There is a debate among Old Testament scholars as to whether Psalm 2 can be considered messianic. That is, does it speak specifically of Jesus Christ? This is a complicated question which we will deal with again in our expositions of other psalms. But I say at the outset that if any psalm can rightly be regarded as messianic, it is this one. Psalm 2 speaks of the rebellion of the world's rulers against God's Anointed--the actual word is "Messiah"--and of the Father's decree to give his Son dominion over them.
Verse 6 is a fitting end to the psalm and a proper thematic statement from which to proceed into the Psalter. It distinguishes between the final end of the righteous and the final end of the wicked saying, “For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. The verse describes the destiny of these two groups of people.
The poet uses two images to show the result of these two ways. The first is a fruitful tree. It describes the man who delights in the law of God and draws his spiritual nourishment from it as a tree which draws its nourishment from an abundantly flowing stream. The land about might be quite dry and barren. The winds might be hot. But if the tree is planted by the stream, so that it can sink its roots down and draw nourishment, it will prosper and yield fruit.
What about the other way, the way of the righteous? We might expect, since the wicked man has been described in terms of his associations, that the godly man will now be described in terms of his associations too, that is, as a person who associates with the godly. But that is not the case. Instead, he is described as one whose "delight is in the law of the Lord" on which "he meditates day and night" (v. 2).
The first verse of Psalm 1 and therefore also the very first verse of the Psalter, begins with the word "blessed." This is important certainly, for it is a way of saying that the psalms (as well as all Scripture) have been given to us by God to do us good. "Blessed" means supremely happy or fulfilled. In fact, in Hebrew the word is actually a plural, which denotes either a multiplicity of blessings or an intensification of them.
