Psalm 2

Caution! This is a Messiah psalm

 and therefore controversial.

1. Why are the heathens crazy? They complain about nothing!

   That’s how I rendered the first verse. Some translations say nations some say heathen. I prefer heathen as its more artsy. Now crazy seemed right considering the choices others used.Such as rage, uproar and even tumultuously assembled. Now the second part I chose complain which is similar to mutter used by the Jewish publication society. Other translators say imagine or meditate. There is a big difference between the idea of complaining or muttering and the idea of meditating or imagining. It seems to me that the sense calls for the complaining because think about anger for a moment. Angry people don’t generally stop to meditate or dream they bitch up a storm.

   The last word everyone else seems to use is vain or vanity. Well vanity means pretty much about nothing, and is translated as such elsewhere and made better poetry.