Psalms 110 Footnotes

Ps 110 This Davidic psalm is the one most often quoted in the NT as being prophetic of the coming of Jesus the Messiah. It looks forward to the coming of the King to defeat the wicked and to reign as a royal priest.

110:1 David received an oracle (“the declaration of the Lord to my Lord”) about the decree of God. David, being a prophet, foresaw that one of his descendants would be his Lord. That Davidic king would rule over the people of God by divine authority. He pictured him seated at God’s right hand as a co-Ruler, corresponding to ancient royal practice. Daniel would later indicate that this King, the Messiah, would come in clouds of heaven to receive dominion over all nations (Dn 7:13-14), as declared in Ps 2:7-9. David knew his descendant would be truly great (2Sm 23; 1Kg 2:19, 1Ch 28:5; 2Ch 9:8; Ps 72), but he did not foresee that the Lord himself would come and take on mortal flesh—Immanuel, “God with us.” Jesus asked his opponents to explain how the Messiah could be the son of David, since David called him his Lord (Mt 12:35-37); they had no answer for him. The implication is that Jesus was calling into question the religious leaders’ view of the Christ as a revolutionary leader.

The psalm pictures the sovereignty of the Messiah in terms of the Middle Eastern culture. Making one’s enemies a footstool was a poetic expression for defeat and subjugation (Jos 10:24; 1Kg 5:3; Is 51:23). The NT relates this passage to Jesus’s ascension to the right hand of the Father (Ac 2:33-34; Heb 1:3; 12:2) to await the time of the second coming (Ac 3:19-21). Having subjected all other authorities, he will hand over the kingdom to the Father (1Co 15:25).