Psalm 110

Psalms 110:1

The Hebrew title reads A Psalm of David, and the ascription carries the argument the Lord himself makes from this verse: if David calls him Lord, how is he then David's son, a question the scribes could not answer (Matt 22:41-45). The oracle sets two persons in one line, the Lord speaking to my Lord, David's own king addressed by David as his superior long before that king was born. No verse in the Psalter is quoted so often in the New Testament: by Christ himself (Matt 22:44, Mark 12:36, Luke 20:42), by Peter at Pentecost (Acts 2:34), and by the writer to the Hebrews (Heb 1:13), each reading it as the Father's word to the risen and exalted Son.

Psalms 110:2-3

The scepter goes out from Zion at the Lord's own sending, and rule thou in the midst of thine enemies describes a kingdom exercised amid opposition rather than after it is cleared away, David's own experience turned into this king's charter. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power pictures an army of volunteers rather than the conscripts of an ordinary Hebrew king, dressed in the beauties of holiness, priestly language applied to warriors. The closing line, from the womb of the morning, thou hast the dew of thy youth, is read two ways by the bench: Gill and Barnes take it for a host as countless and as fresh as morning dew, while others set it beside this day have I begotten thee (Ps 2:7) as the Son's own generation, and both readings are named without deciding between them.

Psalms 110:4

The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent sets this priesthood on an oath rather than a bloodline, unlike the Aaronic order, which came by descent and by law. Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek reaches back to Genesis 14's priest-king of Salem, who received tithes from Abraham and carries no recorded father, mother, or genealogy in the text, which Hebrews reads as a picture of a priesthood without end (Heb 7:3). This single verse carries the whole argument of Hebrews for a priesthood that supersedes Levi's: the writer returns to it six times over (5:6, 5:10, 6:20, 7:11, 7:17, 7:21), building from it that Christ is priest and king together, a combination the law never allowed a son of David.

Psalms 110:5-6

The right hand changes place: in verse 1 the king sits at the Lord's right hand, and here the Lord stands at his, the picture of a divine warrior fighting beside his anointed rather than a shift within the Godhead itself. He shall judge among the heathen extends the reign named in verse 2 into open war, filling the places with the dead bodies and wounding the heads over many countries, language the older writers read of a judgment that reaches every nation rather than Israel's neighbors alone.

Psalms 110:7

The closing image is a soldier stooping to drink from a stream without breaking march, which the older writers read as refreshment snatched in the midst of pursuit rather than a settled rest. Therefore shall he lift up the head closes the psalm where it began, the exalted head answering the enthronement of verse 1, so the whole arc runs from the king seated, to the king in battle, to the king triumphant.