A Poem Inspired by Psalm 2:4-6
By Russ Hjelm
In the vast vault where stars are mere attendants
the One enthroned regards the clamor below,
nations foaming like waves against unyielding rock,
kings and counselors in solemn conclave bent
to shatter chains they call divine, to loose
the cords of covenant they name oppression.
Their voices rise in thunderous accord,
“Let us break their bonds asunder, cast away
the yoke that galls our necks, declare ourselves
free lords of earth and architects of fate.”
They plot in shadowed halls, they forge decrees,
they muster armies vast as locust swarms,
imagining the throne above can tremble
at the weight of their united will.
Yet he who sits in heavens undisturbed
lets laughter roll across the firmament,
a sound like distant thunder laced with joy,
not mockery of malice but the pure
amusement of the infinite at play
before the antics of the finite proud.
No tremor shakes the crystal courts; no fear
disturbs the everlasting countenance.
The laughter echoes through the endless halls
where seraphim and cherubim keep watch,
a laughter born of perfect knowledge, deep
as ocean trenches, high as unseen light.
What threat can mortal vanity present
to him whose gaze encompasses all time,
whose whisper fashions galaxies from void?
The Lord holds them in derision then,
a gentle scorn that pierces every boast,
revealing how their grandest machinations
are childish scrawls upon the margin of
his sovereign script. Their rage, their careful schemes,
their alliances of convenience dissolve
like mist beneath the rising of his glance.
No anger yet, only the quiet mirth
of one who knows the end before the start,
who sees the proud man’s tower already dust,
the rebel’s crown already cast aside.
Then comes the speech, the measured utterance
that shifts from laughter into solemn fire.
In wrath he speaks—not sudden, reckless ire,
but holiness offended, justice kindled,
the necessary blaze that guards the good.
His words fall heavy as the hammer stroke
upon the anvil of eternity,
each syllable a terror to the proud.
They tremble now who laughed at holy law,
who thought themselves exempt from reckoning.
The fury of the Lord is no wild storm
but righteous indignation measured out
with perfect equity, a terror meant
to shatter illusion, to awaken dread
that leads at last to wisdom if they turn.
“I have set my King upon my holy hill,”
the declaration rings through every realm,
unanswerable, irrevocable, sure.
Zion stands immovable, its summit crowned
not by the will of man but by decree
from before the founding of the worlds.
The Anointed One is placed there by the hand
that shaped the mountains and the sounding seas,
his throne established on the rock of love
and justice joined in everlasting bond.
No power below can dislodge him now;
no confederacy of earth can pull him down.
The holy hill endures through every age,
a beacon rising from the midst of strife,
where mercy waits for those who cease to fight
and bend the knee before the rightful Lord.
So let the nations rage and peoples plot,
let rulers take their stand in vain array;
the laughter from the heavens still prevails,
the derision lingers in the upper air,
the wrathful speech still echoes through the years,
and on the summit of the sacred mount
the King remains, unshaken, ever sure.
His scepter stretches forth in gracious rule,
inviting every rebel heart to find
in surrender the only lasting peace.
The psalmist saw it long ago and sang;
the vision holds through every shifting tide:
above the tumult, laughter; beyond the wrath,
a kingdom fixed where righteousness and joy
together reign in one eternal day.
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