What Does Psalm 2:5 Mean in the King James?

Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.

Psalm 2:5 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

THE KEY

The Hebrew ⁨אַף⁩ (ʾaf, “nose; anger”) makes wrath audible: what rises in the flaring nostrils becomes speech.

THE MEANING

The verse speaks of defiance facing God’s direct anger: his speech reaches those resisting his rule and leaves them shaken. It shows the reader that power does not become untouchable by standing together against God.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that coordinated power can make itself untouchable to God.

THE ROOT

בְּאַפּוֹ

bə’appô

GROWS FROM

אף

⁨אף⁩ (ʾaf) means “nose”; by extension, it means “anger,” pictured as the flaring of the nostrils.

The verse says he speaks in his nose: Hebrew ⁨אַף⁩ (ʾaf, “nose; anger”) holds bodily flare and anger in one word. Its branches preserve the bodily image, so wrath here is not a detached mood but a force that becomes speech.

ALSO GROWS

ʾappayim: Nostrils; also anger in Hebrew idiom.

אַפַּיִם

It preserves the bodily image behind anger, giving the verse’s wrath a visible, embodied source.

ʾappo: His nose; his anger.

אַפּוֹ

This is the verse’s own suffixed form, tying the anger directly to the one who speaks.

THE PATTERN

When God’s speech confronts entrenched opposition, it carries force that unsettles and overcomes what claims security.

The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty.

Psalm 29:4 · KJVThe LORD’s voice carries force in itself, matching the power of the speech in Psalm 2:5.

And the LORD shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and shall shew the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones.

Isaiah 30:30 · KJVHere the LORD’s heard voice comes with anger and overwhelming force, as it does in Psalm 2:5.

And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:

2 Thessalonians 2:8 · KJVThe Lord’s word from his mouth overcomes the one who stands against him.

THE THREAD

And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea.

Exodus 15:8 · KJV

Psalm 2:5 uses ⁨אַף⁩ (ʾaf, “nose; anger”) in “in his anger”; Exodus 15:8 uses the same root for God’s “nostrils.” The shared word makes the anger here physical and forceful, using the same image that gathers the waters into heaps.

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