John Calvin Commentary Psalms 2:10-11

"Now therefore be wise, O ye kings: Be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve Jehovah with fear, And rejoice with trembling." — Psalms 2:10-11 (ASV)

David, having, as a preacher of God's judgments, set forth the vengeance God would take upon his enemies, now proceeds, as a prophet and teacher, to exhort the unbelieving to repentance. He does this so that they may not, when it is too late, be compelled to acknowledge from dire experience that the divine threats are neither empty nor ineffective.

He specifically addresses kings and rulers, who are not very easily brought to a submissive state of mind and are, furthermore, prevented from learning what is right by the foolish conceit of their own wisdom, with which they are puffed up. And if David does not spare even kings themselves, who seem unrestrained by laws and exempt from ordinary rules, his exhortation applies all the more to ordinary people, so that all, from the highest to the lowest, may humble themselves before God.

By the adverb "now," he signifies the necessity of their speedy repentance, since they will not always be favored with such an opportunity. Meanwhile, he subtly implies that he warned them for their own advantage, as there was still room for repentance, provided they hurried.

When he commands them to be wise, he indirectly condemns their false confidence in their own wisdom, as if he had said, "The beginning of true wisdom is when a man lays aside his pride and submits himself to the authority of Christ." Accordingly, however good an opinion the world's princes may have of their own shrewdness, we may be sure they are utter fools until they become humble disciples at the feet of Christ.

Moreover, he declares how they were to be wise: by commanding them to serve the Lord with fear. By trusting in their elevated station, they flatter themselves that they are released from the laws that bind the rest of mankind; and this pride blinds them so much that they think it beneath them to submit even to God.

The Psalmist therefore tells them that until they have learned to fear him, they are destitute of all right understanding. And certainly, since they are so hardened by their sense of security that they withdraw their obedience from God, strong measures must first be used to bring them to fear him and so recover them from their rebelliousness.

To prevent them from supposing that the service to which he calls them is burdensome, he teaches them by the word "rejoice" how pleasant and desirable it is, since it provides cause for true gladness. But so that they would not, as they usually do, become unrestrained and, intoxicated with empty pleasures, imagine themselves happy while they are enemies of God, he further exhorts them, with the words "with fear," to a humble and dutiful submission.

There is a great difference between the pleasant and cheerful state of a peaceful conscience, which the faithful enjoy because they have God's favor (whom they fear), and the unbridled insolence to which the wicked are driven by their contempt and forgetfulness of God. The prophet's language, therefore, implies that as long as the proud dissolutely rejoice in gratifying the lusts of the flesh, they are toying with their own destruction. In contrast, the only true and beneficial joy is that which comes from resting in the fear and reverence of God.