Psalms 110
Big idea: Seven verses, and no psalm is quoted more often in the New Testament. Its first line is a puzzle Jesus set the Pharisees: Yahweh says to my Lord — if David wrote it, who is David calling Lord? Its fourth verse is stranger still, because Israel's kings were never priests and its priests were never kings: you are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek, a man who appears in Genesis for three verses with no genealogy at all. Hebrews spends four chapters on that one sentence.
Psalm 110 sets a priest-king at God's right hand. Psalm 111 begins the acrostic pair on what such a God is like.
110:1–7 — Sit at my right hand
The most-quoted Old Testament passage in the New Testament, and its difficulty is in the first line: 'Yahweh says to MY LORD'. David is quoting a conversation in which someone he calls Lord is invited to sit at God's right hand — which is the puzzle Jesus poses in Matthew 22. And the second half is stranger still: a king who is also a priest, in an order older than Aaron.
1 A Psalm by David. Yahweh says to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool for your feet.” 2 Yahweh will send out the rod of your strength out of Zion. Rule among your enemies. 3 Your people offer themselves willingly in the day of your power, in holy array. Out of the womb of the morning, you have the dew of your youth. 4 Yahweh has sworn, and will not change his mind: “You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.” 5 The Lord is at your right hand. He will crush kings in the day of his wrath. 6 He will judge among the nations. He will heap up dead bodies. He will crush the ruler of the whole earth. 7 He will drink of the brook on the way; therefore he will lift up his head.
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).