LXX Psalms

Septuagint

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Psalm 2

1 Why did the pagan nations rage, and the nations devise vain things?⁠ 2 The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered themselves together, against the Lord, and against his Christ; Pause. 3 saying, Let us break through their bonds, and cast away their yoke from us. 4 He that dwells in the heavens shall laugh them to scorn, and the Lord shall mock them. 5 Then he will speak to them in his anger, and trouble them in his fury. 6 But I have been made king by him on Zion his holy mountain, 7 declaring the ordinance of the Lord: the Lord said to me, You are my Son, today I have begotten you. 8 Ask of me, and I will give you the pagan nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession.⁠ 9 You shall rule them with a rod of iron; you shall dash them in pieces as a potter's vessel.⁠ 10 Now therefore understand, you kings: be instructed, all you that judge the earth. 11 Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice in him with trembling. 12 Accept correction, for fear that the Lord might be angry, and you should perish from the righteous way: whenever his fierce anger shall be suddenly kindled, blessed are all they that trust in him.

Texts in conversation

Compare LXX Psalms 2:1 and Acts 4:25

Septuagint · New Testament

Summary

Acts 4 cites Psalm 2 but does not follow its natural interpretation. While Psalm 2 originally depicts just the foreign nations rebelling against Israel’s king, Acts includes both Gentile and Jewish figures among the opponents of the Messiah.

Passages

LXX Psalms 2:1

Septuagint

1 Why did the pagan nations rage, and the nations devise vain things? 2 The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered themselves together, against the Lord, and against his Christ; Pause. 3 saying, Let us break through their bonds, and cast away their yoke from us. 4 He that dwells in the heavens shall laugh them to scorn, and the Lord shall mock them.

100–1 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Psalms

Acts 4:25

New Testament

24 When they heard this, they raised their voices to God with one mind and said, “Master of all, you who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them, 25 who said by the Holy Spirit through your servant David our forefather, ‘Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot foolish things? 26 The kings of the earth stood together, and the rulers assembled together, against the Lord and against his Christ.’ 27 “For indeed both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, assembled together in this city against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, 28 to do as much as your power and your plan had decided beforehand would happen.

70–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Acts

References

"... It is important to appreciate the variety of ways in which the NT uses the OT and how sometimes the explicit meaning that the NT surfaces works within the scope of the OT meaning but does so in a surprising direction. In Acts 4:25-27, the church prayed. They appealed to Psalm 2:1 as an example text for the nations raging and the peoples plotting against the anointed one of Israel. Every Jew reading that psalm in its OT context would have assumed that the enemies gathered against the Messiah and his Lord would be comprised only of the nations, of Gentiles. Yet when the church prayed that prayer, the enemies opposed to the Messiah included seemingly pious Jews who nevertheless had rejected Jesus alongside Gentiles like Pilate. What produced this change in referent? It simply emerged as the psalm was read by these early Christians in a fresh context brought about by the progress of divinely orchestrated events ..."

Darrell L. Bock, “Single Meaning, Multiple Contexts and Referents,” in Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, ed. Kenneth Berding and Jonathan Lunde, Counterpoints: Bible and Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 114–115.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

LXX Psalms151 psalms

Compare LXX Psalms 2:1 and Acts 4:25

Summary

Passages

LXX Psalms 2:1

Acts 4:25

References

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