I used to think the Psalms were merely fancy poetry, so I practiced my speed reading on those and other sections, like Isaiah and the Book of Mormon war chapters, but now I slow down and savor all of these. The Psalms were the temple hymns, and as a result, they are loaded with temple imagery.
Let’s look at Psalm 2. Verse 2 states, “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed.” “The Lord” here is Jehovah, so who is “his anointed?” The Hebrew word for anointed in this verse is mashiyach, derived from mashach, meaning “to smear with oil.” It’s where the word messiah comes from, and in this case, that would be the king. Kings and queens are anointed. Thus, we see the close relationship between kingship and messiahship. This theme carries throughout the psalm and provides dual prophecy and meaning.
This relationship becomes clear in verse 6: “I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.” Then, we hear the voice of the king, “I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.” While this obviously applies to the Savior, it also is applicable to earthly kings. Bible scholars call this “the adoption formula.” The king is viewed as a son of God. We see this close relationship in other passages, such as Isaiah 45:1:
“Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut.”
Of course, all of this applies to queens as “adopted daughters” of God. We find this relationship with Jesus Christ draws closer with covenants: “And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters” (Mosiah 5:7). The regal potential is expanded to include “the righteous” in Psalm 5:12: “For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.”
One of the more common symbols in the Psalms is the circle. It appears in words and phrases like compass and round about. The circle represents eternity, but in the above verse, the Hebrew word means “to surround or to crown.”
A common theme of Psalms is the concept that God is a King. I have tagged 72 verses with this theme in my Gospel Library app. We notice one in Psalm 5:2: “Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.” These are all over the place in Psalms.
The highest form of worship is in the temple. David prays, “But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple” (Psalm 5:7). The temple is a house of mercy. When the Lord accepted the Kirtland Temple, He said, “For behold, I have accepted this house, and my name shall be here; and I will manifest myself to my people in mercy in this house” (D&C 110:7).
It becomes apparent in these early Psalms that God wants to make us kings and queens, but does it go even further? The Psalmist asked, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and hast crowned him with glory and honour” (Psalm 8:4-5). The translation falls short. The Hebrew word for angels here is the plural form for God. The word is ‘elohiym (or Elohim). The footnote for this verse rightly goes to the Topical Guide for “Man, Potential to Become Like Heavenly Father.”
