Psalms 2:9

Break them with a rod of iron.

Jehovah’s iron rod

This cannot mean that Messiah’s sway is a kingdom of force, but only that His enemies can no more withstand His power than an earthen vessel can withstand the blows of an iron rod. His only weapons of assault are truth and love; and if human power and institutions crumble at their touch and pass away, it is because there is something radically evil and defective in them. The northern oceans are often filled with mountains of ice, reaching not only far down into the deep, but towering also to the very clouds, and threatening to crush to atoms everything with which they come into collision. Nevertheless, how soon do a few days of the light and heat of the sun rob them of their strength, leaving the frailest barque to speed on its way over unobstructed waters! It is in this way that the Sun of Righteousness operates. By light and heat and truth and love He clears the way over the frozen oceans of human life, for the onward progress of the ark of His salvation to the haven where it would be. The only way in which Messiah can be said to break His enemies with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel, is His leaving them to the natural and fearful destruction that flows from resisting truth and love, the two great laws of His kingdom, and indeed the two great laws of all well-being. (David Caldwell, A. M.)

Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.

The power and triumph of the kingdom of Christ

All things are at God’s disposal--all nations, all men, collectively and individually. It is God who plants and destroys; it is He who builds up and pulls down. We learn from the Psalm that all things are at the disposal of God the Son. God the Father has given to Him the heathen for His inheritance,.. .and He shall break them with a rod of iron, He shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. In Isaiah it is said (Isaiah 60:12), “For the nation and kingdom that shall not serve Thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.” The Canaanites, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans would not serve God, and they have perished. Kingdoms which will not serve Christ must be destroyed to make way for those who will serve Him. The kingdom of Christ will, sooner or later, swallow up all other kingdoms. The power of Christ’s kingdom, the power of His Word, is in a measure conferred upon His believing people. Christ has given to His believing people great power and influence in the earth. The Word of God is powerful; it is irresistible. If the Word of God be once deeply rooted in the hearts of a people it there abideth forever. God has wonderfully shielded England from danger ever since His Word became deeply rooted ill the land. God breaks the power of ungodly nations that He may break men’s hearts of stone. He destroys the kingdoms of this world in order to establish and enlarge the kingdom of this dear Son. To change the heart is the work of God. He must go with the missionaries. But much depends on our faith--our faith in God’s promises. (R. Bickerdike, M. A.)

The powers of evil broken

Rods of iron crashing down upon the heads of men, dashing them in pieces like a potter’s vessel, are figures of speech that seem to be very unlike the merciful methods of entreaty and persuasion by which Christ’s kingdom is advanced on the earth; but we have need to remember that the Saviour is also the Judge. Not only in the future world, but also in this, history shows that the fate of nations has been determined by their attitude to Christ. While with individuals force is never to be employed as an instrument to conquer opposition, it is equally certain that in the providence of God antagonism to God’s will inevitably leads a nation ultimately to its destruction. Though the hand that smites it is hidden behind political movements, in which perhaps nothing can be seen save the passions of men urging them into conflict, yet when the smoke of the battlefield has rolled away, and the strife has ended, there stands out this great truth: “Thou dashest them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” Nothing that sets itself against the Christ of God can ever last. (E. R. Barrett, B. A.)