Psalms 110
Psalm 110 carries the simplest of headings - A Psalm of David - and the shortest of frames: seven verses. Yet no passage in the Hebrew Scriptures is quoted, echoed, and leaned upon more often by the writers of the New Testament. Jesus presses it on the Pharisees; Peter preaches it at Pentecost; the letter to the Hebrews returns to it again and again; Paul reaches for it when he writes of the end. To read Psalm 110 slowly is to stand at the source of a river that runs through the whole New Testament.
The psalm is built from two great announcements, and each one is sealed. The first is a word God speaks to a figure David can only call my Lord: The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool (v. 1). It is a summons to the place of supreme authority - the right hand - and a promise that every opposing power will at last be brought low.
The second announcement is sworn under oath, the strongest assurance Scripture knows: The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek (v. 4). Here the figure on the throne is also named a Priest - not of the line of Aaron, but of an older and stranger order reaching back to the mysterious king-priest of Genesis. King in verse 1, Priest in verse 4: the two offices, kept carefully apart all through Israel's history, are joined in one person.
The closing verses widen the scene. The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among the heathen… he shall wound the heads over many countries (vv. 5-6). The reign that began with a quiet word - Sit thou at my right hand - ends with the subduing of every rival power on the earth. And the very last line, after a strange picture of the warrior pausing to drink from a wayside brook, turns upward: He shall drink of the brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up the head (v. 7).
The whole psalm moves from the right hand of God to the head lifted in triumph. The apostles heard in these seven verses the story of One enthroned at God's right hand, interceding as a priest for ever, and reigning until the last enemy is put beneath His feet.
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People in this chapter
Psalm 110:1-3 · A Psalm of DavidSit Thou at My Right Hand
1The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. 2The LORD shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. 3Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.
The psalm opens with a sentence that has puzzled and thrilled readers for three thousand years: The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Notice first who is speaking and to whom. David, the anointed king of Israel - the highest human authority in the land - reports a word that God speaks not to David, but to someone David himself calls my Lord. There is, in other words, a Lord above the king, One to whom even David must look up.
And to this Lord God says: Sit thou at my right hand. In the ancient world the seat at a monarch's right hand was the place of highest honour and shared authority - the position of the one who ruled with the king and acted in his name. This is not a command to wait idly; it is an enthronement. The figure is seated in the place of supreme power, and there He remains until I make thine enemies thy footstool - the image of a victor whose conquered foes are brought so low that they become the very stool beneath His feet.
The whole sweep of the verse is one of unrivalled exaltation: a Lord enthroned at God's own right hand, awaiting the final subjection of every opposing power.
The LORD shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies (v. 2). The rod is the ruler's sceptre - the emblem of royal authority and power. It goes out of Zion, the city of God, the seat of His kingdom on earth, from which the enthroned Lord's rule will extend outward. And then a striking phrase: He rules in the midst of thine enemies. Not from a fortress safely removed from danger, not after the battlefield has been cleared, but in the very thick of opposition.
The reign described here is not a reign that waits for the world to fall quiet first; it is a reign exercised now, in contested territory, surrounded by hostility that has not yet been subdued. This is the same picture verse 1 began - a Lord enthroned at the right hand until the enemies are made a footstool. The kingship is real and present even while the enemies are real and present. The until of verse 1 and the in the midst of verse 2 belong together: the King reigns already, though the last enemy has not yet fallen.
Verse 3 turns from the King to His people, and the language grows luminous: Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth. The first thing said of the King's people is that they are willing - not conscripted, not dragged into His service, but glad and ready in the day of his power. A King enthroned at God's right hand gathers not slaves but volunteers.
They come in the beauties of holiness, an expression used elsewhere of worshippers arrayed in sacred splendour before God - the people of this King are a worshipping people, clothed in holiness as in fine garments. And then two images of freshness and abundance: from the womb of the morning and the dew of thy youth. Both pictures point to something new-born, unspent, and countless - dew that appears at dawn over the whole ground, fresh as the first light of day.
However the precise grammar is weighed, the impression is unmistakable: the King's willing people are as numerous and as fresh as the dewdrops of the morning, a multitude rising to Him at the dawn of His day of power.
The Messiah is David's son - and also David's Lord, seated at God's right hand. And no man was able to answer him a word (Matt. 22:46). After the resurrection, Peter stood before Jerusalem and announced where that seat was now filled: For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:34-36).
The letter to the Hebrews drives it home with a question about the angels: But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool? (Heb. 1:13) - to none of them; only to the Son. And Paul writes that this reign continues to its appointed end: For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet (1 Cor. 15:25).
The word David overheard - Sit thou at my right hand - the apostles proclaimed as accomplished fact: the crucified and risen Jesus enthroned at the right hand of God, reigning until the last enemy is made His footstool.
We live in exactly that in the midst. The trouble around you is real; so is the throne. And notice what verse 3 says the King wants from His people: not grudging compliance but a willing heart - thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. So the practice is simple. When the world feels out of hand, preach verse 1 to yourself: the One who matters most is already seated, already reigning, and the outcome is not in doubt - until I make thine enemies thy footstool. And then offer Him the one thing this King asks: a willing heart, glad in His service, even here, even now, in the middle of the unfinished battle.
Psalm 110:4-7Thou Art a Priest For Ever
4The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. 5The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. 6He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries. 7He shall drink of the brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up the head.
Verse 4 introduces the second great announcement of the psalm, and it begins with the strongest words of assurance Scripture knows: The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent. God does not merely declare this; He swears it - and adds that He will not repent, will not change His mind, will not draw it back. What follows, then, is fixed and irreversible: Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. Three things in that line are worth weighing.
First, the figure already enthroned as King in verse 1 is now also named a priest - and in Israel those two offices were kept rigorously apart. Kings came from the tribe of Judah; priests from the tribe of Levi, the house of Aaron. No king of Israel was ever a priest, and when one tried to seize the priest's role he was struck with leprosy (2 Chron. 26:16-21). Yet here is One who is both.
Second, this priesthood is for ever - not a lifetime office passed from father to son at death, but an unending one. Third, it is after the order of Melchizedek, not of Aaron - an older, stranger priesthood reaching back behind the law of Moses to the days of Abraham. The oath of verse 4 sets this Priest-King in a category entirely His own.
It rests its hope on it: Jesus has entered within the veil, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec (Heb. 6:20). And it presses the wonder of a priesthood not founded on lineage but on indestructible life: such a priest is made not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. For he testifieth, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec (Heb. 7:16-17).
Because this priesthood does not pass from one mortal to the next, it never lapses: this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them (Heb. 7:24-25). And Hebrews points back to the very oath of verse 4 as the seal of it all: The Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec (Heb. 7:21).
Here is the union the whole psalm has been moving toward: the King seated at God's right hand (v. 1) is the Priest sworn into office for ever (v. 4) - One who reigns and One who intercedes, on the throne and yet pleading for His people, at the same time and for ever.
The scene now widens into judgment: The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath (v. 5). There is a deliberate turn here worth noticing. In verse 1 the King was invited to sit at God's right hand; now it is the Lord who is at thy right hand - the one enthroned and the LORD who enthroned Him acting together, side by side, in the same work.
The imagery is of a King going out to war alongside his God: kings who set themselves against Him are struck down in the day of his wrath. The language is stern, and meant to be. The reign promised in verse 1 - until I make thine enemies thy footstool - is not a sentiment but a certainty, and verses 5 and 6 show the certainty carried out. Proud kings who rule over many countries, who have set themselves against the LORD and His Anointed, will not stand in that day.
The same psalm that opens with the tenderness of a willing people in the beauties of holiness does not flinch from the other side of the King's coming: a real and final reckoning with every power that has refused His rule.
He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries (v. 6). The reach of this judgment is universal - among the heathen, that is, among all the nations, not Israel alone. The enthroned King is judge of the whole earth, and the vivid, sobering battlefield imagery - the places… with the dead bodies… the heads over many countries - insists that His authority is total and His victory complete.
No corner of the world lies outside His jurisdiction; no power, however high or wide its dominion, is exempt from His judgment. It is the same vision that runs from verse 1 to the end: a King whose enemies are all, at last, brought low. But the language deliberately echoes something older. He shall wound the heads recalls the first promise of all, spoken in Eden over the serpent: the seed of the woman shall bruise thy head (Gen. 3:15).
The judgment of Psalm 110 is the working out, on the scale of the nations, of that ancient word - the decisive wounding of every head lifted up against God.
The whole shape of the gospel is folded into that movement. The One who is enthroned at God's right hand and sworn a priest for ever is also the One who went down - who, in the words of the apostle Paul, humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name (Phil. 2:8-9).
The same therefore stands in both: He stooped, therefore He is lifted up. The King of Psalm 110 drinks from the brook in the way and lifts His head; the risen Lord, having tasted death, is raised and seated on high. And the head lifted at the end of this psalm answers the footstool of its beginning: the enemies brought low under His feet, the head of the King lifted up for ever.
If you remember only the Priest, you may forget that the One who prays for you also reigns over everything that threatens you. But hold them together and something steadies in you: the One enthroned over the whole contested world is the very same One whose ongoing work is to pray for you by name. The throne is not indifferent to you; the intercession is not powerless. So bring your actual life - the worry, the failure, the unfinished battle - to a Lord who is both.
He is reigning until the last enemy falls, and at the same time He is interceding for you, and He will not change His mind, for the LORD hath sworn, and will not repent.
Where this echoes in Scripture
Sit Thou at My Right Hand
- Matthew 22:41-46How then doth David in spirit call him Lord... If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?Jesus presses verse 1 on the Pharisees - the Messiah is David's son and David's Lord at once.
- Acts 2:34-36The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand... God hath made that same Jesus... both Lord and Christ.Peter preaches verse 1 at Pentecost as fulfilled in the risen and ascended Jesus.
- Hebrews 1:13But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?Verse 1 applied to the Son, enthroned above every angel - said to none of them, only to Him.
- 1 Corinthians 15:25For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.The footstool of verse 1 unfolded - the reign that continues until the last enemy is subdued.
- Psalm 2:6-9Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion... thou shalt break them with a rod of iron.The companion royal psalm - the King set in Zion, ruling the nations with a rod, as in verse 2.
Thou Art a Priest For Ever
- Hebrews 7:17For he testifieth, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.Verse 4 quoted as the charter of Christ's priesthood - founded on endless life, not lineage.
- Hebrews 7:24-25he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood... he ever liveth to make intercession for them.The “for ever” of verse 4 unfolded - a priest who never lapses, always interceding.
- Genesis 14:18-20Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.The king-priest of verse 4 - both king and priest, centuries before Aaron, who blessed Abraham.
- Philippians 2:8-9he humbled himself... Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.The descent-then-exaltation of verse 7 - He stooped to the brook, therefore lifts up the head.
- Genesis 3:15it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.The wounded head of verse 6 echoes Eden's first promise - every head lifted against God brought low.