Bellarmine on Psalm 2 : Theme and Verse 1

 Subject matter

This psalm has no title but is attributed to David in Acts IV. Several commentators consider this is not the second Psalm but actually forms part of the first, and indeed in Acts XIII and certain Codices the Psalm is cited under the name first Psalm; but the greater number and better of the Codices have: as in the second Psalm is written, and this harmonises with the Greek edition τὡι δευτερὡι. The whole of this Psalm is a most plain prophecy of the kingdom of Christ and is explained by the Apostles in Acts IV and XIII, and in Hebrews I and V, so that they err greatly who would try to prove this Psalm is to be explained in the literal sense as being about David.

Verse 1

Why have the Gentiles raged, and the people devised vain things?

Quare fremuerunt gentes, et populi meditati sunt inania?

David, with a spiritual foreknowledge of the coming of the Messiah, and of the many persecutions that would be waged against Him, and of the coming of His most happy reign, begins with a reproof of the persecutors; and the meaning is that in vain did the Gentiles and the Hebrews, whether the Princes or the people, rage with indignation against the Messiah, and seek to find a reason for obstructing His kingdom.  In Hebrew, the first verb is in the past tense, and the second in the future: but because the speech is about the same thing, the Septuagint Translators rendered each verb in the past tense, but Saint Jerome rendered each in the future tense.  And yet the sentence remains true, either way; for the thing itself was in the future, but for the Prophet it was as though past, since he discerned it as a past event.  Yet the Septuagint and Vulgate version is absolutely to be preferred, firstly, because we read the past tense in Acts IV, fremuerunt / did rage and meditati sunt / did meditate;[1] secondly, because reason requires that the meaning of the first verb should regulate the meaning of the second, and not contradict it. By the noun gentes (in Why have the Gentiles raged?) is to be understood the Gentiles. For thus did the Apostles in Acts IV understand it and the Hebrew word goym is in the Scriptures generally taken to 

mean Gentiles or Nations. On the other hand, in the sentence “And the people devised vain things,” “the people” are to be understood as the Hebrews, as appears in Acts IV. The words are correctly to be referred firstly to the Gentiles and to the Hebrew people. For the Gentiles are said to have raged, like beasts lacking reason, and the Hebrews devised vain things, because they took counsel with one another how they might do away with Jesus.

[1] Who, by the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of our father David, thy servant, hast said: Why did the Gentiles rage, and the people meditate vain things? qui Spiritu Sancto per os patris nostri David, pueri tui, dixisti : Quare fremuerunt gentes, et populi meditati sunt inania? [Acts IV, 25]

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.