Psalm 2: Is the Messiah the Son of God?

Jesus’s position in Christianity is more complicated than this, given trinitarian beliefs.

For more on the disputes between Jews and Christians about how to read the Hebrew Bible, see Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently (San Francisco, CA: HarperOne, 2020).

We treat Psalm 2 as its own unit. Some scholars, following rabbinic and an early Church tradition represented primarily by Codex Bezae (the D codex), treat Psalms 1­–2 as a single psalm; see, e.g., William Hugh Brownlee, “Psalms 1-2 as a Coronation Liturgy,” Biblica 52 (1971): 321–336; Robert Luther Cole, “An Integrated Reading of Psalms 1 and 2,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 26 (2002): 75–88. David Willgren, “Why Psalms 1-2 Are Not to be Considered a Preface to the ‘Book of Psalms’,” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (2018): 384–397, explains why this position has little merit.

Hermann Gunkel, Introduction to the Psalms: The Genres of the Religious Lyric of Israel, ed. Joachim Begrich, trans. James D. Nogalski (1933; Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1998), 99–120; Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 1–59, trans. Hilton C. Oswald, Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1988), 126. Scholars dispute the number of royal psalms, but they most likely include 2, 18, 20, 21, 45, 72, 87, 110, and 132. See esp. the discussion of Ps 110 in Levine and Brettler, The Bible With and Without Jesus, 154–164.

On this ceremony, see Marc Zvi Brettler, God is King: Understanding an Israelite Metaphor, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 76 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989), 125-135.

Another possibility is that the psalm formed a part of the Israelite new year festival, in which the king played a major role. See Karel van der Toorn, “Rosh Hashanah with the Early Israelites,” TheTorah (2019). Less likely is the theory that the psalm is post-exilic and thus about a messianic ruler rather than a Judahite king. See the excellent, though slightly dated, summary of the main scholarly theories about this psalm’s origin in James W. Watts, “Psalm 2 in the Context of Biblical Theology,” Horizons in Biblical Theology 12 (1990), 74–76.

We follow NRSV here by joining the tetragrammaton with what precedes (“I will tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to me”), rather than the Masoretic cantillation marks and NJPS (“Let me tell of the decree: the LORD said to me”), which understand YHWH with what follows, as the subject of “said.” (“The LORD” has been rendered “YHWH” following TheTorah’s standard procedure.)

Most obviously in the brief anecdote about “the sons of Elohim” in Genesis 6:1–4. See Samuel Z. Glaser, “Demigods and the Birth of Noah,” TheTorah (2020); Benjamin Sommer, “Why Are There Demigods in a Monotheistic Torah?” TheTorah (2015). Another is the story of Samson. See Marc Zvi Brettler, “Who Was Samson's Real Father?” TheTorah.com (2017); Naphtali Meshel, “Samson the Demigod?” TheTorah (2019). Certain biblical stories may even imply that YHWH fathered a child, though such readings are debated. See, Samuel Z. Glaser, “Isaac’s Divine Conception?” TheTorah (2018).

We build on Gerhard von Rad’s “The Royal Ritual in Judah,” in From Genesis to Chronicles: Explorations in Old Testament Theology, ed. K. C. Hanson, trans. E. W. Trueman Dicken (1966; repr., Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 167–176. See J. J. M. Roberts, “Whose Child Is This? Reflections on he Speaking Voice in Isaiah 9:5,” Harvard Theological Review 90 (1997): 115–129 and Gard Granerød, “A Forgotten Reference to Divine Procreation? Psalm 2:6 in Light of Egyptian Royal Ideology,” Vetus Testamentum 60 (2010): 323–336.

NJPS’s translation of the first part of the verse, “Your divine throne is everlasting,” is difficult to defend.

Some scholars have suggested that YHWH is adopting the king in some legal sense. No biblical text, however, mentions adoption of children, and such an institution may not have existed in ancient Judah. See Jeffrey Stackert, “Adoption,” Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, 1.387–390 and Pamela Barmash, “Adoption,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Law, ed. Brent A. Strawn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 215), 1­–9.

See Marc Zvi Brettler, “The Metaphorical Mapping of God in the Hebrew Bible,” in Metaphor, Canon and Community: Jewish, Christian and Islamic Approaches. Ralph Bisschops and James Francis (Religions and Discourse 1; Bern: Peter Lang, 1999), 219-32.

See Marc Zvi Brettler, “Incompatible Metaphors for YHWH in Isaiah 40-66,” JSOT 78 (1998), 97-120, and more recently, Sarah J. Dille, Mixing Metaphors: God as Mother and Father in Deutero-Isaiah, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 398 (London: T & T Clark, 2004); L. Juliana M. Claassens, Mourner, Mother, Midwife: Reimagining God’s Delivering Presence in the Old Testament (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2012), 41­–63.

For example, the אבינו מלכנו (“Our Father, Our King”) prayer in Judaism, and in many rabbinic parables where God is the father, and especially the “Our Father” prayer in Christianity, which opens with (KJV) “Our Father who art in heaven” (Matt 6:9; see Luke 11:2).

For more on the metaphors in this poem, see Andrea Weiss, “The Multiple Metaphors for God in Shirat Haazinu,” TheTorah (2014).

See Levine and Brettler, The Bible With and Without Jesus, 446n39.

Such paraphrasing rather than exact quotation is more the rule than the exception in ancient Israelite texts.

For example, calling a person a dinosaur highlights the fact that dinosaurs are long dead and antiquated, but not other features such as their size, eating habits, or scales.

The book of Proverbs famously declares the importance of discipline in parenting, especially in:

^{משלי יג:כד} חוֹשֵׂ֣ךְ שִׁ֭בְטוֹ שׂוֹנֵ֣א בְנ֑וֹ וְ֝אֹהֲב֗וֹ שִֽׁחֲר֥וֹ מוּסָֽר׃

^{Prov 13:24} He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him early.

Just as loving ancient Israelite fathers discipline their sons when necessary, so Nathan states that YHWH, the king’s father, will punish His son should he sin.

See Nahum M. Sarna, “Psalm 89: A Study in Inner Biblical Exegesis,” in Biblical and Other Studies, ed. Alexander Altmann, Philip W. Lown Institute of Advanced Judaic Studies, Brandeis University, Studies and Texts 1 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), 29–46. For a discussion of the reinterpretations of 2 Sam 7, see William M. Schniedewind, Society and the Promise to David: The Reception History of 2 Samuel 7:1-17 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).

Other motifs this metaphor might evoke are the father’s love for his son, the son’s obligation to heed his father, and the father’s right to give his son property. On the metaphorical aspect of the king as YHWH’s son, see Joseph Lam, “Psalm 2 and the Disinheritance of Earthly Rulers: New Light from the Ugaritic Legal Text RS 94.2168,” Vetus Testamentum 64 (2014): 34–46. Many of these entailments are spelled out in Brettler, God is King; they include depicting YHWH as judge and shepherd.

This is the earliest textual evidence we have for it, though the change may have begun as early as the ca. 175 B.C.E, when the Judeans suffered under the forced policies of Hellenization associated with the Syrian Greeks and Antiochus IV.

This is a pseudepigraphic work.

^{Ps. Sol. 17:21} ἰδέ κύριε καὶ ἀνάστησον αὐτοῖς τὸν βασιλέα αὐτῶν υἱὸν Δαυιδ εἰς τὸν καιρόν ὃν εἵλου σύ ὁ θεός τοῦ βασιλεῦσαι ἐπὶ Ισραηλ παῖδά σου ^17:22 καὶ ὑπόζωσον αὐτὸν ἰσχὺν τοῦ θραῦσαι ἄρχοντας ἀδίκους καθαρίσαι Ιερουσαλημ ἀπὸ ἐθνῶν καταπατούντων ἐν ἀπωλείᾳ ^17:23 ἐν σοφίᾳ δικαιοσύνης ἐξῶσαι ἁμαρτωλοὺς ἀπὸ κληρονομίας ἐκτρῖψαι ὑπερηφανίαν ἁμαρτωλοῦ ὡς σκεύη κεραμέως ^17:24 ἐν ῥάβδῳ σιδηρᾷ συντρῖψαι πᾶσαν ὑπόστασιν αὐτῶν ὀλεθρεῦσαι ἔθνη παράνομα ἐν λόγῳ στόματος αὐτοῦ.

The text is also known as 4QFlorilegium, a Latin word meaning “a compilation of excerpts from other writings.” Annette Steudel refers to it as Midrasch zur Eschatologie aus der Qumrangemeinde, “an eschatological midrash from the Qumran community” (4QMidrEscht). Elisha Qimron calls it פשר על אחרית הימים “A Pesher-Interpretation about the End of Days.”

Text follows the reconstruction in Elisha Qimron, מגילות מדבר יהודה: החיבורים העבריים [The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings], בין מקרא למשנה [Between Bible and Mishnah] (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2013), 2.289. Alternative reconstructions do not change the main point about eschatological repurposing.

Psalm 2 also seems to lie in the background of the Parables of Enoch (mid-first century C.E.)— chs. 37­–71 of the book of 1 Enoch—in the description of how the kings of the earth (as per Ps 2:2) will fall before God’s anointed:

^{1 Enoch 48:8} And in those days the kings of the earth and the strong who possess the dry ground will have downcast faces because of the works of their hands, for on the day of their distress and trouble they will not save themselves ^48:9 And I will give them into the hands of my chosen ones like straw in the fire, and like lead in water, so they will burn before the righteous, and sink before the holy, and no trace will be found of them. ^48:10 … for they denied the LORD of Spirits and his messiah. (Outside the Bible, 2.1392)

James L. Mays, Psalms, Interpretation (Louisville: John Knox, 1994), 44. Ben Witherington III, Psalms Old and New: Exegesis, Intertextuality, and Hermeneutics (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017), 44, quotes this same line.

^{Κατά Μάρκον 1:10} καὶ εὐθὺς ἀναβαίνων ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος εἶδεν σχιζομένους τοὺς οὐρανοὺς καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα ὡς περιστερὰν καταβαῖνον εἰς αὐτόν· ^1:11 καὶ φωνὴ ἐγένετο ἐκ τῶν οὐρανῶν· σὺ εἶ ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός, ἐν σοὶ εὐδόκησα.

Cf. Matthew 3:17; Luke 3:22. The passage may also allude to Isaiah 42:1 (“Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him…”) and, less likely but often cited in commentaries, Genesis 22:2, originally in relation to Isaac (the “only son, whom you love”).

Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016), 47–48.

See Levine and Brettler, The Bible With and Without Jesus, 381-412.

In this scene, Jesus appears together with Moses and Elijah, as Peter, James, and John look on to see him in a supernaturally changed appearance:

^{Κατά Μάρκον 9:7} καὶ ἐγένετο νεφέλη ἐπισκιάζουσα αὐτοῖς, καὶ ἐγένετο φωνὴ ἐκ τῆς νεφέλης· οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός, ἀκούετε αὐτοῦ.

^{Κατά Μάρκον 15:39} Ἰδὼν δὲ ὁ κεντυρίων ὁ παρεστηκὼς ἐξ ἐναντίας αὐτοῦ ὅτι οὕτως ἐξέπνευσεν εἶπεν· ἀληθῶς οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος υἱὸς θεοῦ ἦν.

Hays, Echoes of Scripture, 74.

The Gospel of John famously declares,

^{John 3:16} For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (KJV).

^{Κατά Ιωάννην 3:16} οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον, ὥστε τὸν υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν, ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπόληται ἀλλ᾽ ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον.

See also John 3:18. John 1:14 (cf. 1:18) proclaims that “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.”

“Apostle” comes from the Greek for “sent out”; compare the Hebrew shaliach.

Paul begins with the exodus from Egypt, and moves on to Samuel, Saul, and David. For parallels in the Hebrew Bible, see Josh 24, 1 Sam 12, Neh 9.

This term is the origin of the English “evangelical.” Translated into Old English, the word was gōdspel (gōd=good, spel=news/story), which became the English “gospel.”

One textual tradition, represented by Codex Bezae or the D codex, reads “first psalm,” and could be an indication that some readers saw Psalm 1-2 as an introduction to the Psalter; see discussion in n. 3, above.

The capital “S” on the word “son” is again the New Revised Standard Version’s way of signaling that the editors take Acts to be suggesting Jesus’s divinity.

^{Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων 13:32} Καὶ ἡμεῖς ὑμᾶς εὐαγγελιζόμεθα τὴν πρὸς τοὺς πατέρας ἐπαγγελίαν γενομένην, ^13:33 ὅτι ταύτην ὁ θεὸς ἐκπεπλήρωκεν τοῖς τέκνοις [αὐτῶν] ἡμῖν ἀναστήσας Ἰησοῦν ὡς καὶ ἐν τῷ ψαλμῷ γέγραπται τῷ δευτέρῳ· υἱός μου εἶ σύ, ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε.

The text is often known as Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews, though it is not an epistle (i.e., a letter), not necessarily addressed to Jews, and not written by Paul.

^{Πρὸς Ἑβραίους 1:5} Τίνι γὰρ εἶπέν ποτε τῶν ἀγγέλων· υἱός μου εἶ σύ, ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε; καὶ πάλιν· ἐγὼ ἔσομαι αὐτῷ εἰς πατέρα, καὶ αὐτὸς ἔσται μοι εἰς υἱόν;

That second citation sounds like God’s message to David in Chronicles:

^{דברי הימים א כב:י} הוּא יִבְנֶה בַיִת לִשְׁמִי וְהוּא יִהְיֶה לִּי לְבֵן וַאֲנִי לוֹ לְאָב וַהֲכִינוֹתִי כִּסֵּא מַלְכוּתוֹ עַל יִשְׂרָאֵל עַד עוֹלָם.

^{1 Chron 22:10} He shall build a house for my name. He shall be a son to me, and I will be a father to him, and I will establish his royal throne in Israel forever.

See also 2 Samuel 7:14.

^{Πρὸς Ἑβραίους 5:5} Οὕτως καὶ ὁ Χριστὸς οὐχ ἑαυτὸν ἐδόξασεν γενηθῆναι ἀρχιερέα ἀλλ᾽ ὁ λαλήσας πρὸς αὐτόν· υἱός μου εἶ σύ, ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε·

For more on Hebrews’ concept of Jesus as high priest, see Joshua Garroway, “Who Assumed Melchizedek’s Priesthood?” TheTorah (2016) and Levine and Brettler, The Bible With and Without Jesus, 133-177.

John the apostle (referenced here) should not be confused with John the Baptist or John of Patmos, author of Revelation. The author of the Gospel of John and of the three Johannine Epistles (1, 2, 3 John) is, however, traditionally understood to be John the son of Zebedee, though even this identification is challenged in critical scholarship.

That they quote the text in unison could be taken as Luke’s indication that they were inspired by the Spirit; it could also indicate, less miraculously, that they had already thought about these verses in connection with Jesus, or at least that they had prayed the psalm.

^{Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων 4:24} οἱ δὲ ἀκούσαντες ὁμοθυμαδὸν ἦραν φωνὴν πρὸς τὸν θεὸν καὶ εἶπαν· δέσποτα, σὺ ὁ ποιήσας τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν καὶ τὴν θάλασσαν καὶ πάντα τὰ ἐν αὐτοῖς, ^4:25 ὁ τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου στόματος Δαυὶδ παιδός σου εἰπών· ἱνατί ἐφρύαξαν ἔθνη καὶ λαοὶ ἐμελέτησαν κενά; ^4:26 παρέστησαν οἱ βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς καὶ οἱ ἄρχοντες συνήχθησαν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ κατὰ τοῦ κυρίου καὶ κατὰ τοῦ χριστοῦ αὐτοῦ. ^4:27 συνήχθησαν γὰρ ἐπ᾽ ἀληθείας ἐν τῇ πόλει ταύτῃ ἐπὶ τὸν ἅγιον παῖδά σου Ἰησοῦν ὃν ἔχρισας, Ἡρῴδης τε καὶ Πόντιος Πιλᾶτος σὺν ἔθνεσιν καὶ λαοῖς Ἰσραήλ, ^4:28 ποιῆσαι ὅσα ἡ χείρ σου καὶ ἡ βουλή [σου] προώρισεν γενέσθαι.

Hays, Echoes of Scripture, 268.

Luke describes how persecuting Jesus brought Herod Antipas and Pontius Pilate together:

^{Luke 23:12} That same day Herod [Antipas] and Pilate became friends with each other; before this they had been enemies.

^{Κατά Λουκάν 23:12} ἐγένοντο δὲ φίλοι ὅ τε Ἡρῴδης καὶ ὁ Πιλᾶτος ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ μετ᾽ ἀλλήλων· προϋπῆρχον γὰρ ἐν ἔχθρᾳ ὄντες πρὸς αὐτούς.

In this text, the kings of the earth attack “the rider,” one of the many images—from slain lamb to armed champion—with which Revelation describes Jesus:

^{Rev 19:19} Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against the rider on the horse and against his army.

^{Αποκάλυψις Ιωάννου 19:19} Καὶ εἶδον τὸ θηρίον καὶ τοὺς βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς καὶ τὰ στρατεύματα αὐτῶν συνηγμένα ποιῆσαι τὸν πόλεμον μετὰ τοῦ καθημένου ἐπὶ τοῦ ἵππου καὶ μετὰ τοῦ στρατεύματος αὐτοῦ.

Earlier, we are told that this rider will rule “with a rod of iron,” recalling Psalm 2:9, where the enemies of YHWH are to be smashed with such a rod like a pottery vessel. Revelation consistently lifts phrases and motifs from the Hebrew Bible rather than quoting full verses.

^{Rev 19:15} From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. ^19:16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, “King of kings and Lord of lords.”(Readers may also hear in these verses echoes of Handel’s Messiah. Here we also have the source of a famous line from Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic”: “the great winepress of the wrath of God” (KJV) becomes “where the grapes of wrath are stored.” Readers of a certain age will also hear echoes of Allen Sherman’s Ballad of Harry Lewis, with the immortal line, “He was trampling through the warehouse, where the drapes of Roth are stored.”)

^{Αποκάλυψις Ιωάννου 19:15} καὶ ἐκ τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ ἐκπορεύεται ῥομφαία ὀξεῖα, ἵνα ἐν αὐτῇ πατάξῃ τὰ ἔθνη, καὶ αὐτὸς ποιμανεῖ αὐτοὺς ἐν ῥάβδῳ σιδηρᾷ, καὶ αὐτὸς πατεῖ τὴν ληνὸν τοῦ οἴνου τοῦ θυμοῦ τῆς ὀργῆς τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ παντοκράτορος, ^19:16 καὶ ἔχει ἐπὶ τὸ ἱμάτιον καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν μηρὸν αὐτοῦ ὄνομα γεγραμμένον· Βασιλεὺς βασιλέων καὶ κύριος κυρίων.

John of Patmos makes use of imagery from Psalm 2 earlier in the book when he tells the Christ-followers in Thyatira:

^{Rev 2:26} To everyone who conquers and continues to do my works to the end, I will give authority over the nations; ^2:27 to rule them with an iron rod, as when clay pots are shattered.

^{Αποκάλυψις Ιωάννου 2:26} Καὶ ὁ νικῶν καὶ ὁ τηρῶν ἄχρι τέλους τὰ ἔργα μου, δώσω αὐτῷ ἐξουσίαν ἐπὶ τῶν ἐθνῶν ^2:27 καὶ ποιμανεῖ αὐτοὺς ἐν ῥάβδῳ σιδηρᾷ ὡς τὰ σκεύη τὰ κεραμικὰ συντρίβεται.

See, e.g. b. Berakhot 7b, Sukkah 52a, Avodah Zarah 3b.

For a good summary, see pp. 2–3 of Mariano Gómez Aranda, “Medieval Jewish Exegesis of Psalm 2,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 18 (2018): 1­–21.

The issue of using rabbinic texts as background for the New Testament—though all of them postdate the New Testament—is fraught. This is discussed throughout Levine and Brettler, The Bible With and Without Jesus.

Some polemics against Christianity do appear in rabbinic texts. See Michal Bar-Asher Segal, Jewish-Christian Dialogues on Scripture in Late Antiquity: Heretic Narratives of the Babylonian Talmud (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).

See the glosses there on vv. 2 and 4. The work has a complex history, and the traditions it includes range from the classical rabbinic period through medieval times. See Hermann L. Strack and Gunther Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, trans. and ed. Markus Bockmuehl (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 323­–323. Individual traditions are notoriously difficult to date.

On the polemical nature of this work, see Isaac Kalimi, “Theologies and Methodologies in Classical Jewish Interpretation: A Study of Midrash Psalms,” in his Fighting over the Bible: Jewish Interpretation, Sectarianism and Polemic from Temple to Talmud and Beyond, Brill Reference Library of Judaism 54 (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 72­–89.

This messianic interpretation is also found in Karaite Psalm commentary, likely related to tenth-century beliefs among some Karaite of the messiah’s imminent arrival.

See Gómez Aranda, “Medieval Jewish Exegesis of Psalm 2.” The following section is based on evidence found there.

Until recently, scholars viewed many parts of Rashi’s commentary on the Bible as a response to Christianity, but this approach has been criticized; see “Polemic in the Commentaries of the Northern French School,” in Yedida Eisenstat, “Medieval Biblical Interpretation (Jewish),” Oxford Bibliographies (2017). For a summary, see Yedida Eisenstat, “Does Rashi’s Torah Commentary Respond to Christianity?” TheTorah (2018), and most recently Mordechai Z. Cohen, The Rule of Peshat: Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and Their Christian and Muslim Contexts, 900-1270, Jewish Culture and Contexts (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020), 121­–123.

Text and translation follow Mayer I. Gruber, ed. and trans., Rashi’s Commentary on Psalms, Brill Reference Library of Judaism 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 177; the anti-Christian part of this comment is missing in many manuscripts, e.g., the version of this verse cited in alhatorah.org.

Rashi returns to the more traditional messianic reading in the second part of his commentary; see Gómez Aranda, “Medieval Jewish Exegesis of Psalm 2,” 8­–9.

The definitive work on Radak is Frank Talmage, David Kimhi: The Man and the Commentaries (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975). Polemic ran in Radak’s family: his father, Joseph, wrote the polemical work ספר הברית, The Book of the Covenant (see Ex 24:7). On Radak in the context of the Kimhi family, see Mordechai Cohen, “The Qimhi Family,” in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, vol. I/2: The Middle Ages, ed. Magne Sæbø (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), 388–415. On the missionizing background of Radak’s comments, see Robert Chazan, Fashioning Jewish Identity in Medieval Western Christendom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), esp. his treatment of Ps 2 on 235–241.

Radak expands on this theme with prooftexts:

כי כל מי ששומע לעבודת האל יקרא בנו, כמו שהבן שומע אל האב ומזומן לעבודתו. וכן בנים אתם לי״י אלהיכם (דברים י״ד:א׳); אני אהיה לו לאב והוא יהיה לי לבן (שמואל ב ז׳:י״ד); ואמר: בני אל חי (הושע ב׳:א׳)

For anyone who obeys the call to divine service is called “His son,” just as the son heeds his father and is always ready to serve him. This is illustrated by “You are children of YHWH your God” (Deut 14:1), “I will be to him as a father and he will be to me as a son” (2 Sam 7:14) and “Children-of-the-Living-God” (Hosea 2:1).

Radak concludes several other of his commentaries on individual psalms that Christians understood Christologically with similar codas; see Chazan, Fashioning Jewish Identity in Medieval Western Christendom.

Radak continues:

ועוד אמור להם: האב קודם לבן בזמן ומכח האב יצא הבן. ואף על פי שלא יתכן זה מבלי זה בקריאת השמות, כי לא יקרא אב עד שיהיה לו בן ולא יקרא בן אם לא יהיה לו אב, ומכל מקום אותו שיקרא אב כשיהיה הבן היה קודם בזמן בלי ספק.

Further say to them: The father exists in time before the son, and the son is born through the father. Even though it is impossible to call them by these names without having both of them, since someone is not called “father” until he has a son, and someone is not a “son” if he doesn’t have a father, nevertheless, the one that he calls father, when he does have a son, was certainly around before him.

ואם כן האלוה שאתם אומרים ואתם קוראים לו אב ובן ורוח הקדש, החלק שאתם קוראים לו אב קודם לחלק האחר שאתם קוראים בן. כי אם היו כל זמן שניהם כאחד היו קוראים להם אחים תאומים, ולא תקראו להם אב ובן, ולא יולד וילוד; כי היולד קדם לילוד בלי ספק.

Therefore, the deity of whom you speak, and you call the father, the son, and the holy spirit, the part that you call father must precede the other part that you call son. For if they existed at the same time as one, they would be called twin brothers, and they would not call them father and son, and not parent and child, for undoubtedly, the parent comes before the child.

Radak continues:

לפיכך קרא לכוכבים בני אלהים, כמו ויריעו כל בני אלהים (איוב ל״ח:ז׳).

That is why [the Bible] calls stars “children of God,” as in “And all the divine beings [Hebrew is literally “children of God”] shouted for joy?” (Job 38:7).

Radak continues with additional prooftexts:

ואמר: בני בכרי ישראל (שמות ד׳:כ״ב); ואמר: בנים אתם לי״י אלהיכם (דברים י״ד:א׳); ואמר: הלא הוא אביך קנך (שם ל״ב:ו׳); ואמר: אנכי אהיה לו לאב והוא יהיה לי לבן (שמואל ב ז׳:י״ד).

And it says: “Israel is my firstborn son,” (Exod 4:22); and it says: “You are sons to the LORD your God” (Deut 14:1); and it says: “Is he not your father, your creator?” (Deut 32:62); and it says: “I will be for him like a father and he will be for me like a son” (2 Sam 7:14).

This tone is more common in Jewish polemical volumes. See the literature cited in Levine and Brettler, The Bible With and Without Jesus, 434­–435n34–37.

We would like to thank Jonathan Homrighausen for his help with this essay.