Psalms 2:6-7

2:6 “I myself ¹  have installed ²  my king

on Zion, my holy hill.”

2:7 The king says, ³  “I will announce the Lord’s decree. He said to me: ⁴ 

‘You are my son! ⁵  This very day I have become your father!

¹ tn The first person pronoun appears before the first person verbal form for emphasis, reflected in the translation by “myself.”

² tn Or perhaps “consecrated.”

³ tn The words “the king says” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The speaker is the Lord’s chosen king.

⁴ tn Or “I will relate the decree. The Lord said to me” (in accordance with the Masoretic accentuation).

⁵ sn ‘You are my son!’ The Davidic king was viewed as God’s “son” (see 2 Sam 7:14; Ps 89:26-27). The idiom reflects ancient Near Eastern adoption language associated with covenants of grant, by which a lord would reward a faithful subject by elevating him to special status, referred to as “sonship.” Like a son, the faithful subject received an “inheritance,” viewed as an unconditional, eternal gift. Such gifts usually took the form of land and/or an enduring dynasty. See M. Weinfeld, “The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East,” JAOS 90 (1970): 184-203, for general discussion and some striking extra-biblical parallels.