Psalm 110:1-3: Sit at My Right Hand

Article Series - Psalm 110
  1. Psalm 110: Introduction
  2. Psalm 110: Structure
  3. Psalm 110:1-3: Sit at My Right Hand

The first of the two prophetic oracles initiates the interpreter into the enthronement ritual. Here the prophet announces that Yahweh has extended to the king a position of prestige at his right hand. This imagery is incomparable; in the Psalter a king is regularly represented as sitting (bvy) before God’s face (ynEåp.li),[1] but rarely at His right hand (ynI+ymiyli(). This subtle shift and its similarities with Egyptian symbolism has led some scholars to suggest that the image is “imported from Egypt, as an invitation for the king to ‘dwell’ rather than ‘sit’ at the right hand of God.”[2] The imperative (bveî) is not merely a command but an invitation which permits the king to inhabit Yahweh’s presence.[3]

Yahweh’s invitation has three implications. First, the authority of kingship and the victory over enemies is entirely derivative. The enthronement ceremony involves an “actual transferral of authority,”[4] which occurs by divine decree (~aun>) spoken by a prophet, but God is the real King and the earthly ruler rules “as a co-regent and representative, deriving his authority from his divine counterpart.”[5]

Second, the summons assumes the king shares in the life and actions of the divine King. The king has dominion over his foes, not as a passive agent,[6] but as a sovereign who subjugates enemies in a manner that concedes he is deriving his power from and participating in the larger purposes of the God of Israel. Yahweh will make his enemies a footstool for his feet.[7] Subdued enemies becomes the theme of vs. 2 in explanation of the extent of the king’s authority which expands from Zion[8] right into the midst of his enemies (br<q<åB.). The metaphor employed here is an extended scepter (hJ,m;), an emblem of world dominance, martial authority, and national glory (Jer. 48:17).[9] The phrase dealing with world dominance is controlled by an imperative (hdEªr>÷) that involves an element of promise: the prophet assures the king that the vanquishing of his rivals will most certainly take place in the future.[10]

Finally, the transmission of authority and the promises of world dominance and divine protection are intimately connected in history and ritual with the king’s divine Sonship: an idea which speaks nothing of ontological realities, but rather of status and adoption. In the ceremony of conferral of authority, the prophet enacts a legal transmission whereby the king is declared the adopted son of God.[11] The designation of divine sonship finds its roots in Ps. 2:7, the parallel text to 110:3.  110:3 has long been deemed “mysterious”[12] and the “most obscure verse in the whole Psalter.”[13] Understanding the verse entails considering a fair amount of textual alteration and thus this text has fashioned numerous scholastic constructions and explanations. The factors are numerous but here are a few. First, the verse contains two nominal clauses which offer the interpreter no indication of time. Second, a textual variant in 3b might be rendered either “holy majesty” (MT) or the minority reading, “on the holy mountains.” Here I will retain the MT reading primarily because the majority rendering of vd<qoß-yrEd>h;B. provides a fitting transition between the discussion of kingship and the discussion of priesthood. Third, due to the corruption of the Hebrew text and its lack of verbs, the LXX offers the most likely route for interpretation by inserting evxege,nnhsa,. This makes the most sense, especially in light of Ps. 2:7. Fourth, a hapax legomenon (rx’v.mi) occurs in the second phrase creating the usual interpretive difficulties associated with such an anomaly.[14]

Verse 3 begins with the imagery of the king’s subjects eagerly offering themselves to his military service, then moves to a three line description of the king’s Sonship which occurs in mixed-metaphor. The first metaphor, as already noted, has two possible Hebrew constructions. The majority reading used here portrays the king as “arrayed in holy splendor (Ps. 29:2).” The word vd,qo places his kingly majesty in a cultic context and creates a nice transition into vs. 4.[15]

The metaphor shifts at this point into two lines describing how the king was begotten of God “from the womb of the dawn (rx”+v.mi ~x,r<äme).”[16] Employing the LXX reading, which provides the word evxege,nnhsa,, the final line carries the metaphor of birth by asserting that Yahweh is the progenitor of the king. The king is the son of God through divine decree and a decisive transformation “of the kings essential nature (Ps. 2:7)”[17] through the set of legal acts previously footnoted[18] This proclamation legitimizes the kings rule. By the time of the Psalter’s compilation, this psalm had clearly taken on messianic, eschatological significance, but at the time this particular psalm was written, it would have served the political ideologies of “that segment of society (urban elite) who benefited from a centralized government”[19] because of its exaltation of the king to the status of sharing in divine glory and receiving divine power with Yahweh’s “unconditional commitment to protect and prosper Israel.”[20] Centralizing political power into one figure is now accompanied by centralizing religious power in the same figure. Read More


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