Psalm 110:1-7
A Psalm of David.
1 The LORD said to my Lord,
"Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool."
2 The LORD shall send the rod
of Your strength out of Zion. Rule in the midst of Your enemies!
3 Your people shall be
volunteers In the day of Your power; In the beauties of holiness, from the womb
of the morning, You have the dew of Your youth.
4 The LORD has sworn And will
not relent, "You are a priest forever According to the order of
Melchizedek."
5 The Lord is at Your right
hand; He shall execute kings in the day of His wrath.
6 He shall judge among the
nations, He shall fill the places with dead bodies, He shall execute the heads
of many countries.
7 He shall drink of the brook
by the wayside; Therefore He shall lift up the head.
Besides the title telling us
that David wrote Psalm 110, Jesus and Peter both stated that David wrote it (Matt.
22:43; Mark 12:36; Luke 20:42; Acts 2:33-35). They also say that David was a prophet, and he
wrote it about the Messiah (Acts 2:30; 2 Sam. 23:2). He certainly did not write
about any of his own descendants, for no Jewish king was ever a priest, let
alone a priest forever (v. 4; 2 Chron. 26:16-23). Also, no Jewish king ever
conquered all the rulers of the whole earth (v. 6).
The psalm is quoted or alluded
to in the New Testament more than any other psalm, verse 1 at least twenty-five
times and verse 4 another five times. Ten of these quotations or allusions are
in the book of Hebrews alone.
Jesus used verse 1 to prove
His deity and silence the Pharisees in Matthew 22:41-46: “While the
Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, "What do you
think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?" They said to Him, "The Son
of David." He said to them, "How then does David in the Spirit call
Him 'Lord,' saying: 'The LORD said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand, Till
I make Your enemies Your footstool" '? "If David then calls Him
'Lord,' how is He his Son?" And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor
from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore.”
Psalm 110 presents two
pictures of Messiah from the past. His exaltation as King (vv. 1-3) and His
consecration as Priest (v. 4). And then a
third picture from the future, His victory over the enemies of God (vv. 5-7),
which happens at the end of Tribulation and His Millennium reign over all the
earth in Revelation 19.
The psalm opens with the exaltation
of proclaiming Jesus is King (vv. 1-3). David begins the psalm by saying: “The
LORD said to my Lord…”. "Jehovah
says to my Adonai". Since David was
the highest ruler in the kingdom, his Adonai had to be the Lord Himself. It was
this fact that Jesus presented to the Pharisees (Matt. 22:41-46), asking them
how David's Lord could also be David's son, (the Messiah). The only possible answer
is by incarnation. The eternal Son of God had to come to earth as a human born
into the family of David by a virgin (Luke 1:26-38). The only way this could be
explained is as eternal God, Jesus is the "root of David”, which means He
is the originator of David. And as a man
Jesus is "the offspring of David" (Rev. 22:16; 5:5).
Had the Pharisees honestly
faced this truth, they would have had to confess that Jesus is indeed the Son
of God come in the flesh, but they refused to do so. It is so sad that even
today so many so-called Christians still deny the deity of Jesus Christ.
But my friend, this is where
eternal life is found! John 20:30-31 states: “And truly Jesus did many other
signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but
these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God, and that believing you may have life in His name.”
God bless!
