength to sanction laws that command goodness and prohibit its opposite. It was thus that Hezekiah served him by destroying the groves and temples of idols and the high places that had been set up contrary to the commandments of God; thus Josiah served him by performing similar acts; thus the king of the Ninevites served him by compelling the whole city to appease the Lord; thus Darius served him by giving Daniel power to break the idol and by feeding his enemies to the lions; thus Nebuchanezzar . . . served him when he restrained all his subjects from blaspheming God by a terrible penalty. It is thus that kings serve the Lord as kings when they perform acts in his service that none but kings can perform.

If you remember the Judge only when you are in difficulties as one who inspires fear and who is incorruptibly honest, then you have not as yet learned to serve the Lord in fear and to rejoice in him with trembling. For understand this point well: one is to worship him even in spiritual relaxations and in times of good cheer with even more piety and reverence.

He wants devotion, not coercion . . . because to obey is more sublime than to yield simply to duty.

Even your very rejoicings therefore ought to be done with fear and trembling, for a Christian who is faithful ought to repeat neither a heathen hymn nor an obscene song, because he will be obliged by that hymn to make mention of the idolatrous names of demons; and instead of the Holy Spirit, the wicked one will enter into him.

He who remains in the fear of God remains in holiness.