¹The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”

The NT quotes, refers to, and alludes to this psalm more than any other passage in the OT. Jesus Christ saw the cryptic messianic application to Himself, and the apostolic writers elucidated the application to Christ. The importance of this seven-verse psalm exceeds its brevity.

This can be classified as a royal psalm akin to Psalm 2, highlighting the Davidic dynasty of Israel as being imbued with divine favor. The Jews understood this psalm as ultimately fulfilled in the Messiah, a descendant of King David, who would deliver Israel from all foreign oppression and raise it to prominence in the world. They did not believe the Messiah would be an incarnated God-man as Christians do, but a man sent by God to be an earthly savior in a political-military sense and to lead the nation back to God.

The first verse catches our attention by the relationship between three individuals. The psalmist David (“my”) writes that Yahweh God (“The Lord”) speaks to Adonai (“my Lord”). David, who reigned over Israel as king, was not subject to any earthly potentate, yet here he acknowledges one that is superior to him. While it is true that the word Adonai can be a term of respect and refer to a powerful and authoritative human being, it is unlikely that David would subject himself to a mere earthly king.

The content of what Yahweh God says to Adonai is found in verses 2-4, where Yahweh refers to Himself in the third person (often typical of OT narrative). This unique dialogue between the two, with Yahweh promising to defeat and subjugate all the Lord’s enemies to Adonai’s authority, is the key to understanding the psalm’s significance. Yahweh God further promises the full establishment of Davidic rule (vs. 2), with the full consent of the people (vs. 3). In a surprising twist, He binds Himself with an oath to install Adonai as a forever priest according to the order of Melchizedek (vs. 4). This statement carries significant weight, considering the high importance attached to the Jewish priesthood that descended from Aaron.

Three things are startling. In addition to being a king, Adonai would also be a priest. Second, his priesthood would be a break from the Aaronic priesthood of Israel and be a new, different order of priesthood, Melchizedekian. Third, we read, “the Lord has sworn and will not change His mind.” God variously speaks about doing things and then later does something different depending on the people’s response. But here, Yahweh invokes wording to commit to a permanent, unchanging declaration: Adonai will be a Melchizedekian priest. When a man became an Aaronic priest, there was no oath from God confirming it. But this priesthood of Adonai is notable for its singular oath from God. The Lord commands this introduction of a different order of priesthood, which must have rattled the thinking of Israel in the OT times.

What is this priesthood all about? Melchizedek was a king associated with Abraham. He appears in the narrative of Genesis 14 quickly and briefly, then is gone. There, he is identified as the king of Salem (likely the precursor to the city of Jerusalem), and also “a priest of God, Most High” (Gen. 14:18). Further, His name means “king of righteousness,” an odd thing considering so little is said of him. So he was both a king and priest, which portends the Adonai king of Psalm 110. These two brief passages are the only place in the OT where Melchizedek is mentioned, whose priestly order includes only one member, Melchizedek himself, who in Psalm 110 is Adonai, the coming priest-king, believed by the Jews to be the Messiah.

Verse 5 indicates a change in perspective: “The Lord [Adonai] is at your right hand.” Before, we see Yahweh God speaking to Adonai, now it is the psalmist addressing someone, referred to by the reference “your,” that Adonai would empower him to victorious battle outcomes. This would be David and every king in his dynasty. The Adonai of verses 1-4, the priest-king to ultimately bring absolute and complete victory for Israel, would be at the right hand of Israel’s earthly king.

The NT gives us the inspired interpretation of all this in Hebrews 5-7, showing that the mystery of Melchizedek was revealed in the identity of the Lord Jesus Christ. His priesthood is superior to that of the Aaronic priesthood (all those descended from Aaron who served as priests in Israel). Thus, Psalm 110, on NT authority, refers to none other than the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord Jesus used Psalm 110 powerfully when He posed to the Pharisees a penetrating question. It wasn’t a trick question like theirs, but an incisive interpretative question designed to expose their blindness to Scripture, which they were assumed to be experts in interpreting. His setup question was this: “What do you think about the Christ, whose son is He?” (Matt. 22:42). They gave the acceptable answer prevalent in their thinking and also rooted in the OT teaching: The Messiah will be a descendant of David (indicated by the Jewish customary phrase “son of David”).

And then Jesus follows, assuming their answer was correct, with a poignant question that challenges them to the core of their thinking about the Messiah and the OT’s progressive view of Israel’s hope. There are actually two questions surrounding the quotation of Psalm 110: “Then how does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord’” and, “If David calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his son?”

Jesus uses the customary Greek translation of the OT, in wide use among the Jews of His day. Both the Hebrew terms, Yahweh and Adonai, are rendered with the Greek word “kurios,” which is translated in English as “Lord.” The distinction might seem to be lost in the translation, but Jesus gives His divine acceptance of this accepted translation of the dual use of the word “kurios” (“Lord”). Specifically, the person Jesus refers to is the “Adonai” of the Hebrew version of Psalm 110. So, to the Pharisees’ ears, the question is this: How can David call the same individual “Lord” who is also his (i.e. David’s) descendant? The inference in Jesus’ question is that the Messiah will be both of human descent from David and greater than David. Using the same word, “kurios,” indicates that Jesus is inferring this person would be God in the flesh. This truth was unacceptable to the Pharisees at the time, for it undermined their thinking on the identity of the Messiah, a human leader.

The question was so biting, incisive, and penetrating that it stopped the Pharisees in their tracks—they were utterly tongue-tied and shut down. The obvious answer was unacceptable to them, namely, that the Messiah (“Christ”) would be a descendant of David and also superior to David, using the same word “Lord” to refer to the Messiah and also to Yahweh God.

So, this short psalm is monumental in understanding the identity of the Messiah, whom the NT claims to be Jesus of Nazareth. We can therefore identify Yahweh in this psalm as the first person of the Trinity and Adonai as the Messiah, the second person of the Trinity, namely Jesus Christ.

Lord Jesus, I look to You as my Lord, the ruler of my life, and the priest who sacrificed Yourself and continually intercedes for me.