Who Makes the King?
“And I—I appointed My king on Zion, My holy mountain.” Let me tell as is due of the LORD. He said to me: “You are My son. I Myself today did beget you.” Psalm 2:6-7 Robert Alter
Beget – Perhaps the first thing we need to read about this verse is Alter’s comment: “Despite Christological readings of this verse over the centuries, it was a commonplace in the ancient Near East, readily adopted by the Israelites, to imagine the king as God’s son. The Hebrew emphasis of this concept seems to be more political than theological.”[1] Put aside your Messianic prophecy paradigm and read this in the context of ancient political speech. Pharoah claimed to be the “son of god.” A particular god of the Egyptian pantheon, true, but nevertheless, divine. So did the kings of Babylon, Assyria, and Canaan. In fact, so did some of the Roman Emperors and a particularly vile king of France who referred to himself as “we.” The idea isn’t new, and it isn’t Messianic. Of course, it can be interpreted that way if you adopt a particular religious paradigm, but that requires ignoring the obvious political implications; something we’re not going to do.
Let’s look at the verb yālad (to beget, bring forth, bear). Of course, you recognize the derivative yeled (child) found as early as Genesis 4:1. It’s important to notice that the word has cognates in many other ancient languages: “The root wld(yld in Northwest Semitic) is a common Semitic root (cf. Arabic walada, Akkadian (w) aladu, Ugaritic yld and Phoenician inscriptions yld).”[2] As Alter mentioned, a “commonplace.” There are some other interesting features of this verb:
In its narrowest sense yālad describes the act of a woman in giving birth to a child (e.g. Ex 1:19; I Kgs 3:17–18), but it is sometimes used of the father’s part in becoming a parent (e.g. Gen 4:18; 10:8, 24, 26; 22:23, 25:3; I Chr 1:10–20, Prov 23:22). It may be used with reference to the whole procedure involved in producing a child (e.g. Gen 38:27–28) or it may even be specifically applied to the pains of a woman prior to the actual birth (e.g. Gen 35:16; Mic 4:10). Although predominantly used of human beings it is occasionally used of animals (e.g. Gen 30:39; 31:8; Job 39:1–2, Jer 14:5; Ezk 31:6). A man’s part in the production of a child is generally represented by the Hiphil, but sometimes the Qal is used.[3]
Given this information and the political environment, the statement, “You are My son. I Myself today did beget you,” understood in the world of the 10th century B.C.E., is a wonderful piece of political propaganda. Essentially it says to the surrounding nations of Israel, “Okay, you have your kings and your claims of divinity, but look what we’ve got! God Himself declares that our king is His son, not just by adoption like you, but by birth! Our king has always been a son of God!”
Does that make you feel uncomfortable; that a “sacred” psalm like this might just be the text of a political poster on the wall? Does that give you spiritual hives? We could rejoin, “But this is in the Bible. It’s what God said and wants us to read.” True enough, but it’s in the Bible because the Bible is the human canonization of sacred material based on a Jewish paradigm (or a later Christian one). That expresses only the subsequent result of paradigmatic religious thinking. It doesn’t express what the author was thinking at the time it was written, and if we’re going to consider the politics of Scripture, then we’ll have to deal with this bit of self-serving political declaration. It might be different than Louis XIV now, but was it different than Louis XIV when he claimed “we”?
Topical Index: politics, yālad, beget, ancient Near East, kings, Psalm 2:6-7
[1] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: Volume 3 Writings, p. 29, fn. 7
[2] Harris, R. L., Archer, G. L., Jr., & Waltke, B. K. (Eds.). (1999). Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 378). Chicago: Moody Press.
[3] Harris, R. L., Archer, G. L., Jr., & Waltke, B. K. (Eds.). (1999). Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 378). Chicago: Moody Press.
