The Holy Spirit’s Favorite Verse: Unpacking Psalm 110:1-3 Series

Psalms 110:1-7 Of David. A Psalm. 1 Yahweh says to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet." 2 Yahweh will extend your mighty scepter from Zion; you will rule in the midst of your enemies. 3 Your people will be willing on the day of your power, arrayed in the splendor of holiness. From the womb of the dawn you will receive 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 on the day of his wrath. 6 He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth. 7 He will drink from a brook beside the way; therefore he will lift up his head.

Introduction

What is your favorite Bible verse? How about this—what do you think is the Holy Spirit’s favorite verse? I’ll give you my guess in a minute, but first let me tell you what we’re studying. In between series, I like to teach through a psalm. Whenever I ask people for a list of their favorite psalms, one psalm that’s never been on anyone’s list is Psalm 110. I’ve never taught it because, honestly, it wasn’t on my list of favorites either. It’s kind of a strange psalm, hard to interpret, no heart-warming little devotional nuggets like you get in the 23rd Psalm or Psalm 139.

1 Of David. A Psalm. Yahweh says to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet." 2 Yahweh will extend your mighty scepter from Zion; you will rule in the midst of your enemies. 3 Your people will be willing on the day of your power, arrayed in the splendor of holiness. From the womb of the dawn you will receive 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 on the day of his wrath. 6 He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth. 7 He will drink from a brook beside the way; therefore he will lift up his head.

There’s just a lot of confusing things in there. The Hebrew is obscure, lots of variant readings, sentences where each word in the sentence has several possible meanings. One scholar said it’s the most obscure passage in the entire Old Testament, which is saying a lot. The LORD talks to the Lord and talks about the dew of his youth … , then this strange reference to Melchizedek out of the blue that doesn’t seem connected to anything else in the psalm. Then it gets really violent, like, rated-R violent with corpses stacked up in piles. Piles of dead bodies just isn’t very … devotional. Never seen that verse on a mug. And then the whole thing ends with this strange verse:

7 He will drink from a brook beside the way.

He destroys the nations and then takes a drink out of a creek? What is that? When I decided a couple months ago that it would be our next study, I wanted to listen to as many sermons on it by my favorite preachers as I could. Almost none of them have taught it. I went to website after website—no messages on Psalm 110. The reason that’s significant is that Psalm 110 is the most frequently-quoted OT chapter in the NT. Jesus himself quoted it more than once, and he quoted it in very significant contexts. So while Psalm 110 doesn’t usually make our list of God’s greatest hits in the psalms, the authors of Scripture have it right at the top of their list. So I wanted to dig into it. That’s why we’re studying Psalm 110. And of all the verses in Psalm 110, the one that is quoted the most by other Bible writers by far is verse 1. So if we believe the New Testament is inspired by the Holy Spirit, which I do, then we would have to say Psalm 110:1 appears to be the Holy Spirit’s favorite verse in the whole OT.

Of David

There are lots of psalms that start out, “A psalm of David.” (And yes, those headings are part of inspired Scripture). This psalm switches it around.

Psalm 110:1 Of David. A psalm.

It’s especially important that we know this psalm was written by David. In Matthew 22, Jesus built a whole argument about himself on the fact that David wrote it, so that if David didn’t write it, Jesus’ who argument completely falls apart.