(This was originally published here by Scott Aniol).
Psalm 110 is one of the most quoted psalms in the New Testament, because it is a very important prophetic psalm about the promised fulfillment of God’s covenant with David. The psalm begins with David prophesying. “Yahweh says”—that word “says” is a Hebrew word “often used to depict an oracle or a revelation.”[1] So the psalm literally begins, “The prophecy of Yahweh to my lord.”
Now pause for a moment. Here is David, God’s Anointed King, prophesying about someone he calls “my lord.” The sovereign king, Yahweh, is speaking to an earthly king even greater than David. David apparently recognized that someone would come after him who would be greater than him. One of his descendants would be God’s Anointed One—his Messiah—in a way even greater than David. Yahweh speaks to this Anointed One, David’s Lord, and says, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool” (110:1).
This is a promise of dominion. In the ancient world when a king conquered his enemy, he would rest his foot on the neck of his conquered foe as if he were his footstool, as a representation of his dominion. This is a promise of fulfillment of the dominion blessing that God has promised to Adam (Gen 1:28) and what God had promised to David (1 Chron 17). This is a promise of anticipation and hope when David may have been tempted to despair, or when Israel returns from exile to a city and temple that are destroyed and no Davidic king is sitting on the throne.
In the midst of that darkness and despair, the editors of the Psalter, carried along by the Holy Spirit of God, wanted God’s people to remember that a descendant of David is still coming who would be greater than David; Yahweh himself would say to that Anointed One, “sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.”
Here is the promise of a King greater than David who will fulfill the promises made to David and be given dominion over all things at Yahweh’s right hand.
And this is why Psalm 110:1 is the most quoted verse from the Psalms in the New Testament. Here is the promise of a King greater than David who will fulfill the promises made to David and be given dominion over all things at Yahweh’s right hand. The apostle Peter makes this very point in his sermon on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2). David isn’t talking about himself here, Peter argues, “For David did not ascend into the heavens” (Acts 2:34). This has to apply to someone else, one of David’s sons who would ascend to Yahweh’s right hand.
Well, but maybe this refers to some kind of heavenly being who is greater than David, seated at Yahweh’s right hand in heaven. No, the author of Hebrews quotes this verse and says, “But to which of the angels has [Yahweh] ever said, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’?” (Heb 1:13). No, says Peter at Pentecost, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36). Peter would say later to the high priest in Acts 5:
30 The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.
Jesus of Nazareth is the one David calls Lord in Psalm 110—he is David’s son but David’s Lord. He is the Anointed One, the One who would fulfill God’s promises to David. He lived a perfect life in obedience to God’s law, something David never did, and Solomon never did; he died on the cross—as the author of Hebrews says in chapter 10, he “for all time a single sacrifice,” and then God raised him from the dead and exalted him at his right hand; he “sat down at the right hand of God,” the author of Hebrews says, “waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet” (Heb 10:12). It is finished.
A Priest Forever
But notice that the author of Hebrews not only used the kingly language of Psalm 110—his enemies will be made his footstool, he also used priestly language. An earthly priest, he says in Hebrews 10:11, “stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.” But when this Anointed One “had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God” (v 12). That phrase from Psalm 110:1, “sat down,” signifies both the rule of a king and the finished, once-for-all sacrifice of a perfect priest. God had promised in 1 Samuel 2, after the sin of Eli’s sons,
35 And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind. And I will build him a sure house, and he shall go in and out before my anointed forever.
This is exactly what David prophesies in Psalm 110:4:
The Lord has sworn
and will not change his mind,
“You are a priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek.”
David’s Greater Son, he prophesies, will not only be a conquering king, he will also be a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek, that mysterious king of Salem (the future location of Jerusalem) whom Abram encounters and whom Moses calls a “priest of God Most High” (Gen 14:18). As the author of Hebrews says in chapter 5, Jesus “became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek” (vv 9–10).
David’s Greater Son will not only be a conquering king, he will also be a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.
David’s Greater Son will be both king and priest, Psalm 110 prophesies. David was never a priest like this; his son Solomon was never a priest like this. Only David’s Son whom he would call Lord would be both king and priest, and the New Testament tells us that this is Jesus. Jesus the Anointed One offered himself for all time a single sacrifice for sins, God raised him from the dead, he ascended into heaven, and then he sat down at the Father’s right hand, signifying both his right to rule and his finished priestly work.
Future Hope
And yet, God’s promise has not yet fully come to pass. Purification for sins is finished. Jesus is now seated at Yahweh’s right hand, and he intercedes for his people as the great High Priest (Heb 6:12), but the victory promised in verses 2–3 of Psalm 110 is still future even for us:
2 The Lord sends forth from Zion
your mighty scepter.
Rule in the midst of your enemies!
3 Your people will offer themselves freely
on the day of your power,
in holy garments;
from the womb of the morning,
the dew of your youth will be yours.
The author of Hebrews said as much. Jesus is seated at the right hand of God, “waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet (Heb 10:13)—waiting for when Yahweh would send out of Zion the rod of his strength and give him rule in the midst of his enemies. Waiting for when his people will offer themselves freely on the day of his power in the beauty of holiness.
Verse four and the first phrase of verse 5 are fulfilled, but the rest of the psalm is yet to be fulfilled:
5 The Lord is at your right hand;
he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.
6 He will execute judgment among the nations,
filling them with corpses;
he will shatter chiefs
over the wide earth.
7 He will drink from the brook by the way;
therefore he will lift up his head.
For David and for Israel returned from exile, this whole psalm was unfulfilled prophecy, meant to form anticipation and hope in the midst of darkness and uncertainty.
But for us, verse one is already fulfilled, and verse four is already fulfilled; that’s what all of these NT quotations are arguing. Jesus the Anointed One is seated at the right hand of God the Father; God “has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name”—what is that name? The name of Lord, of King, of the Davidic ruler—“so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:9–10). And Jesus the Anointed One has offered the once-for-all sacrifice, sitting down like no other priest was every able to do.
Verse one of Psalm 110 is already fulfilled, but verses 2–3 are not yet fulfilled. Verse four is already fulfilled, but verses 5–7 are not yet fulfilled. They are meant to create in us anticipation and hope in the midst of darkness and uncertainty.
And, in fact, we have even more reason to have hope in the complete fulfillment of this psalm, the final fulfillment of God’s covenant with David, because we have confidence that part of this prophecy is already fulfilled. If God has already fulfilled verse one, we can be confident that he will fulfill the rest.
[1] Ross, A Commentary on the Psalms, 3:873.
[2] Allen P. Ross, Recalling the Hope of Glory: Biblical Worship from the Garden to the New Creation (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2006), 106.
This essay was adapted from Musing on God’s Music: Forming Hearts of Praise with the Psalms by Scott Aniol.
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