Psalm 1
The book begins with the beautiful picture of man blessed in dependence and obedience. His character is as marked as his happiness. He has not walked in the counsels of wicked men, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of scorners (ver. 1). With evil in any form he has had no fellowship. But, positively (vers. 2), the law of Jehovah is his delight, and in it he will meditate day and night. In no way is this inconsistent with Gal. 3:10. For he was not “of the works of the law,” as the principle of his standing before God: all such are and were “cursed.” They never repented and never believed. They which be of faith are blessed with the faithful Abraham, as they are truly his eons. No more in the O.T. than in the N.T. is a man justified with God in virtue of law; as the prophets prove only less clearly than the apostles. None but those who looked by faith for the Messiah walked blamelessly in God's ordinances. Still more evidently is it so with the Christian. “The law” here, as usually in the Psalms and elsewhere, means God's word then revealed. This is ever the delight of the believer, as well as his directory.
Hence in verse 3 we see the issue in the righteous government of God; and to this the book points as the rule. “And he is [or will be] as a tree planted on streams of water, that yieldeth its fruit in its season, and whose leaf fadeth not; and all that he doeth prospereth.” There is life, fruitfulness seasonably, abiding beauty, and unfailing prosperity. This will be manifest in the kingdom only; now it cannot be more than morally true.
The contrast appears in the second stanza of the third verse. “Not so the wicked, but are like the chaff that the wind driveth away” (ver. 4). They are worthless and vanish under pressure. The N.T. adds the divine judgment as burning by unquenchable fire. “Therefore the wicked shall not rise in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous” (vers. 5). When judgment comes (and the Book of Psalms as a whole contemplates it), the present mixed state will give place to a manifest severance, and an execution of God's sentence on earth before the final one for eternity. This is no secret to faith which enters into His mind and will before that day. “For Jehovah knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish” (verse 6).
Plainly then the Psalm describes ideally rather than as a fact the just Israelite, as compared with the wicked mass. It is therefore the Spirit of Christ in the righteous remnant, not Christ personally, though He was the sole absolutely Righteous One. Thus is refuted at the starting point the fond and inveterate delusion of the people that every Jew had a good and true title in God's sight. On the contrary not all are Israel which are of Israel. For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, in spirit, not in letter, whose praise is not of men but of God.
Psalm 2
This again is prefatory like the first (to which its structure corresponds, only with double the length), and both not only to the first book (1-41), but to the entire collection. Here the Messiah is as evident and express, as His own are in the preceding psalm. The antagonistic Gentiles and their kings are in full view, not the wicked as such, though wicked indeed those are.
“ Why are the nations tumultuously assembled, and do (lit. will) the peoples imagine vanity? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers consult together against Jehovah and against His Anointed (Messiah). Let us break their bonds and cast away their cords from us.” Such is the first stanza of three verses in which the godless revolt against Jehovah and His Christ is set before us, with no less amazement than indignation. In Acts 4 it is applied to the rebellious union of Romans and Jews, of Pilate and Herod, against the Lord.
But Jehovah's counsel stands, and He answers the fool according to his folly, with a strikingly parallel reference to the rebellious agitation of the peoples and their rulers (4, 6). “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord (Adonai) shall mock at them. Then He will speak to them in His anger, and in His wrath terrify them: And I have anointed My King on Zion, hill of My holiness.” Those doings and sayings in each case are an exact counterpart.
The constituted earthly royalty of Messiah in Zion opens the way to the next strophe (7-10). “I will declare the decree: Jehovah said to Me, Thou [art] My Son: I this day have begotten Thee. Ask of Me and I will give nations as Thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth Thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a scepter of iron; as a potter's vessel Thou shalt shiver them.” It is the Son of God born in time, the Messiah; neither eternal Sonship as in John's Gospel and elsewhere, nor resurrection as in Paul's Epistles. Sonship on earth and in time suits the kingdom here announced. But that kingdom, though with Zion its center, embraces the uttermost parts of the earth, and so the nations or Gentiles. It is the Messiah of Whom Solomon was but a type like David. But here the Christ only is described throughout. It is exclusively future. He had not yet asked the earth, but is occupied with relations above it, of heaven and for eternity. Soon He will come in His Kingdom, and receive the world at His demand, when He will rule with the rod of iron, (how different from the gospel!) and shiver men as a potter's vessel. What can be more contrasted with beseeching men and building up His body, the church?
And now, O kings, be wise; be warned, O judges of the earth. Serve Jehovah with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son lest He be angry, and ye perish in the way, for soon His anger burneth. Blessed [are] all those trusting Him” (verses 10-12).
Even here kings and judges are before us, for it is strictly a Messianic psalm. But it is the Son about to execute vengeance on a hostile and haughty world. Yet is He a blessing, the only blessing object of trust for any or all: the secret spring, at the end of Psalm 2, of the blessings for the righteous proclaimed at the beginning of Psalm 1. These are unquestionably a pair, and in the only place suitable, were we to search for one in all the hundred and fifty.