May 2008 Lectio Divina

Psalm 110
Christ in the Psalms

Within the two main psalm-types (praise and lament) there is one group of psalms which has had a profound influence on Christian use of the psalms – the Royal Psalms. Scattered throughout the psalter are a number of psalms originally connected with the court or the person of the Davidic king. There are prophetic psalms addressed to the king, prayers for the king, thanksgiving for the king, prayers of the king himself, a royal processional song and a bridal ode for the marriage of the king,

In these psalms the king is proclaimed to be ‘son of God,’ his reign is said to be without end, stretching to the bounds of the earth. He is to bring peace and justice to the world and to be a savior to his people. The fact that Israel’s king was the anointed of Yahweh, the ‘Messiah’ (‘Anointed One’), meant that many of these psalms became part of Israel’s messianic hope. Christians quickly came to see in them clear prophecies of Christ. Psalm 110 is the most quoted psalm in the New Testament. In the messianic psalms the Church came to hear ‘Christ calling out to his Father, or the Father speaking to the Son.’ Hence in the psalms we are led into the heart of the Trinity, into the inner relationship between Father and Son. Patristic exegesis of the psalms concentrated on discerning the voice of the Father, the voice of the Son, and the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking in the psalms.

To read the psalms as a prophecy of Christ and his relationship with his Father, and through them to enter into the heart of the relationship between Father and Son, is perhaps the most important dimension of learning to pray the psalms, but also the most difficult. We will look at several psalms from Morning and Evening Prayer to see how they can be understood as expressing the experience and prayer of Christ.

Prophetic Psalms addressed to the King
Psalm 110 occurs each Sunday, for Evening Prayer II, and is a prophecy addressed to Israel’s king, a prophecy which Jesus applied to himself in Matthew 22:41-46. Because this psalm is the most quoted in the whole of the New Testament and because it occurs each week in the four-week cycle of psalms of the Divine Office, it is worth while studying it closely.

The psalm begins:

The Lord’s revelation to my Master:
‘Sit on my right:
Your foes I will put beneath your feet.’

There are two levels of meaning in the psalm. The first is historical. The psalm seems to have originally been composed for the coronation of Israel’s king. The opening words are a prophecy delivered, by the high priest, to the king, called here ‘my Master.’

Sit on my right. In the prophecy the Lord invites the king to take the place of highest honor, at God’s right hand. Some scholars have suggested that at the coronation ceremony the king’s throne was placed on the right of the Ark of the Covenant in the holy of holies, symbolically seating the king at the Lord’s right hand.

Your foes I will put beneath your feet. A victorious king would sometimes place his foot on the neck of his defeated enemy, symbolizing his total power over his foe. The prophecy promises the king victory over all his enemies.

The second level of interpretation came when the psalm was interpreted by Jewish scholars as a prophecy concerning the Messiah. Now, instead of being addressed to David the king, the psalm was interpreted as being composed by David the king, and addressed to the coming Messiah.

This is the way Jesus reads the psalm in Matthew 22:41-45.

‘While the Pharisees were gathered round, Jesus put to them this question, ‘What is your opinion about the Christ? Whose son is he?’ They told him, ‘David’s.’ He said to them, ‘Then how is it that David, moved by the Spirit, calls him Lord, where he says:

The Lord declared to my Lord,
take your seat at my right hand,
till I have made your enemies
your footstool?

If David calls him Lord, how then can he be his son?’

Jesus is pointing to the fact that while his human origins go back to David, there is something divine about the Messiah which sets him above David. The early Church followed this second level of interpretation, taking its lead from Jesus himself and interpreting Psalm 110 as a prophecy given by David concerning the Messiah.

The psalm continues:

The Lord will wield from Sion
your scepter of power:
rule in the midst of all yours foes.

On the historical level, it may have been at this point in the coronation ritual that the king was invested with the scepter, symbol of his might and authority. The psalm says that the Lord God will wield the king’s scepter. In other words, God will exercise his divine authority and power on behalf of the king. Sion is another name for Jerusalem, the holy city.

Rule in the midst of all your foes. The king is commanded to exercise his authority as God’s representative over all peoples. The prophecy assures the king he will be triumphant.

It is easy to see how this verse came to be applied to the Messiah, and hence to Jesus. It is understood by the Church as being a prophecy of the way the authority and power of Jesus the Christ will be exercised over all the world. Sion is interpreted as referring to heaven, or to the Church, the new Jerusalem.

A prince from the day of your birth
on the holy mountains;
from the womb before the dawn I begot you.

This verse has a number of widely variant translations, each dependent on different textual variants. The version we have here continues to prophecy addressed to the king, and speaks of his royal dignity from birth, and of his being ‘son of God’ – from the womb...I begot you. Psalm 89:27 also speaks of the Davidic king as God’s first-born son. When the psalms speak of the king in this way, as god’s son, they mean much less than what the New Testament means when it speaks of Jesus as God’s Son.

The Old Testament use of the title ‘son of God’ when applied to the king meant that there was a unique relationship between the Lord and the king, a relationship as close as father and son. It is the Lord who has created and chosen the king, and who will be his Father. The king for his part owes the Lord the obedience and love of a son. Again, it is easy to understand how the early Church read this verse as a prophecy of Christ, Son of God in a unique sense.

The Lord has sworn an oath he will not change
‘You are a priest for ever,
a priest like Melchizedek of old.

This prophetic oracle installs the king in the priestly office. Melchizedek was a mysterious figure described in Genesis 14:18 as king of Salem (possibly an early name for Jerusalem) and ‘a priest of God Most High,’ who blessed Abram and to whom Abram gave a tithe of all he possessed.

Psalm 110 takes Melchizedek as a forerunner of the Davidic king, who, like Melchizedek, is invested with his authority not by an earthly power but by God himself.

The Second Book of Samuel, (6:13-19) describes King David performing priestly functions of offering burnt offerings and communion sacrifices when the Ark was first brought into Jerusalem. The Church reads this verse as a clear prophecy of Christ’s priesthood. Its relationship to Melchizedek if fully worked out in Hebrews 7.

The Master standing at your right hand
will shatter kings in the day of his wrath.

This verse appears to be addressed to God, and speaks of the victory David will have over all his enemies. Understood as a prophecy of Christ, it refers to the Day when he will come to judge the living and the dead.

He shall drink from the stream by the wayside
and therefore he will lift up his head.

The king during the coronation ceremony may have drunk water from the brook – possibly the spring Gihon in Jerusalem, mentioned in connection with the anointing of King Solomon in 1 Kings (1:33-45) – in order to be empowered with life and power. Or the reference may be to the king refreshing himself from a mountain stream in the midst of battle. To lift up his head is a metaphor for victory. In this verse the Christian can read of the way Christ was filled with the Spirit for his ministry, and was therefore triumphant over sin and Satan.

The different ways that this psalm can be prayed with reference to Christ are indicated by the antiphons that go with it.

Through the Year: The Lord will send his mighty scepter from Sion, and he will rule for ever, alleluia.

This antiphon gives the basic interpretation of the psalm as a prophecy concerning Christ, through whom God rules for ever. The heading for the psalm (The Messiah is king and priest) and the sentence (He must be king so that he may put all his enemies under his feet (1 Corinthians 15:25) emphasize this Christological interpretation.

Advent: Rejoice greatly, daughter of Sion, shout with gladness, daughter of Jerusalem, alleluia.

As we pray Psalm 110 in Advent we celebrate the coming of Christ the king.

Lent, Sunday 1: You must worship the Lord, your God, and serve him alone.

This antiphon takes the reply Jesus gave at his temptation in the wilderness (which is read on this Sunday) and underlines the sovereign rule of the Lord. He has authority over Satan, the ultimate enemy.

Lent, Sunday 5: As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up:

reminds us that the Messiah reigns from the tree, that his victory over his enemies was won on the Cross.

Eastertide: The Lord has risen and sits at the right hand of God, alleluia:

celebrates the ‘coronation’ of Christ, his ascension to his rightful place as ruler of all.

Commentary from ‘The School of Prayer’ – an Introduction to the Divine Office for All Christians, by John Brook, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota (1992).