Today’s Passage: Psalm 110
Here David does something remarkable: he reports a word that was given to him. The LORD said to my Lord, sit at My right hand, and you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. No psalm in all the Old Testament is quoted more often in the New than this one. Jesus once asked a question from it that left the whole room silent, Peter preached it at Pentecost, and the letter to the Hebrews built an entire priesthood upon it. So we will not try to smooth the figure down into nothing more than an earthly king, for Jesus’ own reading of it stands, and it is the same gospel we have carried all along. When the footstool of His enemies will finally be finished is left open on any calendar. That He is coming, and that He judges, is not left open at all.
As you read, hold this: The LORD said to my Lord: Sit at My right hand.
Context Of David. A psalm that looks up.
The psalm carries its own heading, “A Psalm of David,” and that heading is part of the text. Jesus treated David as the speaker, writing in the Spirit. Now, an ordinary royal song looks upward from the people toward their king, or from the king himself toward God. This one does something stranger, for here Israel’s own king is looking up at someone he calls my Lord. In that world a king had no human superior standing above him, and yet in his words David bows to another. The strangeness of it survived centuries of faithful reading, long before the New Testament ever opened. The New Testament did not invent it.
Psalm 110:1 (BSB)
¹ A Psalm of David. The LORD said to my Lord: “Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”
Word study "The LORD said to my Lord" — YHWH and adon (Psalm 110:1)
The two English words that both come to us as “Lord” are two different Hebrew words underneath. The first, the LORD, is יְהוָה (YHWH), the covenant name. Strong’s H3068. The second, my Lord, is לַאדֹנִי (la’doni), from אָדוֹן (adon), which means lord or master. H113. And “said” here is no casual verb, but נְאֻם (ne’um), the solemn word for an oracle. H5002. David is not offering an opinion of his own; he is reporting a word that was given to him.
David is himself the king, and above him stands God and no one else. Yet here he names a third party, calling Him my Lord, and God takes that Lord and seats Him at His own right hand.
Sit at My right hand: that is the second seat in the room, the place of delegated authority beside God’s own throne. Until I make Your enemies a footstool, God says, and notice that the seated One does not have to fight for His chair. The subduing of His enemies is God’s own work. The little word until marks when the waiting comes to an end, not when the reign comes to an end. Exactly when the footstool will be finished on our calendars is left open. That the enemies will one day become that footstool is not open at all.
Study notes The question Jesus asked
"While the Pharisees were assembled, Jesus questioned them: 'What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is He?' 'David's,' they answered. Jesus said to them, 'How then does David in the Spirit call Him "Lord"? For he says: "The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at My right hand until I put Your enemies under Your feet.'" So if David calls Him "Lord," how can He be David's son?'" Matthew 22:41-45 (BSB)
Their answer was correct, as far as it went. The Christ is David’s son, and Jesus never says otherwise. What He presses on them is that the correct answer is not yet the complete one. In that world a descendant did not outrank his own father, and yet David, speaking in the Spirit, calls his own future son my Lord. Jesus lets both halves stand together: David’s son, and David’s Lord.
The New Testament never picks only one of the two halves. Jesus of Nazareth is David’s descendant in real human flesh, and He is also, eternally, David’s Lord. He is one person in two natures, and neither of them is watered down by the other.
Peter would preach this very verse only weeks later.
"For David did not ascend into heaven, but he himself says: 'The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet."' Therefore let all Israel know with certainty that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." Acts 2:34-36 (BSB)
This Jesus, Peter says, God has made both Lord and Christ. That reading is settled and closed.
Psalm 110:2-3 (BSB)
² The LORD extends Your mighty scepter from Zion: “Rule in the midst of Your enemies.” ³ Your people shall be willing on Your day of battle. Arrayed in holy splendor, from the womb of the dawn, to You belongs the dew of Your youth.
Rule in the midst of Your enemies, the LORD says, and notice that it is in the midst of them, not only after they are gone. Zion is named by name, a small place on any ancient map, and the psalm offers no apology for its smallness. In verse 3 the people are willing, and the Hebrew word behind “willing” is the very word used for freewill offerings. This King’s army comes to Him as volunteers.
The second half of verse 3 is genuinely hard to read. The manuscripts and the old translations differ among themselves, and we are left with holy splendor, and dawn pictured as a womb, and dew that no one manufactures. The most likely sense is of a host that arrives the way the morning dew arrives, fresh and abundant, out of a source no one can quite point to. That picture fits an army of willing volunteers well. Still, it is the most likely sense, not a settled one.
Psalm 110:4 (BSB)
⁴ The LORD has sworn and will not change His mind: “You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.”
Here comes a second speech, and with it a second office. Throne and altar are laid on one and the same person. In Israel this was not merely unusual; it was dangerous, for kings who reached out for priestly privilege were judged for it. Yet God Himself swears this office into place, and He will not change His mind.
Context Who Melchizedek was
Melchizedek appears only once in the story, back in Genesis 14, and then he vanishes again. He is king of Salem and priest of God Most High. He brings out bread and wine, he blesses Abram, and Abram gives him a tenth of everything. Genesis is a book full of genealogies, yet for this one man it names no father, no mother, and no death. He is king and priest at one and the same time, centuries before Levi was ever born, before Israel had a priesthood, before Israel had a throne. Psalm 110 reaches back behind the whole Levitical system to that one figure and says of this coming Lord, this is His order.
Study notes A priest forever
"And this point is even more clear if another priest like Melchizedek appears, one who has become a priest not by a law of succession, but by the power of an indestructible life. For it is testified: “You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.”" Hebrews 7:15-17 (BSB)
Aaron’s priesthood ran along a line of descent, and it always ended at a grave. This priest holds His office instead by the power of an indestructible life. He has no predecessor and no successor. The word forever is carrying the whole weight here. A priest who dies must be replaced, but a priest who never dies never has to hand His work on to another. The access He secures for us is never reopened for renegotiation, and the oath of verse 4 makes that access certain rather than merely hoped for.
Psalm 110:5-7 (BSB)
⁵ The Lord is at Your right hand; He will crush kings in the day of His wrath. ⁶ He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead; He will crush the leaders far and wide. ⁷ He will drink from the brook by the road; therefore He will lift up His head.
Verse 5 can be read either as God standing at the king’s side, or as the enthroned king’s own authority speaking out. Honest readers differ over the grammar of it. But what follows does not depend on our settling that particular knot. He will crush kings, judge the nations, and heap up the dead. The psalm does not hold out a reign in which the opposition is merely outlasted and left standing. He judges, and He is coming: that much is closed and settled ground. The day of it marked on any chart is not.
Then the psalm closes with one small last image. He drinks from a brook beside the road, like a soldier in a pursuit not yet finished, and then He lifts up His head. It is the bearing of someone who already knows He has won.
The LORD said to my Lord: Sit at My right hand.