“Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things?”
You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant David: 'Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? — the prayer cites Psalm 2:1-2, ascribing it to David via the Spirit. The nations (ethnē, nations, gentiles, peoples) raging and plotting in vain (mataios, fruitless, vain, futile) describes opposition to God's anointed (christos, anointed, messiah). The Sanhedrin's opposition is thus assimilated to the cosmic opposition to God's plan predicted in Scripture.
Church Fathers on Acts 4:25
with one accord they lifted up their voice to God, and said: Acts 4:24 and with great earnestness, for it is no prayer made at random. Observe with what exquisite propriety their prayers are framed: thus, when they besought to be shown who was meet for the Apostleship, they said, You, Lord, which know the heart of all men, show: Acts 1:24 for it was a subject for Prescience there: but here, where the thing needed was that the mouths of their adversaries should be stopped,…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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