Psalms 110 commentary

Glorious things are here spoken of Christ. Not only he should be superior to all the kings of the earth, but he then existed in glory as the eternal Son of God. Sitting is a resting posture: after services and sufferings, to give law, to give judgment. It is a remaining posture: he sits like a king for ever. All his enemies are now in a chain, but not yet made his footstool. And his kingdom, being set up, shall be kept up in the world, in despite of all the powers of darkness. Christ's people are a willing people. The power of the Spirit, going with the power of the world, to the people of Christs, is effectual to make them willing. They shall attend him in the beautiful attire of holiness; which becomes his house for ever. And he shall have many devoted to him. The dew of our youth, even in the morning of our days, ought to be consecrated to our Lord Jesus. Christ shall not only be a King, but a Priest. He is God's Minister to us, and our Advocate with the Father, and so is the Mediator between God and man. He is a Priest of the order of Melchizedek, which was before that of Aaron, and on many accounts superior to it, and a more lively representation of Christ's priesthood. Christ's sitting at the right hand of God, speaks as much terror to his enemies as happiness to his people. The effect of this victory shall be the utter ruin of his enemies. We have here the Redeemer saving his friends, and comforting them. He shall be humbled; he shall drink of the brook in the way. The wrath of God, running in the curse of the law, may be considered as the brook in the way of his undertaking. Christ drank of the waters of affliction in his way to the throne of glory. But he shall be exalted. What then are we? Has the gospel of Christ been to us the power of God unto salvation? Has his kingdom been set up in our hearts? Are we his willing subjects? Once we knew not our need of his salvation, and we were not willing that he should reign over us. Are we willing to give up every sin, to turn from a wicked, insnaring world, and rely only on his merits and mercy, to have him for our Prophet, Priest, and King? and do we desire to be holy? To those who are thus changed, the Saviour's sacrifice, intercession, and blessing belong.

PSALM 110

In this psalm David sets forth the perpetuity of Christ’s reign, and the eternity of his priesthood; and, in the first place, he affirms, That God conferred upon Christ supreme dominion, combined with invincible power, with which he either conquers all his enemies, or compels them to submit to him. In the second place, he adds, That God would extend the boundaries of this kingdom far and wide; and, in the third place, That Christ, having been installed into the priestly office with all the solemnity of an oath, sustains the honors of that equally with those of his regal office. Finally, That this shall be a new order of priesthood, whose introduction shall put an end to the Levitical priesthood, which was temporary, and that it shall be everlasting.

A Psalm of David.

Having the testimony of Christ that this psalm was penned in reference to himself, we need not apply to any other quarter for the corroboration of this statement; and, even supposing we neither had his authority, nor the testimony of the apostle, the psalm itself would admit of no other interpretation; In Matthew 22:42-45, Christ applies this portion of Scripture to himself; and this application the Pharisees, before whom it was made, so far from disputing, at once admitted, as appears from their inability to answer our Lord’s question, which was founded upon it; for had the psalm been differently interpreted by any party among the Jews, the Pharisees would unquestionably have taken advantage of such diversity of opinion, to escape from the difficulty in which they were placed by the question addressed to them. The Messianic interpretation of this psalm is also supported by the testimony of the apostles. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 1:13) quotes the first verse, to prove Christ’s superiority in dignity to angels, to whom Jehovah had never said, “Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” In Acts 2:34, 35, Peter quotes the same passage, as prophetical of Christ’s ascension into heaven. See also 1 Corinthians 15:25; Hebrews 7:17; Ephesians 1:20, etc. The psalm is thus beyond all controversy, a very clear prediction of the divinity, priesthood, victories, and triumph of the Messiah. We have so many Scriptural helps to its exposition, that we can be at no loss as to its meaning. Such also is the strength of the internal evidence, in support of its application to Christ, that although the Jews have taken a great deal of pains to wrest it to another sense, yet several of the Rabbins have been forced to acknowledge that it belongs to him. for although we should have a dispute with the Jews, the most obstinate people in the world, about the right application of it, we are able, by the most irresistible arguments, to compel them to admit that the truths here stated relate neither to David nor to any other person than the Mediator alone. It is acknowledged that the kingdom of Christ is typified in the person of David, but it cannot be asserted of him, or of any of his successors, that he should be a king whose dominion should be widely extended, and who, at the same time, was to be a priest, not according to the law, but according to the order of Melchizedek, and that for ever; for, at that time, no new and unusual priestly dignity could be instituted, without depriving the house of Levi of this peculiar honor. Besides, the perpetuity which is ascribed to the sacerdotal office cannot belong to any man, because, with the exception of the man Christ Jesus, this honor terminates immediately at the close of the short and uncertain course of the present life. But as these topics will be considered, more at large, in their proper place, it is sufficient that we have, at this time, briefly alluded to them.

Psalm 110:1-3

1. Jehovah said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. 2. Jehovah shall send out of Zion the scepter of thy power: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. 3. Thy people shall come with voluntary offerings, at the time of the assembling of thine army, “Au temps d’assembler ton exercice.” — Fr. in beauty of holiness: Calvin, in pointing this verse, has very properly placed the colon after holiness, and not after morning, as in our English Bible. from the womb as from the morning dawn to thee has been the dew of thy youth.

1 Jehovah said to my Lord “The Lord said unto my Lord. Heb., ‘Jehovah assuredly said unto my Adon,’ which last word is used for lord in every variety of rank, from the master of a family to the sovereign of an empire. In its origin, this title seems similar to the Italian cardinal, which means primarily a hinge, as Adon does a socket; hence figuratively applied to executive magistrates, on whom the government rests, and public affairs turn.” — Williams. What is here stated might to some extent be applied to the person of David, inasmuch as he neither ascended the royal throne illegally, nor did he find his way to it by nefarious artifices, nor was he raised to it by the fickle suffrages of the people, but it was by the direct authority of God that he reigned over Israel. It may be justly affirmed of all the kings of the earth, that they have been placed upon their thrones by the hand of God, for the kingdoms of this world are appointed by the decree of heaven, and “there is no power but of God,” (Romans 13:1) Besides, as this kingdom was altogether peculiar, it was the design of David to make a distinction between it and all other kingdoms. God indeed invests kings with authority, but they are not consecrated as David was, that like him, in consequence of the holy anointing oil, they might be elevated to the rank of Christ’s vicegerents. In the eighty-second psalm they are called gods, because by the will of God they hold their position, and in some respects are his representatives, (all power being lodged in him;) but they are not clothed with that sacred majesty by which David was honored to be a type of God’s only begotten Son. Moreover, he justly observes that the kingdom was conferred upon him in a totally different manner from other earthly kings, who, while they acknowledge that it is by the grace of God they reign, yet, at the same time, do not consider that they are sustained by his power, but, on the contrary, imagine that they reign either by their own policy, by hereditary right, or by the kindness of fortune; and, therefore, in so far as it respects themselves, it must be affirmed, that they have no legitimate title to reign. And since they do not recognize the hand of God in what they derive from him, his command cannot be properly addressed to them. David, who was well aware that he was anointed by God to be king over Israel, and who maintained an obscure and retired position until summoned to assume the reins of government, shows good cause why he is not to be classed with the ordinary kings of the earth; meaning that he reigned by a Divine right. That the whole of what is stated in this verse cannot be entirely and exclusively applied to David, is very obvious from Christ’s reply to the Pharisees, (Matthew 22:44) They having said that Christ was to be the son of David, he saith unto them, “How then doth David himself call him Lord?”

The objection started by the Jews, that Christ’s reply was captious, is entirely frivolous, because David does not speak in his own name, but in that of the people. This objection is easily repelled. For even granting that this psalm was penned in name of the whole Church, yet as David himself constituted one of the number of the godly, and was a member of the body under the same head, he could not separate himself from that class, or be dissevered from this head; what is more, he could not compose this psalm for others without, at the same time, taking part with them in it. There is besides another thing deserving of notice, the assumption of the principle or maxim then generally admitted, that David spake by the spirit of prophecy, and consequently prophesied of the future reign of Christ. This principle of interpretation being admitted, it is plainly to be inferred that he had a reference to Christ’s future manifestation in the flesh, because he is the sole and supreme Head of the Church. From which it also follows, that there is something in Christ more excellent than his humanity, on account of which he is called the Lord of David his father. This view is strengthened by what is stated in the second clause of the verse. Earthly kings may indeed be said to sit at God’s right hand, inasmuch as they reign by his authority; here, however, something more lofty is expressed, in that one king is chosen in a peculiar manner, and elevated to the rank of power and dignity next to God, of which dignity the twilight only appeared in David, while in Christ it shone forth in meridian splendor. And as God’s right hand is elevated far above all angels, it follows that he who is seated there is exalted above all creatures. We will not maintain that angels were brought down from their high estate to be put in subjection to David. What, then, is the result, but that by the spirit of prophecy Christ’s throne is exalted far above all principalities in heavenly places? The simile is borrowed from what is customary among earthly kings, that the person who is seated at his right hand is said to be next to him, and hence the Son, by whom the Father governs the world, is by this session represented as metaphorically invested with supreme dominion.

Until I make thine enemies thy footstool The expression is borrowed from the Eastern custom of conquerors putting their feet upon the necks of their enemies. See Joshua 10:24. By these words the prophet affirms that Christ would subdue all the opposition which his enemies in their tumultuous rage might employ for the subversion of his kingdom. At the same time, he intimates that the kingdom of Christ would never enjoy tranquillity until he had conquered his numerous and formidable enemies. And even should the whole world direct their machinations to the overthrow of Christ’s royal throne, David here declares that it would remain unmoved and unmoveable, while all they who rise up against it shall be ruined. From this let us learn that, however numerous those enemies may be who conspire against the Son of God, and attempt the subversion of his kingdom, all will be unavailing, for they shall never prevail against God’s immutable purpose, but, on the contrary, they shall, by the greatness of his power, be laid prostrate at Christ’s feet. And as this prediction will not be accomplished before the last day, it must be that the kingdom of Christ will be assailed by many enemies from time to time until the end of the world; and thus by-and-bye it is said, rule thou in the midst of thine enemies The particle until does not refer to that which may happen after the complete carnage of the enemies of Christ. “Until I make, etc. It is remarked by Genebrard, that the particle עד is to be taken emphatically, as if it were equivalent to etiam donec, and signifies continuity; not the exception or exclusion of future times. Jehovah is, therefore, speaking in substance as follows: — ‘Reign with me even until I make thy enemies thy footstool; even at the time which seems opposed to thy kingdom, and when thy enemies appear to reign, that is, before I have prostrated thy enemies, and have caused them to make submission to thee. After this subjection of thy adversaries, it is unnecessary to say, Thou wilt continue to reign.’ If this be not the force of the passage, then we must suppose that the reign of Christ will cease when he has completely subjugated the world; which is contrary to what we are taught elsewhere in Scripture. The particle is used in a similar manner in Psalm 123:3; Deuteronomy 7:24.” — Phillips. Paul certainly declares that he will then deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father, which he received from him, (1 Corinthians 15:24;) but we are not to take these words as denoting that he shall cease to reign, and become, as it were, a private individual; we are to regard them as describing the manner of his reign, that is, that his Divine majesty will be more conspicuous. Moreover, in this passage he is speaking solely of the reprobate who fall under Christ’s feet to their own ruin and destruction. All mankind are naturally opposed to Christ, and hence it is, that ere they be brought to yield a willing obedience to him, they must be subdued and humbled. This he does with regard to some of them whom he afterwards makes partakers with him in his glory; while he casts off others, so that they may remain for ever in their lost state.

PSALM 110

Psa 110:1-7. The explicit application of this Psalm to our Saviour, by Him (Mt 22:42-45) and by the apostles (Ac 2:34; 1Co 15:25; He 1:13), and their frequent reference to its language and purport (Ep 1:20-22; Php 2:9-11; He 10:12, 13), leave no doubt of its purely prophetic character. Not only was there nothing in the position or character, personal or official, of David or any other descendant, to justify a reference to either, but utter severance from the royal office of all priestly functions (so clearly assigned the subject of this Psalm) positively forbids such a reference. The Psalm celebrates the exaltation of Christ to the throne of an eternal and increasing kingdom, and a perpetual priesthood (Zec 6:13), involving the subjugation of His enemies and the multiplication of His subjects, and rendered infallibly certain by the word and oath of Almighty God.

1. The Lord said--literally, "A saying of the Lord," (compare Psa 36:1), a formula, used in prophetic or other solemn or express declarations.

my Lord--That the Jews understood this term to denote the Messiah their traditions show, and Christ's mode of arguing on such an assumption (Mt 22:44) also proves.

Sit ... at my right hand--not only a mark of honor (1Ki 2:19), but also implied participation of power (Psa 45:9; Mr 16:19; Ep 1:20).

Sit--as a king (Psa 29:10), though the position rather than posture is intimated (compare Ac 7:55, 56).

until I make, &c.--The dominion of Christ over His enemies, as commissioned by God, and entrusted with all power (Mt 28:18) for their subjugation, will assuredly be established (1Co 15:24-28). This is neither His government as God, nor that which, as the incarnate Saviour, He exercises over His people, of whom He will ever be Head.

thine enemies thy footstool--an expression taken from the custom of Eastern conquerors (compare Jos 10:24; Jud 1:7) to signify a complete subjection.

2. the rod of thy strength--the rod of correction (Is 9:4; 10:15; Jr 48:12), by which Thy strength will be known. This is His Word of truth (Is 2:3; 11:4), converting some and confounding others (compare 2Th 2:8).

out of Zion--or, the Church, in which God dwells by His Spirit, as once by a visible symbol in the tabernacle on Zion (compare Psa 2:6).

rule thou, &c.--over enemies now conquered.

in the midst--once set upon, as by ferocious beasts (Psa 22:16), now humbly, though reluctantly, confessed as Lord (Php 2:10, 11).

3. Thy people ... willing--literally, "Thy people (are) free will offerings"; for such is the proper rendering of the word "willing," which is a plural noun, and not an adjective (compare Ex 25:2; Psa 54:6), also a similar form (Jud 5:2-9).

in the day of thy power--Thy people freely offer themselves (Ro 12:1) in Thy service, enlisting under Thy banner.

in the beauties of holiness--either as in Psa 29:2, the loveliness of a spiritual worship, of which the temple service, in all its material splendors, was but a type; or more probably, the appearance of the worshippers, who, in this spiritual kingdom, are a nation of kings and priests (1Pe 2:9; Re 1:5), attending this Priest and King, clothed in those eminent graces which the beautiful vestments of the Aaronic priests (Le 16:4) typified. The last very obscure clause--

from the womb ... youth--may, according to this view, be thus explained: The word "youth" denotes a period of life distinguished for strength and activity (compare Ec 11:9)--the "dew" is a constant emblem of whatever is refreshing and strengthening (Pr 19:12; Ho 14:5). The Messiah, then, as leading His people, is represented as continually in the vigor of youth, refreshed and strengthened by the early dew of God's grace and Spirit. Thus the phrase corresponds as a member of a parallelism with "the day of thy power" in the first clause. "In the beauties of holiness" belongs to this latter clause, corresponding to "Thy people" in the first, and the colon after "morning" is omitted. Others prefer: Thy youth, or youthful vigor, or body, shall be constantly refreshed by successive accessions of people as dew from the early morning; and this accords with the New Testament idea that the Church is Christ's body (compare Mi 5:7).

4. The perpetuity of the priesthood, here asserted on God's oath, corresponds with that of the kingly office just explained.

after the order--(He 7:15) after the similitude of Melchisedek, is fully expounded by Paul, to denote not only perpetuity, appointment of God, and a royal priesthood, but also the absence of priestly descent and succession, and superiority to the Aaronic order.

5. at thy right hand--as Psa 109:31, upholding and aiding, which is not inconsistent with Psa 110:1, where the figure denotes participation of power, for here He is presented in another aspect, as a warrior going against enemies, and sustained by God.

strike through--smite or crush.

kings--not common men, but their rulers, and so all under them (Psa 2:2, 10).

6. The person is again changed. The Messiah's conquests are described, though His work and God's are the same. As after a battle, whose field is strewn with corpses, the conqueror ascends the seat of empire, so shall He "judge," or "rule," among many nations, and subdue

the head--or (as used collectively for "many") "the heads," over many lands.

wound--literally, "smite," or "crush" (compare Psa 110:5).

7. As a conqueror, "faint, yet pursuing" [Jud 8:4], He shall be refreshed by the brook in the way, and pursue to completion His divine and glorious triumphs.

The Lord said unto my Lord - Jehovah said unto my Adoni. That David's Lord is the Messiah, is confirmed by our Lord himself and by the apostles Peter and Paul, as we have already seen.

Sit thou at my right hand - This implies the possession of the utmost confidence, power, and preeminence.

Until I make thine enemies - Jesus shall reign till all his enemies are subdued under him. Jesus Christ, as God, ever dwelt in the fullness of the Godhead; but it was as God-man that, after his resurrection, he was raised to the right hand of the Majesty on high, ever to appear in the presence of God for us.

The rod of thy strength - The Gospel - the doctrine of Christ crucified; which is the powerful scepter of the Lord that bought us, is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword; and is the power of God to salvation to all them that believe.

The kingdom of our Lord was to be founded in Zion, and thence, by gradual conquests, to be extended over the whole earth. It was in Zion the preaching of the Gospel first began; and it is by the Gospel that Christ rules, even in the midst of his enemies; for the Gospel extends a moralizing influence over multitudes who do not receive it to their salvation.

Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power - This verse has been wofully perverted. It has been supposed to point out the irresistible operation of the grace of God on the souls of the elect, thereby making them willing to receive Christ as their Savior. Now, whether this doctrine be true or false it is not in this text, nor can it receive the smallest countenance from it. There has been much spoken against the doctrine of what is called free will by persons who seem not to have understood the term. Will is a free principle. Free will is as absurd as bound will, it is not will if it be not free; and if it be bound it is no will. Volition is essential to the being of the soul, and to all rational and intellectual beings. This is the most essential discrimination between matter and spirit. Matter can have no choice; Spirit has. Ratiocination is essential to intellect; and from these volition is inseparable. God uniformly treats man as a free agent; and on this principle the whole of Divine revelation is constructed, as is also the doctrine of future rewards and punishments. If man be forced to believe, he believes not at all; it is the forcing power that believes, not the machine forced. If he be forced to obey, it is the forcing power that obeys; and he, as a machine, shows only the effect of this irresistible force. If man be incapable of willing good, and nilling evil, he is incapable of being saved as a rational being; and if he acts only under an overwhelming compulsion, he is as incapable of being damned. In short, this doctrine reduces him either to a punctum stans, which by the vis inertiae is incapable of being moved but as acted upon by foreign influence; or, as an intellectual being, to nonentity. "But if the text supports the doctrine laid upon it, vain are all these reasonings." Granted. Let us examine the text. The Hebrew words are the following: עמך נדבת ביום חילך ammecha nedaboth beyom cheylecha, which literally translated are, Thy princely people, or free people, in the day of thy power; and are thus paraphrased by the Chaldee: "Thy people, O house of Israel, who willingly labor in the law, thou shalt be helped by them in the day that thou goest to battle."

The Syriac has: "This praiseworthy people in the day of thy power."

The Vulgate: "With thee is the principle or origin (principium) in the day of thy power." And this is referred, by its interpreters, to the Godhead of Christ; and they illustrate it by Joh 1:1 : In principio erat Verbum, "In the beginning was the Word."

The Septuagint is the same; and they use the word as St. John has it in the Greek text: Μετα σου ἡ αρχη εν ἡμερᾳ της δυναμεως σου· "With thee is the Arche, or principle, in the day of thy power."

The Ethiopic is the same; and the Arabic nearly so, but rather more express: "The government, riasat, exists with thee in the day of thy power."

The Anglo-Saxon, "With thee the principle in day of thy greatness."

The old Psalter, With the begynnyngs in day of thi vertu. Which it thus paraphrases: "I, the fader begynnyng with the, begynnyng I and thou, an begynnyng of al thyng in day of thi vertu."

Coverdale thus: "In the day of thy power shal my people offre the free-will offeringes with a holy worship." So Tindal, Cardmarden, Beck, and the Liturgic Version.

The Bible printed by Barker, the king's printer, 4th. Lond. 1615, renders the whole verse thus: "Thy people shall come willingly at the time of assembling thine army in the holy beauty; the youth of thy womb shall be as the morning dew."

By the authors of the Universal History, vol. iii., p. 223, the whole passage is thus explained: "The Lord shall send the rod, or scepter, of thy power out of Sion," i.e., out of the tribe of Judah: compare Gen 49:20, and Psa 78:68. "Rule thou over thy free-will people;" for none, but such are fit to be Christ's subjects: see Mat 11:29. "In the midst of thine enemies," Jews and heathens; or, in a spiritual sense, the world, the flesh, and the devil. "In the day of thy power," i.e., when all power shall be given him, both in heaven and earth; Mat 28:18. "In the beauties of holiness," which is the peculiar characteristic of Christ's reign, and of his religion.

None of the ancient Versions, nor of our modern translations, give any sense to the words that countenances the doctrine above referred to; it merely expresses the character of the people who shall constitute the kingdom of Christ. נדב nadab signifies to be free, liberal, willing, noble; and especially liberality in bringing offerings to the Lord, Exo 25:2; Exo 35:21, Exo 35:29. And נדיב nadib signifies a nobleman, a prince, Job 21:8; and also liberality. נדבה nedabah signifies a free-will offering - an offering made by superabundant gratitude; one not commanded: see Exo 36:3; Lev 7:16, and elsewhere. Now the עם נדבות am nedaboth is the people of liberality - the princely, noble, and generous people; Christ's real subjects; his own children, who form his Church, and are the salt of the world; the bountiful people, who live only to get good from God that they may do good to man. Is there, has there ever been, any religion under heaven that has produced the liberality, the kindness, the charity, that characterize Christianity? Well may the followers of Christ be termed the am nedaboth - the cheerfully beneficent people. They hear his call, come freely, stay willingly, act nobly, live purely, and obey cheerfully.

The day of Christ's power is the time of the Gospel, the reign of the Holy Spirit in the souls of his people. Whenever and wherever the Gospel is preached in sincerity and purity, then and there is the day or time of Christ's power. It is the time of his exaltation. The days of his flesh were the days of his weakness; the time of his exaltation is the day of his power.

In the beauties of holiness - בהדרי קדש behadrey kodesh, "In the splendid garments of holiness." An allusion to the beautiful garments of the high priest. Whatever is intended or expressed by superb garments, they possess, in holiness of heart and life, indicative of their Divine birth, noble dispositions, courage, etc. Their garb is such as becomes the children of so great a King. Or, They shall appear on the mountains of holiness, bringing glad tidings to Zion.

From the womb of the morning - As the dew flows from the womb of the morning, so shall all the godly from thee. They are the dew of thy youth; they are the offspring of thy own nativity. As the human nature of our Lord was begotten by the creative energy of God in the womb of the Virgin; so the followers of God are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but by the Divine Spirit.

Youth may be put here, not only for young men, but for soldiers; - so the Trojana juventus "the Trojan troops," or soldiers, in Virgil, Aen. 1: ver. 467; - and for persons, courageous, heroic, strong, active, and vigorous. Such were the apostles, and first preachers of the Gospel; and, indeed, all genuine Christians. They may be fully compared to dew, for the following reasons: -

1. Like dew, they had their origin from heaven.

2. Like dew, they fructified the earth.

3. Like dew, they were innumerable.

4. Like dew, they were diffused over the earth.

5. Like dew, they came from the morning; the dawn, the beginning of the Gospel day of salvation.

1. As the morning arises in the East, and the sun, which produces it, proceeds to the West; so was the coming of the Son of man, and of his disciples and apostles.

2. They began in the East - Asia Proper and Asia Minor; and shone unto the West - Europe, America, etc. Scarcely any part of the world has been hidden from the bright and enlivening power of the Sun of Righteousness; and now this glorious sun is walking in the greatness of its strength.

Saw ye not the cloud arise,

Little as a human hand?

Now it spreads along the skies,

Hangs o'er all the thirsty land.

Lo, the promise of a shower

Drops already from above;

But the Lord will shortly pour

All the spirit of his love.

The heavenly dew is dropping every where from the womb of the morning; and all the ends of the earth are about to see the salvation of God.

The Lord hath sworn - Has most firmly purposed, and will most certainly perform it, feeling himself bound by his purpose, as an honest man would by his oath.

And will not repent - Will never change this purpose; it is perfectly without condition, and without contingency. Nothing is left here to the will of man or angel. Christ shall be incarnated, and the Gospel of his salvation shall be preached over the whole earth. This is an irresistible decree of that God who loves mankind.

Thou art a priest for ever - The word כהן cohen signifies, not only a priest, but also a prince; as, in the patriarchal times, most heads of families had and exercised both political and sacerdotal authority over all their descendants. Every priest had a threefold office:

1. He was an instructor of the family or tribe over which he presided.

2. He offered sacrifices for the sins of the people, to reconcile them to God, and give them access to his presence.

3. He was their mediator, and interceded for them. So is Christ, the grand, the universal Instructor, by his word and Spirit; the Lamb of God, who, by his sacrificial offering of himself, takes away the sin of the world, and still continues to exhibit himself before the throne in his sacrificial character; and also the great Mediator between God and man: and in these characters he is a Priest for ever. He will instruct, apply the sacrificial offering, and intercede for man, till time shall be no more.

After the order of Melchizedek - For the elucidation of this point, the reader is requested to refer to the notes on Gen 14:18, Gen 14:19, and to the observations at the end of that chapter, where the subject, relative to the person, name, and office of this ancient king, is fully discussed; and it will be necessary to read that note, etc., as if appended to this place.

Melchizedek was king of Salem, that is, king of Jerusalem; for Salem was its ancient name: but שלם salem signifies peace, and צדק tsedek, righteousness. Christ is styled the Prince of peace; and he is the king that rules in the empire of righteousness; and all peace and righteousness proceed from him, Heb 7:2.

He is priest after the order of Melchizedek - after his pattern; in the same kind or manner of way in which this ancient king was priest.

Calmet properly observes that there were three orders of priesthood.

1. That of royalty. All ancient kings being, in virture of their office, priests also. This seems to have been considered as the natural right of royalty, as it obtained in almost every nation of the earth, from the beginning of the world down to the end of the Roman empire.

2. That of the first-born. This right appertained naturally to Reuben, as the first-born in the family of Jacob.

3. That of the Levites, instituted by God himself, and taken from Reuben, because of his transgression. The Levitical priesthood ended with the Jewish polity; and that also of the first-born, which had been absorbed in it.

This order, therefore, was not perpetual; it was intended to last only for a time. But that of royalty is perpetual, though not now in general use, because founded in what is called natural right. It is, therefore, according to this most ancient order, that Christ is a Priest for ever. The kings of England as heads of the Church appointing all bishops, continue to assume, in a certain way, this original right.

Melchizedek is said to be "without father without mother, without beginning of days, or end of life." We have no account of his parents; nothing of his birth; nothing of his death. Christ, as to his Divine nature, is without father or mother, and without beginning of days; nor can he have any end. Other priests could not continue by reason of death; but he is the Eternal, he cannot die, and therefore can have no successor: "He is a priest For Ever." Therefore, as Melchizedek was a priest and a king, and had no successor, so shall Christ be: of the increase and government of his kingdom there shall be no end.

Melchizedek was priest of the Most High God; and consequently not of one people or nation, but of the universe. Aaron was priest of one people, and for a time only; Jesus is priest of all mankind, and for ever. He tasted death for every man; he is the King eternal; he has the keys of hell and of death. As God is the King and Governor of all human beings, Christ, being the priest of the Most High God, must also be the priest for and over all whom this most high God made and governs; and therefore he is the priest, the atoning sacrifice, of the whole human race. In this the main similitude consists between the order of Melchizedek and that of Christ.

The Lord at thy right hand - Here Venema thinks the Psalm speaks of David. As Jesus is at the right hand of God, so he will be at thy hand, giving thee all the support and comfort requisite.

Shall strike through kings - As he did in the case of Abraham, Genesis 14:1-16, (for to this there seems to be an allusion), where he smote four kings, and filled the pits with the dead bodies of their troops. That the allusion is to the above transaction seems the most probable because in the same chapter, where the defeat of the four kings is mentioned, we have the account of Melehizedek coming to meet Abraham, and receiving the tenth of the spoils.

He shall judge among the heathen - David shall greatly extend his dominion, and rule over the Idumeans, Moabites, Philistines, etc.

He shall fill - with the dead bodies - He shall fill pits - make heaps of slain; there shall be an immense slaughter among his enemies.

He shall wound the heads - He shall so bring down the power of all the neighboring kings, as to cause them to acknowledge him as their lord, and pay him tribute.

He shall drink of the brook in the way - He shall have sore travail, and but little ease and refreshment: but he shall still go on from conquering to conquer.

Therefore shall he lift up the head - Or his head. He shall succeed in all his enterprises, and at last be peaceably settled in his ample dominions.

But these verses, as well as the former, may be applied to our Lord. The fifth verse may be an address to Jehovah: Adonai at thy right hand, O Jehovah, shall smite kings - bring down all powers hostile to his empire, in the day of his wrath - when, after having borne long, he arises and shakes terribly the rulers of the earth. Psa 110:6 He shall judge, give laws, among the heathen - send his Gospel to the whole Gentile world. He shall fill the field of battle with the dead bodies of the slain, who had resisted his empire, and would not have him to reign over them.

He shall wound the heads over many countries - This must be spoken against some person possessing a very extensive sway. Perhaps Antichrist is meant; he who has so many countries under his spiritual domination. Christ shall destroy every person, and every thing, which opposes the universal spread of his own empire. He will be a King, as well as a Priest for ever. Psa 110:7 He shall drink of the brook - he shall suffer sorely, and even die in the struggle: but in that death his enemies shall all perish; and he shall lift up the head - he shall rise again from the dead, possessing all power in heaven and earth, ascend to the throne of glory, and reign till time shall be no more. He must suffer and die, in order to have the triumphs already mentioned.

While all have acknowledged that this Psalm is of the utmost importance, and that it speaks of Christ's priesthood and victories, it is amazing how various the interpretations are which are given of different passages. I have endeavored to give the general sense in the preceding notes, and to explain all the particular expressions that have been thought most difficult: and by giving the various readings from the MSS., have left it to the learned reader to make farther improvements.

It has, however, long appeared to me that there is a key by which all the difficulties in the Psalm may be unlocked. As this has not been suggested by any other, as far as I know, I shall without apology lay it before the reader: -

The hundred and tenth Psalm is a War Song, and every phrase and term in it is Military.

1. In the first place may be considered here the proclamation of the Divine purpose relative to the sacerdotal, prophetic, and regal offices of the Lord Jesus Christ: "Jehovah said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on My Right Hand."

2. A grievous battle, and consequent victory over the enemy, foretold: I Will Make Thine Enemies the Footstool to Thy Feet, Psa 110:1.

3. The ensign displayed: "The Lord Shall Send Forth the Rod of Thy Strength; the pole on which the banner shall be displayed, at the head of his strength - his numerous and powerful forces.

4. The inscription, device, or motto on this ensign: "Rule Thou in the Midst of Thine Enemies," Psa 110:2.

5. The muster of the troops. A host of bold spirited volunteers; not mercenaries, neither kidnapped nor impressed; but עם נדבות am nedaboth, a volunteer people; high-born, loyal subjects; veteran soldiers; every man bringing gifts to his General and King.

6. The regimentals or uniform in which they shall appear: "The Beauties of Holiness; הדרי קדש hadrey kodesh, the splendid garments of holiness. The apparel showing the richness of the King, and the worth and order of the soldiers; every man being determined to do his duty, and feeling assured of conquest. The Lacedaemonian soldiers were clothed in scarlet; and never went to battle without crowns and garlands upon their heads, being always sure of victory. Potter's Ant., vol. ii., p. 55.

7. The number of the troops: They Shall Be As the Drops of Dew at Break of Day: - innumerable; and this shall be in consequence ילדתך yalduthecha, of thy nativity-the manifestation of Jesus. Thou shalt be born unto men; They shall be born of thy Spirit, Psa 110:3.

8. The title of the commander: "Thou Art a Priest," כהן cohen, a Priest and a Prince. So was Agamemnon in Homer, and Aeneas in Virgil. Both were princes; both were priests and both were heroes.

9. The perpetuity of this office: "For Ever;" לעולם Ieolam, for futurity - for all time - till the earth and the heavens are no more.

10. The resolution of setting up such a Priest and lying, and levying such an army: According to the Order of Melchizedek. The Commander, muster, and establishment of the corps shall be according to the plan of that ancient king and priest; or, translating the words literally, על דברתי מלכי צדק al dabarti malki tsedek, all shall be executed as I have spoken to my righteous king; I have sworn, and will not change my purpose. All my purposes shall be fulfilled. This speaking may refer to the purpose, Psa 110:1, confirmed by an oath, Psa 110:4.

11. Victory gained: Adonai at Thy Right Hand Hath Transfixed (מחץ machats) Kings in the Day of His Wrath, i.e., of battle and victory. Jesus, the Almighty King and Conqueror, fights and gains his battles, while sitting at the right hand of the Majesty on high, Psa 110:5.

12. Judgment instituted and executed: "He Shall Judge Among the Heathen," בגים baggoyim, among the nations. He shall bring forth, judge, and condemn his enemies; and he shall fill pits with the bodies of executed criminals, Psa 110:6.

13. False religion, supporting itself by the secular arm under the name of true religion, shall be destroyed. מחץ ראש על ארץ רבה machats rosh al erets rabbah; "He smites the head that is over an extensive land" or country. The priesthood that is not according to the order of Melchizedek shall be destroyed; and all government that is not according to him who is the eternal King and Priest, shall be brought down and annihilated. Who is this great Head? this usurping power? this antichristian authority? Let the Italian archbishop answer, Psa 110:6.

14. Refreshment and rest, the fruits of the victories which have been gained: "He Shall Drink of the Brook in the Way; Therefore, Shall He Lift Up the Head." He and his victorious army, having defeated and pursued his enemies, and being spent with fatigue and thirst, are refreshed by drinking from a rivulet providentially met with in the way. But the rout being now complete and final,

15. The emperor is proclaimed and triumphs: God lifts up the Head, - ראש rosh, the Chief, the Captain; as the word often means. Jesus, the Captain of our salvation, has a complete triumph; eternal peace and tranquillity are established. The Messiah is all in all - the last enemy, Death, is destroyed. Jesus, having overcome, has sat down with the Father upon his throne; and his soldiers, having also overcome through the blood of the Lamb, seated with him on the same throne, are for ever with the Lord. They see him as he is; and eternally contemplate and enjoy his glory: - "Far from a world of grief and sin,

With God eternally shut in."

Hallelujah! The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth! Amen, Amen.

The Lord - God the father. Said - Decreed it from eternity, and in due time published this decree, and actually executed it; which he did when he raised up Christ from the dead, and brought him into his heavenly mansion. Unto - Unto his son the Messiah, whom David designedly calls his Lord, to admonish the whole church, that although he was his son according to his human nature, yet he had an higher nature, and was also his Lord, as being God blessed for ever, and consequently Lord of all things. The Hebrew word Adon is one of God's titles, signifying his power and authority over all things, and therefore is most fitly given to the Messiah, to whom God hath delegated all his power Matt 28:18. Sit - Now take thy rest and the possession of that sovereign kingdom and glory, which by right belongeth to thee; do thou rule with me with equal power and majesty, as thou art God; and with an authority and honour far above all creatures, as thou art man. Make - By my almighty power communicated to thee as God by eternal generation, and vouchsafed to thee as mediator. Enemies - All ungodly men, sin and death, and the devil. Footstool - Thy slaves and vassals.

The rod - Thy strong or powerful rod, and the rod is put for his scepter, or kingly power: but as the kingdom of Christ is not carnal, but spiritual, so this scepter is nothing else but his word. Zion - From Jerusalem.

People - Thy subjects, shall offer thee as their king and Lord, not oxen or sheep, but themselves, their souls and bodies, as living sacrifices, and as freewill - offerings, giving up themselves to the Lord, 2Cor 8:5, to live to him, and to die for him. The day - When thou shalt take into thy hands the rod of thy strength, and set up thy kingdom in the world. In the beauties - Adorned with the beautiful and glorious robes of righteousness and true holiness. The dew - That is, thy offspring (the members of the Christian church) shall be more numerous than the drops of the morning dew.

Sworn - That this priesthood might be made sure and irrevocable.

The Lord - God the son; the Lord, who is at thy right - hand. Strike - Shall destroy all those kings who are obstinate enemies to him.

Judge - Condemn and punish them. The places - Or, the place of battle. Dead bodies - Of his enemies. Heads - All those princes who oppose him. But this and the like passages are not to be understood grossly, but spiritually, according to the nature of Christ's kingdom.

Drink - He shall have a large portion of afflictions, while he is in the way or course of his life, before he comes to that honour of sitting at his father's right - hand. Waters in scripture frequently signify sufferings. To drink of them, signifies to feel or bear them. Therefore - He shall be exalted to great glory and felicity.

1 THE LORD said unto my LORD , Sit thou at my right hand , until I make thine enemies thy footstool .

God the Father, the first Person in the Trinity, to whom accordingly the Original of all things, and especially of the work of mans Redemption by Christ is ascribed.

Decreed or appointed it from Eternity, and in due time published this Decree, as is noted Psal. 2. 7. and actually executed it; which he did when he raised up Christ from the dead, and brought him into his heavenly mansion.

Unto his Son the Messias, whom David designedly calls his Lord, to admonish the Jews and the whole Church, that although he was his Son according to the flesh or his humane nature, Act. 2. 30. Rom. 1. 3. yet he had an higher Nature and Original, and was also his Lord, as being by Nature God blessed for ever, and consequently Lord of all things, as he is called Act. 10. 36. and by Office as he was God-man, the Lord and King of the whole Church, and of all the World for the Churches sake. And this was a necessary provision to prevent that scandal which the Holy Ghost foresaw the Jews and others would be apt to take at the meanness of Christs appearance in the flesh. The Hebrew word Adon is one of Gods Titles, signifying his Power and Authority or Lordship over all things, and therefore is most fitly given to the Messias, to whom God hath delegated all his Power in the World, Mat. 28. 18.

Thou who hast for many years been veiled with infirm and mortal flesh, despised and rejected and trampled upon by men, and persecuted unto the death, do thou now take to thy self thy great and just power; thou hast done thy work upon earth, now take thy rest and the possession of that Soveraign Kingdom and Glory, which by right belongeth to thee; do thou rule with me with equal Power and Majesty as thou art God, and with an Authority and Honour far above all creatures, such as is next to mine, as thou art man; as this phrase is expounded in other places. See Mark 16. 19. Luke 22. 69. 1 Cor. 15. 25. Heb. 1. 3, 13. & 8. 1. & 10. 12, 13. Eph. 1. 20, &c. It is a Metaphor from the custom of earthly Princes, who place those persons whom they honour most at their right hand: of which see 1 Kings 2. 19. Psal. 45. 10. Mat. 20. 21. Sitting is put for reigning, 1 Kings 3. 6. comp. with 2 Chron. 1. 8. and withal notes the continuance of the Reign, 1 Cor. 15. 25.

Which word doth not necessarily note the end or expiration of his Kingdom at that time; for in other places it notes only the continuance of things till such time, without excluding the time following, as is evident from Gen. 28. 15. Psal. 112. 8. Mat. 1. ult. So here it may signifie that his kingdom should continue so long, even in the midst of his enemies, and in spight of all their power and malice, which was the only thing which was liable to any doubt; for that he should continue to reign after the conquest and utter ruine of all his enemies, was out of all question. And yet this is a word of limitation, in regard of the mediatorial kingdom of Christ, in respect of which Christ rules with a delegated power, as his Fathers Vice-roy, and with the use of outward means and instruments and ordinances, &c. for that manner of Administration shall cease: which also seems to be intimated by this word, as it is expounded 1 Cor. 15. 25.

By my Almighty power communicated to thee as God by eternal generation, and vouchsafed to thee as Mediator, to enable thee to the full discharge of thine Office.

Which also are the enemies of thy Church, all persecutors and ungodly men, who will not have Christ to rule over them, Luke 19. 14. sin and death and the Devil, 1 Cor. 15. 26.

Thy slaves and vassals to be put to the meanest and basest services, as this phrase implies, 1 Kings 5. 3. Psal. 18. 39. & 91. 13. being taken from the manner of Eastern Princes, who used to tread upon the necks of their conquered enemies, as we read Ios. 10. 24. Iudg. 1. 7. And long after those times Sapores the Persian Emperor trod upon Valerian Emperor of the Romans, and Tamerlan used to tread upon Bajazet the Turkish Emperor, whom he kept in an iron cage for that purpose.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word]. 22. 44. [illegible: 1 word]. 12. 36. [illegible: 1 word] 20. 42. [illegible: 1 word] 2. 34. [illegible: 1 word] Cor. 15 25. [illegible: 1 word] 1. 13.

2 The LORD shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion : rule thou in the midst of thine enemies .

Or, send forth, into the world.

Thy strong or powerful rod by an usual Hebraism. And the Rod is put for his Scepter, or Kingly power, as it is Isa. 10. 24. Ier. 48. 17. Ezek. 7. 10, 11. & 19. 11, 12. But as the kingdom of Christ is not carnal or of this world, Ioh. 18. 36. but spiritual, so this Rod or Scepter is nothing else but his Word published by himself, or by his Apostles and Ministers, and accompanied with his Spirit, by which the Messias did his great exploits, and set up and established his kingdom, converting some of his enemies, and confounding and destroying of others of them by that same instrument, as is manifest by comparing Isa. 2. 3. & 11. 4. Mich. 4. 2. 2 Cor. 10. 4. 2 Thess. 2. 8. Hence this word is called the word of the kingdom, Mat. 13. 19. and the power of God, Rom. 1. 16. David having spoken of the Messias v. 1. now turneth his speech to him.

From Ierusalem, which is frequently understood by the name of Zion, which was an eminent and venerable part of it, as Psal. 48. 13. & 87. 2. & 102. 14, 17, &c. Where the Scepter of the Messias was first to be established according to the predictions of the Prophets, Psal. 2. 6, 8. & 48. 3. Isa. 2. 3, &c to which the event exactly answered, Luke 24. 47. Acts 1. 4. & 2. 1, 2, &c. and from whence it was to be sent forth into all the parts and kingdoms of the world, to bring in the Gentiles, which also the Prophets had foretold, as Isa. 2. 3. and in diver[illegible: 1+ letters] of the foregoing Psalms, as hath been already frequently observed and proved.

Thou shalt rule, the Imperative being here put for the future, as it is Gen. 12. 12. Psal 37. 27. and oft elsewhere. For this is not a command, but a prediction or a promise that he shall rule▪ Which he doth partly by his grace, converting some, and so ruling their hearts by his Word and Spirit, and subduing their lusts in them and their external enemies for them; and partly by his powerful providence, whereby he defends his Church and people, and subdues and punisheth all their adversaries.

Who shall see it, and do what they can to oppose thy dominion, but shall never be able to hinder it, but shall split themselves against it.

3 Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power , in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth .

Thy subjects.

Heb. willingnesses, i. e. most willing, as such plural words are frequently used, as Psal. 5. 10. & 21. 7. Or, freewill-offerings, as the word properly signifies. Whereby he may intimate the difference between the Worship of the Old Testament and that of the New. They shall offer and present unto thee as their King and Lord, not oxen or sheep or goats, as they did under the Law, but themselves, their souls and bodies, as living sacrifices, as they are called Rom. 12. 1. and as freewill-offerings, giving up themselves to the Lord, 2 Cor. 8. 5. to live to him, and to die and be offered for him. The sence is, Thou shalt have friends and subjects as well as enemies, and thy subjects shall not yield thee a forced and seigned obedience, a[illegible: 1+ letters] those who are subject to, or conquered by, earthly Princes frequently do, of which see on Psal. 1[illegible: 1+ letters]. 44, 45. but shall most willingly and readily and chearfully obey all thy commands without any dispute or delay or reservation, and they shall not need to be pressed to thy service, but shall voluntarily list themselves and fight under thy Banner against all thy enemies.

When thou shalt take into thy hands the rod of thy strength, as it is called v. 2. and set up thy Kingdom in the World, and put forth thy mighty Power in the preaching of thy Word, and winning Souls to thy self by it. Or, in the day of thine army, or forces, when thou shalt raise thine Army, consisting of Apostles, and other Preachers and Professors of the Gospel, and shalt send them forth to conquer the World unto thy self.

A dorned with the beautiful and glorious robes of Righteousness and true Holiness, wherewith all new men or true Christians are cloathed, Eph. 4. 24. compare Revel. 19. 8, 14. with various gifts and graces of Gods Spirit, which are beautiful in the eyes of God and of all good men. The last clause noted the inward disposition, the willingness, of Christs Subjects, and this notes their outward habit and deportment. Wherein there seems to be an allusion either, 1. to the beautiful and glorious garments of the Levitical Priests, all Christians being Priests unto God, Rev. 1. 6. 1 Pet. 2. 5, 9. Or, 2. to the military robes wherewith Souldiers are furnished and adorned, all Christians being Souldiers in the Christian warfare. But the words are and may well be rendred thus, in the beauties or glories of the Sanctuary, i. e. by an usual Hebraism, in the beautiful and glorious Sanctuary, which is called the Holy and beautiful house, Isa. 64. 11. either in the Temple at Ierusalem, which was honoured with Christs presence, whereby it excelled the glory of the first house, according to Hagg. 2. 9. in which both Christ and the Apostles preached, and by their preaching made many of these willing people: or in Ierusalem, which is oft called the Holy place or city, by the same word which is here rendred Sanctuary: or in the Church of God and of Christ, which was the Antitype of the old Sanctuary or Temple, as is evident from 1 Cor. 3. 16, 17. 2 Cor. 6. 16. Heb. 3. 6. 1 Pet. 2. 5. And this place may be mentioned as the place either where Christs people are made willing and shew their willingness, or where Christ exerciseth and manifesteth that power last mentioned.

This place is judged the most difficult and obscure of any in this whole Book. The words are diversly rendred and understood. They are to be understood either, 1. of Christ himself, and that in respect either, 1. of his Divine and eternal generation, which may be called the dew of his youth or birth, and which he may be said to have had from the womb of the morning, before the first morning or light was created or brought out of its womb, that is, before the world was, which is a common description of Eternity in Scripture. Or, 2. of his humane Nature and Birth, and so the words may be thus rendred, From the womb of the morning. (Or, as it is rendred by divers others, From the womb, from the morning (i. e. from thy very first birth) thou hast or hadst the dew of thy youth, i. e. those eminent blessings and graces wherewith thou wast enriched, or thy youth or childhood was like the dew, precious and acceptable. Or rather, 2. of Christs subjects or people, of whom he evidently spoke in the former part of the verse, wherewith these words are joyned. And it seems not probable, that the Psalmist after he had discoursed of Christs advancement to his Kingdom, and his Administration of it, and success in it, both as to his enemies and friends, would run back to his birth, either Divine or humane, both which were evidently and necessarily supposed in what he had already ready said of him. But then these words may be read either, 1. separately, as two distinct clauses, as they seem to be taken by our English Translators, and by the Colon which they placed in the middle. And so the first clause belongs to the foregoing words, as noting the time when the people should be willing, which having declared more generally in those words, in the day of thy power, he now describes more particularly and exactly, that they should be so even from the morning, or, in a Poetical strain, which is very suitable to this Book, from the womb of the morning, to wit, of that day of his power, i. e. from the very beginning of Christs entrance upon his Kingdom, which was after his Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven, and from the very first preaching of the Gospel after that time, when multitudes were made Christs willing people by the preaching of the Apostles, as we read Acts 2. & 3. & 4. & 5, &c. And for the second clause, it is to be understood thus, thou hast, or, as it is in the Hebrew, to thee is, the dew of thy youth, or, of thy childhood, for the word jeled, from which this is derived, signifies sometimes a young man, and sometimes a child or infant. By youth or childhood he here seems to understand those young men or children which shall be born to the Messias, who are called his children, Heb. 2. 13. and his seed, Isa. 53. 10. wherein possibly there might be an allusion to this dew. Thus the abstract is here put for the concrete, which is very frequent in the Hebrew Tongue, as Circumcision and Uncircumcision are put for the circumcised and the uncircumcised, &c. And even in the Latine Tongue this very word youth is oft used for a young man or for a company of young men. By the dew of youth he means youth or young men like dew, the note of similitude being oft understood. And this progeny of Christ is compared to the dew, partly because of their great multitude, being like drops of dew innumerable, and covering the whole face of the earth; see 2 Sam. 17. 12. and partly because of the strange manner of their generation, which like that of the dew, is done suddenly and secretly, and not perceived till it be accomplished, and to the admiration of those that behold it; of which see Isa. 49. 21. Or, 2. joyntly, as one entire sentence, The dew of thy youth (i. e. Thy posterity, which is like the dew, as was noted and explained before) is as the dew (which may very well be understood out of the foregoing clause, as the word feet is understood in like manner, Psal. 18. 33. He maketh my feet like hinds feet) of or from the womb of the morning, it is like the morning dew, as it is called both in Scripture, as Hos. 6. 4. and in other Authors. Not is it strange that a womb is ascribed to the morning, seeing we read of the womb of the Sea, and of the womb of the [illegible: 1+ letters]oe and frost, Job 38. 8, 28, 29.

Marginal references: Or, give freewill-offerings.; Or, more than the womb of the morning: thou shalt have, &c.

4 The LORD hath sworn , and therefore will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek .

Which he did not in the Aaronical Priesthood, Heb. 7. 21. but did it here, partly because the thing was new and strange, and might seem incredible, because God had already erected another, and that an everlasting Priesthood, Numb. 25. 13. and given it to Aaron and his posterity for ever, and therefore this needed all possible assurance: and partly that this Priesthood might be established upon better promises, as is said Heb. 8. 6. and made sure and irrevocable, and such that God neither could nor would repent of it, as it follows.

To wit, by my order and constitution: thou shalt be so, and I do hereby make thee so.

As well as a King. Those Offices which were divided before between two families, are both united and invested in thee, both being absolutely necessary for the discharge of thine Office, and for the establishment of thy Kingdom, which is of another kind than the Kingdoms of the World, spiritual and heavenly, and therefore needs such a King as is also a Minister of holy things. This word plainly discovers that this Psalm cannot be understood of David, as some of the Jews would have it, but onely of the Messias. And although this word Cohen be sometimes used of a Prince or great Person in the State, as the Jews object, yet it cannot be so understood here, partly because it signifies a Priest in Gen. 14. 18. from whence this expression is borrowed; partly because that word is never used of a Soveraign Prince or King (such as the Jews confess the Messias to be) but onely of inferiour Princes or Ministers of State, as Gen. 41. 45. 2 Sam. 8. ult. partly because such an inconsiderable assertion would never have been ushered in by so solemn an oath, especially after far greater things had been said of him in the same kind, v. 1, 2, 3. and partly because the Messias is called a Priest, Zach. 6. 13. compare Ier. 20. 21. & 35. 15, 18.

Not to be interrupted or translated to another person, as the Priesthood of Aaron was upon the death of the Priest, but to be continued to thee for ever.

Or, after the manner, &c. so as he was a Priest and also a King, and both without any successor and without end, in the sence intended Heb. 7. 3.

Marginal references: Heb. 5. 6. & 7. 17, 21.

5 The Lord at thy right hand shall strike thorow kings in the day of his wrath .

Either, 1. God the Father, whose words and oath he last mentioned, v. 4. So this is an Apostrophe of the Psalmist to Christ, Thy God and Father is at thy right hand, to wit, to defend and assist thee, as that phrase is used Psal. 16. 8. & 109. 31. and elsewhere. See the Notes on v. 1. And he, to wit, God the Father, shall strike, &c. as it follows. Although this latter clause may belong to the Messias; and as in the former he spake to him, so in this he speaketh of him; such changes of persons being very frequent in this Book. Or, 2. God the Son, or the Lord, who is at thy right hand, as was said before v. 1. shall strike, &c. So this is an Apostrophe to God the Father concerning his Son. This seems best to agree with the following verses; for it is evident that it is the same person who strikes thorow Kings, and judgeth among the heathen, and filleth, &c. And so this whole verse, and those which follow, speak of one person, which seems most probable.

Shall mortally wound and destroy all those Kings and Potentates who are obstinate enemies to him and to his Church.

In the day of battel, when he shall contend with them, and pour forth the flouds of his wrath upon them.

6 He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies : he shall wound the heads over many countries.

Either, 1. conquer and govern them: or rather, 2. condemn and punish them, as it is explained in the following clauses, and as this word is used Gen. 15. 14. Rom. 2. 1, 2. 1 Pet. 4. 6. and elsewhere.

Or, the place of battel, which is necessarily supposed in the fight, and therefore may very well be understood.

Of his enemies slain by his hand, and lying in the field in great numbers and heaps, and that unburied to their greater infamy.

Heb. the head. Which may be understood either, 1. of some one person and eminent adversary of Christ and of his Kingdom, either the Devil, by comparing this with Gen. 3. 15. Heb. 2. 14. who was indeed the Head or Ruler of many Countries, and indeed of all Nations, except that of Israel, or the Roman Empire, which was the great enemy and obstructer of Christs Kingdom, and therefore was to be destroyed by him, as is declared Dan. 2. 44. 45. & 7. 7, &c. or the great Antichrist, or the Beast after which the whole World wondered, Revel. 13. 3. which Christ will destroy, as we read 2 Thess. 2. 8. and in divers places of S. Iohns Revelation. Or, 2. of all those Heads or Princes which oppose him, the Singular number Head being here put collectively for Heads, as is very usual in the Hebrew Tongue and Text. And so the meaning is, that none of Christs enemies, though never so many or great, and their Empire be never so large and potent, shall be able to withstand his force, or escape out of his hand; and that he shall not onely destroy the common Souldiers, but also their greatest Commanders and Princes, who in such cases do frequently make their escape. But this and the other like passages both here and in the Prophets, are not to be understood grosly and carnally, but spiritually, according to the nature of Christs Kingdom, the weapons of Christs warfare, by which he accomplisheth his great works, being spiritual; and therefore such must be his battels and judgments, as is evident from many other Scriptures, although these also are followed many times with temporal plagues.

Marginal references: Or, great.

7 He shall drink of the brook in the way : therefore shall he lift up the head .

This may be understood either, 1. properly, to express the great fervency and diligence of the Messias in the prosecution of his business; who having routed and destroyed the main body of his enemies forces, pursues those that fled with such eagerness, that he will not lose any time in refreshing himself, as might seem necessary after such hot and hard service, but will content himself with drinking a little water out of the brook which he finds in his way, that being a little refreshed therewith, he may proceed with more vigour and efficacy in his work. And so this place alludes to the History of Gideons 300 men, who onely lapped a little of the water; of whom see Iudg. 7. Or, 2. metaphorically, to express the humiliation and Passion of the Messias, and thereby to prevent a great mistake which might arise in mens minds concerning him, from the great successes and victories here ascribed to him, which might induce them to think that the Messias should be exempted from all sufferings, and be crowned with constant and perpetual Triumphs. To [illegible: 1 word] this conceit, he intimates here, that the Messias, before [illegible: 1 word] obtain that power and glory mentioned in the foregoing verses, should have a large portion of afflictions in the way to it, or whilst he was in the way or course of his life, before he came to his end or rest▪ and to that honour of sitting at his Fathers right hand. Waters in Scripture do very frequently signifie afflictions or sufferings, as Psal. 42. 7, &c. To drink of them signifies to feel or bear them, as Isa. 51. 17. Ier. 25. 15. & 49. 12. Mat. 20. 22. and in this case it may note Christs willing submission to them. A brook or river of water is oft used in Scripture to express a great abundance either of comforts, as Psal. 36. 8. or of tribulations, as Psal. 18. 4. & 124. 4. and therefore may be more fitly used in this place than a cup, by which the afflictions of other men are commonly expressed, to intimate that the sufferings of the Messiah were unspeakably more and heavier than the sufferings of other men, and that he should drink up not a small cup, but the whole river or Sea of his Fathers wrath due to our sins.

Which word may note either the effect or the consequent of his sufferings.

i. e. Shall be delivered from all his sorrows and sufferings, and exalted to great glory and joy and felicity, as this phrase usually signifies, as Psal. 3. 4. & 27. 6. Ier. 52. 31. and oft elsewhere; as on the contrary, to hang down the head is a signification of great grief and shame, as Lament. 2. 10.

To the Priest-King at the Right Hand of God

While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them: What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He? They say unto Him: David's. He saith unto them: How then doth David in the spirit call Him Lord, saying: “The Lord hath said unto my Lord: Sit Thou on My right hand until I make Thine enemies the stool of Thy feet?” If David then calls Him Lord, how is He his Son? And no man was able to answer Him a word, neither durst any one from that day forth question Him further.

So we read in Mat 22:41-46; Mar 12:35-37; Luk 20:41-44. The inference which it is left for the Pharisees to draw rests upon the two premises, which are granted, that Psa 110:1-7 is Davidic, and that it is prophetico-Messianic, i.e., that in it the future Messiah stands objectively before the mind of David. For if those who were interrogated had been able to reply that David does not there speak of the future Messiah, but puts into the mouth of the people words concerning himself, or, as Hofmann has now modified the view he formerly held (Schriftbeweis, ii. 1, 496-500), concerning the Davidic king in a general way, (Note: Vid., the refutation of this modified view in Kurtz, Zur Theologie der Psalmen, in the Dorpater Zeitschrift for the year 1861, S. 516.Supplementary Note. - Von Hofmann now interprets Psa 110:1-7 as prophetico-Messianic. We are glad to be able to give it in his own words. “As the utterance of a prophet who speaks the word of God to the person addressed, the Psalm begins, and this it is then all through, even where it does not, as in Psa 110:4, expressly make known to the person addressed what God swears to him. God intends to finally subdue his foes to him. Until then, until his day of victory is come, he shall have a dominion in the midst of them, the sceptre of which shall be mighty through the succour of God. His final triumph is, however, pledged to him by the word of God, which appoints him, as another Melchizedek, to an eternal priesthood, that excludes the priesthood of Aaron, and by the victory which God has already given him in the day of His wrath. “This is a picture of a king on Zion who still looks forward to that which in Psa 72:8. has already taken place, - of a victorious, mighty king, who however is still ruling in the midst of foes, - therefore of a king such as Jesus now is, to whom God has given the victory over heathen Rome, and to whom He will subdue all his enemies when he shall again reveal himself in the world; meanwhile he is the kingly priest and the priestly king of the people of God. The prophet who utters this is David, He whom he addresses as Lord is the king who is appointed to become spoken according to 2Sa 23:3. David beholds him in a moment of his ruling to which the moment in his own ruling in which we find him in 2Sa 11:1 is typically parallel.”) then the question would lack the background of cogency as an argument. Since, however, the prophetico-Messianic character of the Psalm was acknowledged at that time (even as the later synagogue, in spite of the dilemma into which this Psalm brought it in opposition to the church, has never been able entirely to avoid this confession), the conclusion to be drawn from this Psalm must have been felt by the Pharisees themselves, that the Messiah, because the Son of David and Lord at the same time, was of human and at the same time of superhuman nature; that it was therefore in accordance with Scripture if this Jesus, who represented Himself to be the predicted Christ, should as such profess to be the Son of God and of divine nature.

The New Testament also assumes elsewhere that David in this Psalm speaks not of himself, but directly of Him, in whom the Davidic kingship should finally and for ever fulfil that of which the promise speaks. For Psa 110:1 is regarded elsewhere too as a prophecy of the exaltation of Christ at the right hand of the Father, and of His final victory over all His enemies: Act 2:34., 1Co 15:25; Heb 1:13; Heb 10:13; and the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb 5:6; Heb 7:17, Heb 7:21) bases its demonstration of the abrogation of the Levitical priesthood by the Melchizedek priesthood of Jesus Christ upon Psa 110:4. But if even David, who raised the Levitical priesthood to the pinnacle of splendour that had never existed before, was a priest after the manner of Melchizedek, it is not intelligible how the priesthood of Jesus Christ after the manner of Melchizedek is meant to be a proof in favour of the termination of the Levitical priesthood, and to absolutely preclude its continuance.

We will not therefore deceive ourselves concerning the apprehension of the Psalm which is presented to us in the New Testament Scriptures. According to the New Testament Scriptures, David speaks in Psa 110:1-7 not merely of Christ in so far as the Spirit of God has directed him to speak of the Anointed of Jahve in a typical form, but directly and objectively in a prophetical representation of the Future One. And would this be impossible? Certainly there is no other Psalm in which David distinguishes between himself and the Messiah, and has the latter before him: the other Messianic Psalms of David are reflections of his radical, ideal contemplation of himself, reflected images of his own typical history; they contain prophetic elements, because David there too speaks ἐν πνεύματι, but elements that are not solved by the person of David. Nevertheless the last words of David in 2Sa 23:1-7 prove to us that we need not be surprised to find even a directly Messianic Psalm coming from his lips. After the splendour of all that pertained to David individually had almost entirely expired in his own eyes and in the eyes of those about him, he must have been still more strongly conscious of the distance between what had been realized in himself and the idea of the Anointed of God, as he lay on his death-bed, as his sun was going down. Since, however, all the glory with which God has favoured him comes up once more before his soul, he feels himself, to the glory of God, to be “the man raised up on high, the anointed of God of Jacob, the sweet singer of Israel,” and the instrument of the Spirit of Jahve. This he has been, and he, who as such contemplated himself as the immortal one, must now die: then in dying he seizes the pillars of the divine promise, he lets go the ground of his own present, and looks as a prophet into the future of his seed: The God of Israel hath said, to me hath the Rock of Israel spoken: “A ruler of men, a just one, a ruler in the fear of God; and as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, a cloudless morning, when after sunshine, after rain it becomes green out of the earth.” For not little (לא־כן to be explained according to Job 9:35, cf. Num 13:33; Isa 51:6) is my house with God, but an everlasting covenant hath He made with me, one ordered in all things and sure, for all my salvation and all my favour - ought He not to cause it to sprout? The idea of the Messiah shall notwithstanding be realized, in accordance with the promise, within his own house. The vision of the future which passes before his soul is none other than the picture of the Messiah detached from its subjectivity. And if so there, why may it not also have been so even in Psa 110:1-7?

The fact that Psa 110:1-7 has points of connection with contemporaneous history is notwithstanding the less to be denied, as its position in the Fifth Book leads one to suppose that it is taken out of its contemporary annalistic connection. The first of these connecting links is the bringing of the Ark home to Zion. Girded with the linen ephod of the priest, David had accompanied the Ark up to Zion with signs of rejoicing. There upon Zion Jahve, whose earthly throne is the Ark, now took His place at the side of David; but, spiritually considered, the matter stood properly thus, that Jahve, when He established Himself upon Zion, granted to David to sit henceforth enthroned at His side. The second connecting link is the victorious termination of the Syro-Ammonitish war, and also of the Edomitish war that came in between. The war with the Ammonites and their allies, the greatest, longest, and most glorious of David’s wars, ended in the second year, when David himself joined the army, with the conquest of Rabbah. These two contemporary connecting links are to be recognised, but they only furnish the Psalm with the typical ground-colour for its prophetical contents.

In this Psalm David looks forth from the height upon which Jahve has raised him by the victory over Ammon into the future of his seed, and there He who carries forward the work begun by him to the highest pitch is his Lord. Over against this King of the future, David is not king, but subject. He calls him, as one out of the people, “my Lord.” This is the situation of the prophetico-kingly poet. He has received new revelations concerning the future of his seed. He has come down from his throne and the height of his power, and looks up to the Future One. He too sits enthroned on Zion. He too is victorious from thence. But His fellowship with God is the most intimate imaginable, and the last enemy is also laid at His feet. And He is not merely king, who as a priest provides for the salvation of His people, He is an eternal Priest by virtue of a sworn promise. The Psalm therefore relates to the history of the future upon a typical ground-work. It is also explicable why the triumph in the case of Ammon and the Messianic image have been thus to David’s mind disconnected from himself. In the midst of that war comes the sin of David, which cast a shadow of sorrow over the whole of his future life and reduced its typical glory to ashes. Out of these ashes the phoenix of Messianic prophecy here arises. The type, come back to the conscious of himself, here lays down his crown at the feet of the Antitype.

Psa 110:1-7 consists of three sevens, a tetrastich together with a tristich following three times upon one another. The Rebia magnum in Psa 110:2 is a security for this stichic division, and in like manner the Olewejored by חילך in Psa 110:3, and in general the interpunction required by the sense. And Psa 110:1 and Psa 110:2 show decisively that it is to be thus divided into 4 + 3 lines; for Psa 110:1 with its rhyming inflexions makes itself known as a tetrastich, and to take it together with Psa 110:2 as a heptastich is opposed by the new turn which the Psalm takes in Psa 110:2. It is also just the same with Psa 110:4 in relation to Psa 110:3 : these seven stichs stand in just the same organic relation to the second divine utterance as the preceding seven to the first utterance. And since Psa 110:1-4 give twice 4 + 3 lines, Psa 110:5-7 also will be organized accordingly. There are really seven lines, of which the fifth, contrary to the Masoretic division of the verse, forms with Psa 110:7 the final tristich.

The Psalm therefore bears the threefold impress of the number seven, which is the number of an oath and of a covenant. Its impress, then, is thoroughly prophetic. Two divine utterances are introduced, and that not such as are familiar to us from the history of David and only reproduced here in a poetic form, as with Ps 89 and 132, but utterances of which nothing is known from the history of David, and such as we hear for the first time here. The divine name Jahve occurs three times. God is designedly called Adonaj the fourth time. The Psalm is consequently prophetic; and in order to bring the inviolable and mysterious nature even of its contents into comparison with the contemplation of its outward character, it has been organized as a threefold septiad, which is sealed with the thrice recurring tetragamma.

Psa 110:1-2

In Psa 20:1-9 and Psa 21:1-13 we see at once in the openings that what we have before us is the language of the people concerning their king. Here לאדני in Psa 110:1 does not favour this, and נאם is decidedly against it. The former does not favour it, for it is indeed correct that the subject calls his king “my lord,” e.g., 1Sa 22:12, although the more exact form of address is “my lord the king,” e.g., 1Sa 24:9; but if the people are speaking here, what is the object of the title of honour being expressed as if coming from the mouth of an individual, and why not rather, as in Ps 20-21, <, למלך or למשׁיחו? נאם is, however, decisive against the supposition that it is an Israelite who here expresses himself concerning the relation of his king to Jahve. For it is absurd to suppose that an Israelite speaking in the name of the people would begin in the manner of the prophets with נאם, more particularly since this נאם ה placed thus at the head of the discourse is without any perfectly analogous example (1Sa 2:30; Isa 1:24 are only similar) elsewhere, and is therefore extremely important. In general this opening position of נאם, even in cases where other genitives that יהוה follow, is very rare; נאם Num 24:3., Num 24:15, of David in 2Sa 23:1, of Agur in Pro 30:1, and always (even in Psa 36:2) in an oracular signification. Moreover, if one from among the people were speaking, the declaration ought to be a retrospective glance at a past utterance of God. But, first, the history knows nothing of any such divine utterance; and secondly, נאם ה always introduces God as actually speaking, to which even the passage cited by Hofmann to the contrary, Num 14:28, forms no exception. Thus it will consequently not be a past utterance of God to which the poet glances back here, but one which David has just now heard ἐν πνεύματι (Mat 22:43), and is therefore not a declaration of the people concerning David, but of David concerning Christ. The unique character of the declaration confirms this. Of the king of Israel it is said that he sits on the throne of Jahve (1Ch 29:23), viz., as visible representative of the invisible King (1Ch 28:5); Jahve, however, commands the person here addressed to take his place at His right hand. The right hand of a king is the highest place of honour, 1Ki 2:19.Cf. the custom of the old Arabian kings to have their viceroy (ridf) sitting at their right hand, Monumenta antiquiss. hist. Arabum, ed. Eichhorn, p. 220.

Here the sitting at the right hand signifies not merely an idle honour, but reception into the fellowship of God as regards dignity and dominion, exaltation to a participation in God’s reigning (βασιλεύειν, 1Co 15:25). Just as Jahve sits enthroned in the heavens and laughs at the rebels here below, so shall he who is exalted henceforth share this blessed calm with Him, until He subdues all enemies to him, and therefore makes him the unlimited, universally acknowledged ruler. עד as in Hos 10:12, for עד־כּי or עד־אשׁר, does not exclude the time that lies beyond, but as in Psa 112:8, Gen 49:10, includes it, and in fact so that it at any rate marks the final subjugation of the enemies as a turning-point with which something else comes about (vid., Act 3:21; 1Co 15:28). הדם is an accusative of the predicate. The enemies shall come to lie under his feet (1Ki 5:17), his feet tread upon the necks of the vanquished (Jos 10:24), so that the resistance that is overcome becomes as it were the dark ground upon which the glory of his victorious rule arises. For the history of time ends with the triumph of good over evil, - not, however, with the annihilation of evil, but with its subjugation. This is the issue, inasmuch as absolute omnipotence is effectual on behalf of and through the exalted Christ. In Psa 110:2, springing from the utterance of Jahve, follow words expressing a prophetic prospect. Zion is the imperial abode of the great future King (Psa 2:6). מטּה עזּך (cf. Jer 48:17; Eze 19:11-14) signifies “the sceptre (as insignia and the medium of exercise) of the authority delegated to thee” (1Sa 2:10, Mic 5:3). Jahve will stretch this sceptre far forth from Zion: no goal is mentioned up to which it shall extend, but passages like Zec 9:10 show how the prophets understand such Psalms. In Psa 110:2 follow the words with which Jahve accompanies this extension of the dominion of the exalted One. Jahve will lay all his enemies at his feet, but not in such a manner that he himself remains idle in the matter. Thus, then, having come into the midst of the sphere (בּקרב) of his enemies, shall he reign, forcing them to submission and holding them down. We read this רדה in a Messianic connection in Psa 72:8. So even in the prophecy of Balaam (Num 24:19), where the sceptre (Num 24:17) is an emblem of the Messiah Himself.

Psa 110:3-4

In order that he may rule thus victoriously, it is necessary that there should be a people and an army. In accordance with this union of the thoughts which Psa 110:3 anticipates, בּיום חילך signifies in the day of thy arriere ban, i.e., when thou callest up thy “power of an army” (2Ch 26:13) to muster and go forth to battle. In this day are the people of the king willingnesses (נדבת), i.e., entirely cheerful readiness; ready for any sacrifices, they bring themselves with all that they are and have to meet him. There is no need of any compulsory, lengthy proclamation calling them out: it is no army of mercenaries, but willingly and quickly they present themselves from inward impulse (מתנדּב, Jdg 5:2, Jdg 5:9). The punctuation, which makes the principal caesura at חילך with Olewejored, makes the parallelism of חילך and ילדוּתך distinctly prominent. Just as the former does not signify roboris tui, so now too the latter does not, according to Ecc 11:9, signify παιδιότητός σου (Aquila), and not, as Hofmann interprets, the dew-like freshness of youthful vigour, which the morning of the great day sheds over the king. Just as גּלוּת signifies both exile and the exiled ones, so ילדוּת, like νεότης, juventus, juventa, signifies both the time and age of youth, youthfulness, and youthful, young men (the youth). Moreover one does not, after Psa 110:3, look for any further declaration concerning the nature of the king, but of his people who place themselves at his service. The young men are likened to dew which gently descends upon the king out of the womb (uterus) of the morning-red.The lxx renders it: ἐν ταῖς λαμπρότησι τῶν ἁγίων σου (belonging to the preceding clause), ἐκ γαστρὸς πρὸ ἑωσφόρου ἐγέννησά σε (Psalt. Veron. exegennesa se; Bamberg. gegennica se). The Vulgate, following the Italic closely: in splendoribus sanctorum; ex utero ante luciferum genui te. The Fathers in some cases interpret it of the birth of the Lord at Christmas, but most of them of His antemundane birth, and accordingly Apollinaris paraphrases: γαστρὸς καρπὸς ἐμῆς πρὸ ἑωσφόρου αὐτὸς ἐτύχθης. In his own independent translation Jerome reads בהררי (as in Psa 87:1), in montibus sanctis quasi de vulva orietur tibi ros adolescentiae tuae, as Symmachus ἐν ὄρεσιν ἁγίοις, - elsewhere, however, ἐν δόξῃ ἁγίων. The substitution is not unmeaning, since the ideas of dew and of mountains (Psa 133:3) are easily united; but it was more important to give prominence to the holiness of the equipment than to that of the place of meeting. משׁחר is related to שׁחר just as מחשׁך is to חשׁך; the notion of שׁחר and חשׁך appears to be more sharply defined, and as it were apprehended more massively, in משׁחר and מחשׁך. The host of young men is likened to the dew both on account of its vigorousness and its multitude, which are like the freshness of the mountain dew and the immense number of its drops, 2Sa 17:12 (cf. Num 23:10), and on account of the silent concealment out of which it wondrously and suddenly comes to light, Mic 5:7. After not having understood “thy youth” of the youthfulness of the king, we shall now also not, with Hofmann, refer בּהדרי־קדשׁ to the king, the holy attire of his armour. הדרת קדשׁ is the vestment of the priest for performing divine service: the Levite singers went forth before the army in “holy attire” in 2Ch 20:21; here, however, the people without distinction wear holy festive garments. Thus they surround the divine king as dew that is born out of the womb of the morning-red. It is a priestly people which he leads forth to holy battle, just as in Rev 19:14 heavenly armies follow the Logos of God upon white horses, ἐνδεδυμένοι βύσσινον λευκὸν καθαρόν - a new generation, wonderful as if born out of heavenly light, numerous, fresh, and vigorous like the dew-drops, the offspring of the dawn. The thought that it is a priestly people leads over to Psa 110:4. The king who leads this priestly people is, as we hear in Psa 110:4, himself a priest (cohen). As has been shown by Hupfeld and Fleischer, the priest is so called as one who stands (from כּחן = כּוּן in an intransitive signification), viz., before God (Deu 10:8, cf. Psa 134:1; Heb 10:11), like נביא the spokesman, viz., of God.The Arabic lexicographers explain Arab. kâhin by mn yqûm b - 'mr 'l - rjl w - ys‛â fı̂ ḥâjth, “he who stands and does any one’s business and managest his affair.” That Arab. qâm, קום, and Arab. mṯl, משׁל, side by side with עמד are synonyms of בהן in this sense of standing ready for service and in an official capacity.

To stand before God is the same as to serve Him, viz., as priest. The ruler whom the Psalm celebrates is a priest who intervenes in the reciprocal dealings between God and His people within the province of divine worship the priestly character of the people who suffer themselves to be led forth to battle and victory by him, stands in causal connection with the priestly character of this their king. He is a priest by virtue of the promise of God confirmed by an oath. The oath is not merely a pledge of the fulfilment of the promise, but also a seal of the high significance of its purport. God the absolutely truthful One (Num 13:19) swears - this is the highest enhancement of the נאם ה of which prophecy is capable (Amo 6:8).

He appoints the person addressed as a priest for ever “after the manner of Melchizedek” in this most solemn manner. The i of דברתי is the same ancient connecting vowel as in the מלכי of the name Melchizedek; and it has the tone, which it loses when, as in Lam 1:1, a tone-syllable follows. The wide-meaning על־דּברת, “in respect to, on account of,” Ecc 3:18; Ecc 7:14; Ecc 8:2, is here specialized to the signification “after the manner, measure of,” lxx κατὰ τὴν τάξιν. The priesthood is to be united with the kingship in him who rules out of Zion, just as it was in Melchizedek, king of Salem, and that for ever. According to De Wette, Ewald, and Hofmann, it is not any special priesthood that is meant here, but that which was bestowed directly with the kingship, consisting in the fact that the king of Israel, by reason of his office, commended his people in prayer to God and blessed them in the name of God, and also had the ordering of Jahve’s sanctuary and service. Now it is true all Israel is a “kingdom of priests” (Exo 19:6, cf. Num 16:3; Isa 61:6), and the kingly vocation in Israel must therefore also be regarded as in its way a priestly vocation. Btu this spiritual priesthood, and, if one will, this princely oversight of sacred things, needed not to come to David first of all by solemn promise; and that of Melchizedek, after which the relationship is here defined, is incongruous to him; for the king of Salem was, according to Canaanitish custom, which admitted of the union of the kingship and priesthood, really a high priest, and therefore, regarded from an Israelitish point of view, united in his own person the offices of David and of Aaron. How could David be called a priest after the manner of Melchizedek, he who had no claim upon the tithes of priests like Melchizedek, and to whom was denied the authority to offer sacrificeG. Enjedin the Socinian (died 1597) accordingly, in referring this Psalm to David, started from the assumption that priestly functions have been granted exceptionally by God to this king as to no other, vid., the literature of the controversy to which this gave rise in Serpilius, Personalia Davidis, S. 268-274. inseparable from the idea of the priesthood in the Old Testament? (cf. 2Ch 26:20). If David were the person addressed, the declaration would stand in antagonism with the right of Melchizedek as priest recorded in Gen. 14, which, according to the indisputable representation of the Epistle to the Hebrews, was equal in compass to the Levitico-Aaronic right, and, since “after the manner of” requires a coincident reciprocal relation, in antagonism to itself also.Just so Kurtz, Zur Theologie der Psalmen, loc. cit. S. 523.

One might get on more easily with Psa 110:4 by referring the Psalm to one of the Maccabaean priest-princes (Hitzig, von Lengerke, and Olshausen); and we should then prefer to the reference to Jonathan who put on the holy stola, 1 Macc. 10:21 (so Hitzig formerly), or Alexander Jannaeus who actually bore the title king (so Hitzig now), the reference to Simon, whom the people appointed to “be their governor and high priest for ever, until there should arise a faithful prophet” (1 Macc. 14:41), after the death of Jonathan his brother - a union of the two offices which, although an irregularity, was not one, however, that was absolutely illegal. But he priesthood, which the Maccabaeans, however, possessed originally as being priests born, is promised to the person addressed here in Psa 110:4; and even supposing that in Psa 110:4 the emphasis lay not on a union of the priesthood with the kingship, but of the kingship with the priesthood, then the retrospective reference to it in Zechariah forbids our removing the Psalm to a so much later period. Why should we not rather be guided in our understanding of this divine utterance, which is unique in the Old Testament, by this prophet, whose prophecy in Zec 6:12. is the key to it? Zechariah removes the fulfilment of the Psalm out of the Old Testament present, with its blunt separation between the monarchical and hierarchical dignity, into the domain of the future, and refers it to Jahve’s Branch (צמח) that is to come. He, who will build the true temple of God, satisfactorily unites in his one person the priestly with the kingly office, which were at that time assigned to Joshua the high priest and Zerubbabel the prince. Thus this Psalm was understood by the later prophecy; and in what other sense could the post-Davidic church have appropriated it as a prayer and hymn, than in the eschatological Messianic sense? but this sense is also verified as the original. David here hears that the king of the future exalted at the right hand of God, and whom he calls his Lord, is at the same time an eternal priest. And because he is both these his battle itself is a priestly royal work, and just on this account his people fighting with him also wear priestly garments.

Psa 110:5-7

Just as in Psa 110:2 after Psa 110:1, so now here too after the divine utterance, the poet continues in a reflective strain. The Lord, says Psa 110:5, dashes in pieces kings at the right hand of this priest-king, in the day when His wrath is kindled (Psa 2:12, cf. Psa 21:10). אדני is rightly accented as subject. The fact that the victorious work of the person addressed is not his own work, but the work of Jahve on his behalf and through him, harmonizes with Psa 110:1. The sitting of the exalted one at the right hand of Jahve denotes his uniform participation in His high dignity and dominion. But in the fact that the Lord, standing at his right hand (cf. the counterpart in Psa 109:6), helps him to victory, that unchangeable relationship is shown in its historical working. The right hand of the exalted one is at the same time not inactive (see Num 24:17, cf. Num 24:8), and the Lord does not fail him when he is obliged to use his arm against his foes. The subject to ידין and to the two מחץ is the Lord as acting through him. “He shall judge among the peoples” is an eschatological hope, Psa 7:9; Psa 9:9; Psa 96:10, cf. 1Sa 2:10. What the result of this judgment of the peoples is, is stated by the neutrally used verb מלא with its accusative גויּות (cf. on the construction Psa 65:10; Deu 34:9): it there becomes full of corpses, there is there a multitude of corpses covering everything. This is the same thought as in Isa 66:24, and wrought out in closely related connection in Rev 19:17; Rev 18:21. Like the first מחץ, the second (Psa 110:6) is also a perfect of the idea past. Accordingly ארץ רבּה seems to signify the earth or a country (cf. ארץ רחבה, Exo 3:8; Neh 9:35) broad and wide, like תּהום רבּה the great far-stretching deep. But it might also be understood the “land of Rabbah,” as they say the “land of Jazer” (Num 32:1), the “country of Goshen” (Jos 10:41), and the like; therefore the land of the Ammonites, whose chief city is Rabbah. It is also questionable whether ראשׁ על־ארץ רבּה is to be taken like κεφαλὴν ὑπὲρ πάντα, Eph 1:22 (Hormann), or whether על־ארץ רבה belongs to מחץ as a designation of the battle-field. The parallels as to the word and the thing itself, Psa 68:22; Hab 3:13., speak for ראשׁ signifying not the chief, but the head; not, however, in a collective sense (lxx, Targum), but the head of the רשׁע κατ ̓ ἐξοχήν (vid., Isa 11:4). If this is the case, and the construction ראשׁ על is accordingly to be given up, neither is it now to be rendered: He breaks in pieces a head upon the land of Rabbah, but upon a great (broad) land; in connection with which, however, this designation of the place of battle takes its rise from the fact that the head of the ruler over this great territory is intended, and the choice of the word may have been determined by an allusion to David’s Ammonitish war. The subject of Psa 110:7 is now not that arch-fiend, as he who in the course of history renews his youth, that shall rise up again (as we explained it formerly), but he whom the Psalm, which is thus rounded off with unity of plan, celebrates. Psa 110:7 expresses the toil of his battle, and Psa 110:7 the reward of undertaking the toil. על־כּן is therefore equivalent to ἀντὶ τούτου. בּדּרך, however, although it might belong to מגּחל (of the brook by the wayside, Psa 83:10; Psa 106:7), is correctly drawn to ישׁתּה by the accentuation: he shall on his arduous way, the way of his mission (cf. Psa 102:24), be satisfied with a drink from the brook. He will stand still only for a short time to refresh himself, and in order then to fight afresh; he will unceasingly pursue his work of victory without giving himself any time for rest and sojourn, and therefore (as the reward for it) it shall come to pass that he may lift his head on high as victor; and this, understood in a christological sense, harmonizes essentially with Phi 2:8., Heb 12:2, Rev 5:9.

The Messiah's Dominion.

1 The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. 2 The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. 3 Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth. 4 The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

Some have called this psalm David's creed, almost all the articles of the Christian faith being found in it; the title calls it David's psalm, for in the believing foresight of the Messiah he both praised God and solaced himself, much more may we, in singing it, to whom that is fulfilled, and therefore more clearly revealed, which is here foretold. Glorious things are here spoken of Christ, and such as oblige us to consider how great he is.

I. That he is David's Lord. We must take special notice of this because he himself does. Matt. xxii. 43, David, in spirit, calls him Lord. And as the apostle proves the dignity of Melchizedek, and in him of Christ, by this, that so great a man as Abraham was paid him tithes (Heb. vii. 4), so we may by this prove the dignity of the Lord Jesus that David, that great man, called him his Lord; by him that king acknowledges himself to reign, and to him to be acceptable as a servant to his lord. Some think he calls him his Lord because he was the Lord that was to descend from him, his son and yet his Lord. Thus him immediate mother calls him her Saviour (Luke i. 47); even his parents were his subjects, his saved ones.

II. That he is constituted a sovereign Lord by the counsel and decree of God himself: The Lord, Jehovah, said unto him, Sit as a king. He receives of the Father this honour and glory (2 Pet. i. 17), from him who is the fountain of honour and power, and takes it not to himself. He is therefore rightful Lord, and his title is incontestable; for what God has said cannot be gainsaid. He is therefore everlasting Lord; for what God has said shall not be unsaid. He will certainly take and keep possession of that kingdom which the Father has committed to him, and none can hinder.

III. That he was to be advanced to the highest honour, and entrusted with an absolute sovereign power both in heaven and in earth: Sit thou at my right hand. Sitting is a resting posture; after his services and sufferings, he entered into rest from all his labours. It is a ruling posture; he sits to give law, to give judgment. It is a remaining posture; he sits like a king for ever. Sitting at the right hand of God denotes both his dignity and his dominion, the honour put upon him and the trusts reposed in him by the Father. All the favours that come from God to man, and all the service that comes from man to God, pass through his hand.

IV. That all his enemies were in due time to be made his footstool, and not till then; but then also he must reign in the glory of the Mediator, though the work of the Mediator will be, in a manner, at an end. Note, 1. Even Christ himself has enemies that fight against his kingdom and subjects, his honour and interest, in the world. There are those that will not have him to reign over them, and thereby they join themselves to Satan, who will not have him to reign at all. 2. These enemies will be made his footstool; he will subdue them and triumph over them; he will do it easily, as easily as we put a footstool in its proper place, and such a propriety there will be in it. He will make himself easy by the doing of it, as a man that sits with a footstool under his feet; he will subdue them in such a way as shall be most for his honour and their perpetual disgrace; he will tread down the wicked, Mal. iv. 3. 3. God the Father has undertaken to do it: I will make them thy footstool, who can do it. 4. It will not be done immediately. All his enemies are now in a chain, but not yet made his footstool. This the apostle observes. Heb. ii. 8, We see not yet all things put under him. Christ himself must wait for the completing of his victories and triumphs. 5. He shall wait till it is done; and all their might and malice shall not give the least disturbance to his government. His sitting at God's right hand is a pledge to him of his setting his feet, at last, on the necks of all his enemies.

V. That he should have a kingdom set up in the world, beginning at Jerusalem (v. 2): "The Lord shall send the rod or sceptre of thy strength out of Zion, by which thy kingdom shall be erected, maintained, and administered." The Messiah, when he sits on the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, will have a church on earth, and will have an eye to it; for he is King upon the holy hill of Zion (Ps. ii. 6), in opposition to Mount Sinai, that frightful mountain, on which the law was given, Heb. xii. 18, 24; Gal. iv. 24, 25. The kingdom of Christ took rise from Zion, the city of David, for he was the Son of David, and was to have the throne of his father David. By the rod of his strength, or his strong rod, is meant his everlasting gospel, and the power of the Holy Ghost going along with it—the report of the word, and the arm of the Lord accompanying it (Isa. liii. 1; Rom. i. 16),—the gospel coming in word, and in power, and in the holy Ghost, 1 Thess. i. 5. By the word and Spirit of God souls were to be reduced first, and brought into obedience to God, and then ruled and governed according to the will of God. This strong rod God sent forth; he poured out the Spirit, and gave both commissions and qualifications to those that preached the word, and ministered the Spirit, Gal. iii. 5. It was sent out of Zion, for there the Spirit was given, and there the preaching of the gospel among all nations must begin, at Jerusalem. See Luke xxiv. 47, 49. Out of Zion must go forth the law of faith, Isa. ii. 3. Note, The gospel of Christ, being sent of God, is mighty through God to do wonders, 2 Cor. x. 4. It is the rod of Christ's strength. Some make it to allude not only to the sceptre of a prince, denoting the glory of Christ shining in the gospel, but to a shepherd's crook, his rod and staff, denoting the tender care of Christ takes of his church; for he is both the great and the good Shepherd.

VI. That his kingdom, being set up, should be maintained and kept up in the world, in spite of all the oppositions of the power of darkness. 1. Christ shall rule, shall give laws, and govern his subjects by them, shall perfect them, and make them easy and happy, shall do his own will, fulfil his own counsels, and maintain his own interests among men. His kingdom is of God, and it shall stand; his crown sits firmly on his head, and there it shall flourish. 2. He shall rule in the midst of his enemies. He sits in heaven in the midst of his friends; his throne of glory there is surrounded with none but faithful worshippers of him, Rev. v. 11. But he rules on earth in the midst of his enemies, and his throne of government here is surrounded with those that hate him and fight against him. Christ's church is a lily among thorns, and his disciples are sent forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; he knows where they dwell, even where Satan's seat is (Rev. ii. 13), and this redounds to his honour that he not only keeps his ground, but gains his point, notwithstanding all the malignant policies and powers of hell and earth, which cannot shake the rock on which the church is built. Great is the truth, and will prevail.

VII. That he should have a great number of subjects, who should be to him for a name and a praise, v. 3.

1. That they should be his own people, and such as he should have an incontestable title to. They are given to him by the Father, who gave them their lives and beings, and to whom their lives and beings were forfeited. Thine they were and thou gavest them me, John xvii. 6. They are redeemed by him; he has purchased them to be to himself a peculiar people, Tit. ii. 14. They are his by right, antecedent to their consent. He had much people in Corinth before they were converted, Acts xviii. 10.

2. That they should be a willing people, a people of willingness, alluding to servants that choose their service and are not coerced to it (they love their masters and would not go out free), to soldiers that are volunteers and not pressed men ("Here am I, send me"), to sacrifices that are free-will offerings and not offered of necessity; we present ourselves living sacrifices. Note, Christ's people are a willing people. The conversion of a soul consists in its being willing to be Christ's, coming under his yoke and into his interests, with an entire compliancy and satisfaction.

3. That they should be so in the day of his power, in the day of thy muster (so some); when thou art enlisting soldiers thou shalt find a multitude of volunteers forward to be enlisted; let but the standard be set up and the Gentiles will seek to it, Isa. xi. 10; lx. 3. Or when thou art drawing them out to battle they shall be willing to follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes, Rev. xiv. 4. In the day of thy armies (so some); "when the first preachers of the gospel shall be sent forth, as Christ's armies, to reduce apostate men, and to ruin the kingdom of apostate angels, then all that are thy people shall be willing; that will be thy time of setting up thy kingdom." In the day of thy strength, so we take it. There is a general power which goes along with the gospel to all, proper to make them willing to be Christ's people, arising from the supreme authority of its great author and the intrinsic excellency of the things themselves contained in it, besides the undeniable miracles that were wrought for the confirmation of it. And there is also a particular power, the power of the Spirit, going along with the power of the word, to the people of Christ, which is effectual to make them willing. The former leaves sinners without matter of excuse; this leaves saints without matter of boasting. Whoever are willing to be Christ's people, it is the free and mighty grace of God that makes them so.

4. That they should be so in the beauty of holiness, that is, (1.) They shall be allured to him by the beauty of holiness; they shall be charmed into a subjection to Christ by the sight given them of his beauty, who is the holy Jesus, and the beauty of the church, which is the holy nation. (2.) They shall be admitted by him into the beauty of holiness, as spiritual priests, to minister in his sanctuary; for by the blood of Jesus we have boldness to enter into the holiest. (3.) They shall attend upon him in the beautiful attire or ornaments of grace and sanctification. Note, Holiness is the livery of Christ's family and that which becomes his house for ever. Christ's soldiers are all thus clothed; these are the colours they wear. The armies of heaven follow him in fine linen, clean and white, Rev. xix. 14.

5. That he should have great numbers of people devoted to him. The multitude of the people is the honour of the prince, and that shall be the honour of this prince. From the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth, that is, abundance of young converts, like the drops of dew in a summer's morning. In the early days of the gospel, in the morning of the New Testament, the youth of the church, great numbers flocked to Christ, and there were multitudes that believed, a remnant of Jacob, that was as dew from the Lord, Mic. v. 7; Isa. lxiv. 4, 8. Or thus? "From the womb of the morning (from their very childhood) thou hast the dew of thy people's youth, that is, their hearts and affections when they are young; it is thy youth, because it is dedicated to thee." The dew of the youth is a numerous, illustrious, hopeful show of young people flocking to Christ, which would be to the world as dew to the ground, to make it fruitful. Note, The dew of our youth, even in the morning of our days, ought to be consecrated to our Lord Jesus.

6. That he should be not only a king, but a priest, v. 4. The same Lord that said, Sit thou at my right hand, swore, and will not repent, Thou art a priest, that is, Be thou a priest; for by the word of his oath he was consecrated. Note, (1.) Our Lord Jesus Christ is a priest. He was appointed to that office and faithfully executes it; he is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sin (Heb. v. 1), to make atonement for our sins and to recommend our services to God's acceptance. He is God's minister to us, and our advocate with God, and so is a Mediator between us and God. (2.) He is a priest for ever. He was designed for a priest, in God's eternal counsels; he was a priest to the Old-Testament saints, and will be a priest for all believers to the end of time, Heb. xiii. 8. He is said to be a priest for ever, not only because we are never to expect any other dispensation of grace than this by the priesthood of Christ, but because the blessed fruits and consequences of it will remain to eternity. (3.) He is made a priest with an oath, which the apostle urges to prove the pre-eminence of his priesthood above that of Aaron, Heb. vii. 20, 21. The Lord has sworn, to show that in the commission there was no implied reserve of a power of revocation; for he will not repent, as he did concerning Eli's priesthood, 1 Sam. ii. 30. This was intended for the honour of Christ and the comfort of Christians. The priesthood of Christ is confirmed by the highest ratifications possible, that it might be an unshaken foundation for our faith and hope to build upon. (4.) He is a priest, not of the order of Aaron, but of that of Melchizedek, which, as it was prior, so it was upon many accounts superior, to that of Aaron, and a more lively representation of Christ's priesthood. Melchizedek was a priest upon his throne, so is Christ (Zech. vi. 13), king of righteousness and king of peace. Melchizedek had no successor, nor has Christ; his is an unchangeable priesthood. The apostle comments largely upon these words (Heb. vii.) and builds on them his discourse of Christ's priestly office, which he shows was no new notion, but built upon this most sure word of prophecy. For, as the New Testament explains the Old, so the Old Testament confirms the New, and Jesus Christ is the Alpha and Omega of both.

The Messiah's Dominion.

5 The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. 6 He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries. 7 He shall drink of the brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up the head.

Here we have our great Redeemer,

I. Conquering his enemies (v. 5, 6) in order to the making of them his footstool, v. 1. Our Lord Jesus will certainly bring to nought all the opposition made to his kingdom, and bring to ruin all those who make that opposition and persist in it. He will be too hard for those, whoever they may be, that fight against him, against his subjects and the interest of his kingdom among men, either by persecutions or by perverse disputings. Observe here,

1. The conqueror: The Lord—Adonai, the Lord Jesus, he to whom all judgment is committed, he shall make his own part good against his enemies. The Lord at thy right hand, O church! so some; that is, the Lord that is nigh unto his people, and a very present help to them, that is at their right hand, to strengthen and succour them, shall appear for them against his and their enemies. See Ps. cix. 31. He shall stand at the right hand of the poor, Ps. xvi. 8. Some observe that when Christ is said to do his work at the right hand of his church it intimates that, if we would have Christ to appear for us, we must bestir ourselves, 2 Sam. v. 24. Or, rather, At thy right hand, O God! referring to v. 1, in the dignity and dominion to which he is advanced. Note, Christ's sitting at the right hand of God speaks as much terror to his enemies as happiness to his people.

2. The time fixed for this victory: In the day of his wrath, that is, the time appointed for it, when the measure of their iniquities is full and they are ripe for ruin. When the day of his patience has expired, when the day of his wrath comes. Note, (1.) Christ has wrath of his own, as well as grace. It concerns us to kiss the Son, for he can be angry (Ps. ii. 12) and we read of the wrath of the Lamb, Rev. vi. 16. (2.) There is a day of wrath set, a year of recompences for the controversy of Zion, the year of the redeemed. The time is set for the destruction of particular enemies, and when that time shall come it shall be done, how unlikely soever it may seem; but the great day of his wrath will be at the end of time, Rev. vi. 17.

3. The extent of this victory. (1.) It shall reach very high: He shall strike through kings. The greatest of men, that set themselves against Christ, shall be made to fall before him. Though they be kings of the earth, and rulers, accustomed to carry their point, they cannot carry it against Christ, they do but make themselves ridiculous by the attempt, Ps. ii. 2-5. Be their power among men ever so despotic, Christ will call them to an account; be their strength ever so great, their policies ever so deep, Christ will be too hard for them, and wherein they deal proudly he will be above them. Satan is the prince of this world, Death the king of terrors, and we read of kings that make war with the Lamb; but they shall all be brought down and broken. (2.) It shall reach very far. The trophies of Christ's victories will be set up among the heathen, and in many countries, wherever any of his enemies are, not his eye only, but his hand, shall find them out (Ps. xxi. 8) and his wrath shall follow them. He will plead with all nations, Joel iii. 2.

4. The equity of this victory: He shall judge among them. It is not a military execution, which is done in fury, but a judicial one. Before he condemns and slays, he will judge; he will make it appear that they have brought this ruin upon themselves, and have themselves rolled the stone which returns upon them, that he may be justified when he speaks and the heavens may declare his righteousness. See Rev. xix. 1, 2.

5. The effect of this victory; it shall be the complete and utter ruin of all his enemies. He shall strike them through, for he strikes home and gives an incurable wound: He shall wound the heads, which seems to refer to the first promise of the Messiah (Gen. iii. 15), that he should bruise the serpent's head. He shall wound the head of his enemies, Ps. lxviii. 21. Some read it, He shall wound him that is the head over many countries, either Satan or Antichrist, whom the Lord shall consume with the breath of his mouth. He shall make such destruction of his enemies that he shall fill the places with the dead bodies. The slain of the Lord shall be many. See Isa. xxxiv. 3, &c.; Ezek. xxxix. 12, 14; Rev. xiv. 20; xix. 17, 18. The filling of the valleys (for so some read it) with dead bodies, perhaps denotes the filling of hell (which is sometimes compared to the valley of Hinnom, Isa. xxx. 33; Jer. vii. 32) with damned souls, for that will be the portion of those that persist in their enmity to Christ.

II. We have here the Redeemer saving his friends and comforting them (v. 7); for their benefit, 1. He shall be humbled: He shall drink of the brook in the way, that bitter cup which the Father put into his hand. He shall be so abased and impoverished, and withal so intent upon his work, that he shall drink puddle-water out of the lakes in the highway; so some. The wrath of God, running in the channel of the curse of the law, was the brook in the way, in the way of his undertaking, which must go through, or which ran in the way of our salvation and obstructed it, which lay between us and heaven. Christ drank of this brook when he was made a curse for us, and therefore, when he entered upon his suffering, he went over the brook Kidron, John xviii. 1. He drank deeply of this black brook (so Kidron signifies), this bloody brook, so drank of the brook in the way as to take it out of the way of our redemption and salvation. 2. He shall be exalted: Therefore shall he lift up the head. When he died he bowed the head (John xix. 30), but he soon lifted up the head by his own power in his resurrection. He lifted up the head as a conqueror, yea, more than a conqueror. This denotes not only his exaltation, but his exultation; not only his elevation, but his triumph in it. Col. ii. 15, Having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them. David spoke as a type of him in this (Ps. xxvii. 6), Now shall my head be lifted up above my enemies. His exaltation was the reward of his humiliation; because he humbled himself, therefore God also highly exalted him, Phil. ii. 9. Because he drank of the brook in the way therefore he lifted up his own head, and so lifted up the heads of all his faithful followers, who, if they suffer with him, shall also reign with him.

PSAL. CX.

A Psalme of David.

IEhovah assuredly said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand untill I put thine enemies the footstoole of thy feet. Iehovah will send out of Sion the rod of thy strength; rule thou in the middes of thine enemies. Thy people shall be voluntaries in the day of thy power; in the beauties of holinesse, of the wombe of the early morning; to thee the deaw of thy youth. Iehovah sware, and will not repent, thou art a Priest for ever, according to the order of Malchisedek. The Lord at thy right hand, hee hath wounded Kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among the heathens; hee hath filled with corpses, he hath wounded the head over a great land. Of the brooke in the way shall hee drinke, therefore he shall lift up the head.

Annotations. IEhovah] that is, God the Father. assuredly said] see Psal. 36. 2. to my Lord] that is, to Christ, whom David here calleth his Lord, though he was also his sonne according to the flesh, Mat. 22. 42, 45. Rom. 1. 3. Act. 2. 34. So the Chaldee, The Lord said unto his Word, meaning Christ, Ioh. 1. 1. sit at my right hand] sitting noteth reigning with continuance, 1 Cor. 15. 25. Heb. 10. 12, 13. So sitting on his throne, 1 King. 3. 6. is expounded, reigning in his stead, 2 Chron. 1. 8. Gods right hand meaneth his power and majesty in the Heavens, Luk. 22. 69. Mark. 16. 19. Heb. 1. 3. and 8. 1. and this above all Angels, Heb. 1. 13. thine enemies] even all of them, the last whereof is death, 1 Cor. 15. 25, 26. Of this place the Apostle giveth this exposition, Every Priest standeth daily ministring, and oft times offering the same sacrifices, which can never take away sinnes: but this man having offered one sacrifice for sinne, fitteth for ever at Gods right hand, henceforth expecting till his enemies be put the footstoole of his feet, Heb. 10. 11, 12, 13. Vers. 2. the rod] or staffe (scepter) of thy strength; thy strong staffe (O Christ) that is, the powerfull word of thy Kingdome, Isa. 11. 4. Mat. 13. 19. which was to come out of Sion and Ierusalem, Isa. 2. 3. Luk. 24. 49. Acts 1. 4. and 2. 1, 2, &c. For in Sion Christ reigneth, Psal. 2. 6. Rev. 14. 1. rule thou] that is, thou shalt surely rule or have dominion: see the Notes on Psal. 37. 3. Vers. 3. voluntaries] a people of voluntarinesses, or of liberalities (as Psal. 68. 10.) that is, shall most freely, willingly, and liberally present themselves and their oblations to thee, as Iudg. 5. 9. Act. 2. 41. Exod. 25. 2. Rom. 12. 1. Psal. 47. 10. and 119. 108. Song 6. 11. of thy power] or armie (as Psal. 33. 16.) that is, when thou sendest forth thy powerfull Gospell and Preachers of the same to conquer the world, Rom. 1. 16. 2 Cor. 10. 4, 5. Rev. 6. 2. Psal. 45. 4, 5, 6. in the beauties of bolinesse] or in the comely honours of the Sanctuary; meaning either the comely (or honourable) places of holinesse, (or of the Sanctuary) as Psal. 29. 2. that is, the Church; or rather, in the beautifull ornaments of holinesse, that is, holy graces and vertues, wherewith Christ and his people are adorned, as the Priests and Levites of old with Vrim, Thummim, and holy garments, Exod. 28. 2, 40. Isa. 52. 1. So the Warriers in heaven are cloathed with fine linnen, white and pure, the righteousnesse of the Saints, Rev. 19. 14. 8. of the wombe, &c.] This place is difficult, and may diversly bee understood, either of Christ himselfe, or of his people: and againe, if of Christ, either in respect of his Godhead or of his Manhood. Of his Godhead, that the Father saith unto him, of the wombe (that is, of mine owne essence) before the early morning (that is, before the world was) to thee was (or thou hadst) the dew of thy youth; (or birth) so noting the eternall generation of Christ before all worlds, as is shewed, Prov. 8. 22, 23. 24, 25. And this sense the Lxx. Greeke Interpreters seeme to follow, translating, Of the wombe before the morning starre begat I thee. If it be meant of Christs manhood, we may take it thus, of the wombe of the darke morning (or of the obscure wombe of the virgin) thou hadst the deaw of thy birth. If of Christs people before mentioned, it may thus be read; Of the wombe of the morning to thee shall be (or shall come) the deaw of thy youth, that is, thy youth (thy young or newborne people) shall be to thee as the morning deaw, which falleth secretly from heaven, and abundantly covereth the earth: For so the deaw is sometime used, 2 Sam. 17. 12. and unto raine, deaw, ice, &c. the Scripture applieth the names of wombe and begetting, Iob 38. 28, 29. and the increase of the Church is by this figure described, as, The remnant of Iakob shall be among many people, as, a deaw from the Lord, as showers upon the grasse, that waiteth not for man, &c. Mic. 5. 7. This last sense accordeth best with the beginning of the verse. of the wombe] or from the wombe of the morning. of the early morning,] or, before the dawning: the morning (or day-dawning) in Hebrew Mishchar, is named of the blacknesse or darknesse, which also the Scripture sheweth, Ioh. 20. 1. and the letter M. is either a preposition, signifying from, or before, as Isa. 43. 13. or, but a part of the word, here meaning, of. to thee] understand was, or shall be; that is, thou hast, or shalt have. deaw of thy youth] or, of thy birth, that is, thy youth which is like the deaw. Youth or nativitie, may either be taken properly for young age, as Eccles. 11. 9. or figuratively, for young persons, meaning the regenerate, which are as new borne babes, Ioh. 1. 13. and 3. 3. 1 Pet. 2. 2. Vers. 4. sware] For as much (saith the Apostle) as it is not without an oath, &c. by so much is Iesus made surety of a better Testament, Heb. 7. 20. 22. a Priest] or Sacrificer; see Psal. 99. 6. for ever,] Among the Levites, many were made Priests, because they were not suffered to endure by reason of death: but this man because he endureth ever, hath an ever lasting priesthood. Wherefore hee is able also perfectly to save them that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intereession for them, Heb. 7. 23, 24, 25. to the order] or according to my speech: both these interpretations are good, the one from the Apostles authority, Heb. 7. 17. the other from the Hebrew propriety dibrathi, as Iob 5. 8. meaning the manner and order of Melchisedek, as God speaketh of him in the historie, where he is brought in without father, mother kindred, beginning of daies, or end of life, continuing a Priest for ever, as the Apostle gathereth, Heb. 7. 1, 3. from the narration, Gen. 14. 18, &c. of Melchisedck] the King of Salem, and Priest of the most high God, whose name and office is opened, Heb. 7. 1, 2, &c. from which he inferreth, If perfection had beene by the Priesthood of the Levites, &c. what needed it that another Priest should rise after the order of Melchisedek, and not to be called after the order of Aaron? Heb. 7. 11. Vers. 5. The Lord] Christ, as in vers. 1. which the Chaldee calleth Shecinah] (the divine presence) of the LORD. at thy right hand] this may be spoken to God the Father, at whose right hand Christ sitteth, as vers. 1. or to the people of God, at whose right hand he standeth, as Psal. 109. 31. hath wounded] or shall wound, or embrew in bloud, as Psal. 68. 22, 24. a prophesie spoken as of a thing done. So usually in the Prophets, Isa. 9. 6. and 53. 4, 5, &c. See this fulfilled, Rev. 19. 18. Vers. 6. hath filled] or shall fill, to wit, all places with dead bodies, slaine and unburied, as Ier. 16. 4. So the Chaldee paraphraseth, he hath filled the land with carkasses of the wicked which are slaine. the head] Antichrist the man of sinne, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, 2 Thes. 2. 3, 8. or head for heads, and land for lands; that is, all wicked governours wheresoever. Vers. 7. of the brooke] or streame, to wit, of afflictions (as waters usually signifie, Ps. 18. 5.) Christ was to drinke, that is, to suffer, and so to enter into his glory, Matth. 26. 39 42. Luke 24. 26. 1 Pet. 1. 11. Philip. 2. 8, 9. Or, drinking of the brooke in the way, may meane a short refreshing of himselfe, and then a hot pursuit of his enemies without delay, till he hath got a full conquest of them. Compare herewith the history of Gedeons souldiers, Iudg. 7. 4, 5, 6, &c. As waters sometimes signifie doctrine; so the Chaldee here expoundeth it, From the mouth of the Prophet he shall receive doctrine in the way.

PSAL. CX.

A Pſalm of David] Concerning Chriſt, ſaith R. Obadiah, and ſo ſay Chriſt himſelf, Mat. 22. [non-Latin text not transcribed] Chryſoſt. and his Apoſtles, I Cor. 15. Heb. 7. & 10. though ſome Rabbines maliciouſly ſay otherwiſe, as R. Joſeph, ca[illegible: 1 letter]us qui bic cae[illegible: 1 letter]li[illegible: 1 letter], to ſay the beſt of him, and other Jew Doctors, who ſtagger here in their expoſitions, as drunkards.

Verſ. 1. The Lord ſaid unto my Lord] In this one verſe we have a deſcription of Chriſts perſon, his ware and his victory; ſo that we may ſay of it (and ſo indeed of the whole Pſalm, which is an Epitome of the Goſpel) as Tully did of Bru[illegible: 1 letter]as his Laconical Epiſtle, Quàm multa, quàm pancis! How much in a little. See the Note on Mat. 22.44.

Sit thou at my right hand] Sit thou with me in my Thron[illegible: 1 letter], having power over all things in heaven and earth, Matth. 28. Chriſt, as man, received, what, as God, hee had before.

Ʋntil I make thine enemies thy footſeel] Foes Chriſt hath ever had, and ſhall have to the worlds end; but then they ſhall be all in a place fitteſt for them, viz. under Chriſts feet; even thoſe who now ſe[illegible: 1 letter] up their Creſts, face the heavens, and ſay unto the King, Apoſ[illegible: 3 letters]t[illegible: 1 letter], [illegible: 1 word] it [illegible: 1 word] with him.

Verſ. 2. The Lord ſhall ſend the Ro[illegible: 1 letter]of thy ſtrength] That is, the Goſpel, that Scepter of Chriſts Kingdome, that power of God to ſalvation, unto as many as beleeve, mighty through God to work [illegible: 1 word], 2 Cor. 10.5. Act. 20.31. even the preaching of Chriſts croſs.

Out of Sin] For ſalvation in of the [illegible: 1 word] Job. 4. [illegible: 1 word] lem till, &c. Act. 1.

Rule thou it the midſt of thin[illegible: 1 letter] enemies] Among Jews, Pagans, Turks, Papaga[illegible: 1 letter]s, thoſe that will not bend, let them break; thoſe that will not ſtoop to thy Government, let them feel thy power, Pſal. 45.5.

Verſ. 3. Thy people ſhall be willing] All Chriſts ſubjects are Volunteers, free-hearted,In Pſal. 1. like thoſe Iſles that wait for Gods Law, Iſa. 42.8. Zech. 8.11. They love to be his ſervants, Iſa. 56.6. Lex voluntaries quaerit, ſaith Ambroſe.

In the day of thy power] Copiarum tuarum of thine Army, or of thy Militia, when thou ſhalt lead on thy Church Militant, and be in the head of them, conquering and to conquer, Rev. 6.2. Some underſtand it of the Chriſtian Sabbath day.

In the beauties of holineſs] i.e. In Church aſſemblies, in the beauty of holy Ordinances, at the adminiſtration whereof, Chriſts Birth-dew, that is, the influence of his Spitis and his preſence in thoſe Ordinances is from the womb of the morning, i.e. is of that generating and enlivening vertue, that the dew of the teeming morning is to the ſeeds and plants of the earth. An apt ſimilitude both to expreſs the multitude of Chriſt[illegible: 1 letter] converts, and the manner of their heavenly generation. See Mac. 5.7. with the Note.

Verſ. 4. The Lord hath ſworn, &c.] Chriſts Prieſtly Office, as well as his Kingly, is here deſcribed, whereof how many, and how great myſteries there are, ſee Heb. 7. with the Notes. The Church is collected and conſerved not onely by Chriſts Kingly power, but alſo by his Prieſtly mediation.

Thou art a Prieſt] 1. To expiate. 2. To intercede.

After the order of Melchiſedeck] Who whether he were Shem, or ſome other, is not eaſie to determine. Melchiſedeck was a King, and a Prieſt. Chriſt was more, a Prieſt, a Prophet, and a King. Theſe Offices have met double in ſome others; as Melchiſedech, was King and Prieſt, Samuel a Prieſt, and a Prophet; David a King, and a Prophet; but never met all three in any, but in Chriſt alone.

Verſ. 5. The Lord at thy right hand] Before, Chriſt was at the Fathers right hand; here the Father at his; this is to ſhew the equality of the Father, and the Son, falſh Hierom. Athanaſius, by Lord here, underſtandeth the Holy Ghoſt. Others by thy right hand, will have the Church to be meant, who is promiſed protection and victory. The Lord Chriſt ſhall ſlay her enemies in battel verſ. 5. compel them to flye and turn their backs, verſ. 6. purſue them flying, verſ. 7. as Judg. 7.5. &c.

Verſ. 6. He ſhall judge among the heathen] Do execution upon his enemies, as verſ. 1. whether Kings or Caitives.

He ſhall fill the places] The ditches of their own camps.

He ſhall wound the heads] Heb. Head; cruontabit caput, whereby ſome underſtand the Roman Empire, with its Image, Antichriſt with his adherents, who are called Heathens, Rev. 11.2. Others, Turks and Saracens, reading the next words, Over the land of Rabbab, the chief City of the Ammonites, who were likewiſe Arabians; and ſo they make it an alluſion to Davids victories over the Ammonites, 2 Sam. 10. & 12.

Verſ. 7. He ſhall drink of the brook in the way] i. e. Of the wrath of the Almighty,Viver paup[illegible: 1 letter] rem vitem [non-Latin text not transcribed] Chryſ[illegible: 1 letter]ſt. Ae[illegible: 1 letter]umnas omnes dutiſ[illegible: 1 letter] mae militiae perferet. Be[illegible: 1 letter] pointing to Chriſts ſtate of humiliation, as in the next words to his exaltation; Or, he ſhall content himſelf with a low condition here; ſuch as was that of Eli[illegible: 2 letters] when he drank of the brook, I King. 17. Or, in the eager purſuit of his enemies, he ſhall drink haſtily of the water next at hand, i.e. as Gideon, and his Souldiers did.

Therefore ſhall be lift up the hand] Maugre the heads of his enemies, he ſhall riſe again, reign, and triumph, and ſo ſhall all his members, after that through many [illegible: 2 letters]ibulations they have entred into the Kingdom of heaven. Chriſts and their [illegible: 1 word] but a drinking of the brook, not a ſpring of water for perpetuity; they are [illegible: 1 word] a dark entry into out Fathers houſe, a dirty lane to a ſtately Pallace, ſhut but your eyes, as that Martyr at the ſtake ſaid, and there will be a change immediately. Look how the Diſciples, after they had taken Chriſt into the ſhip, were preſently at ſhore, after a Tempeſt: So the Saints have no ſooner taken death into their beſomes, but they are landed preſently at the [illegible: 1 word] of [illegible: 1 word], at the Kingdome of heaven.

The LORD shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion. It is in and through the church that for the present the power of the Messiah is known. Jehovah has given to Jesus all authority in the midst of his people, whom he rules with his royal sceptre, and this power goes forth with divine energy from the church for the ingathering of the elect, and the subduing of all evil. We have need to pray for the sending out of the rod of divine strength. It was by his rod that Moses smote the Egyptians, and wrought wonders for Israel, and even so whenever the Lord Jesus sends forth the rod of his strength, our spiritual enemies are overcome. There may be an allusion here to Aaron's rod which budded and so proved his power; this was laid up in the ark, but our Lord's rod is sent forth to subdue his foes. This promise began to be fulfilled at Pentecost, and it continues even to this day, and shall yet have a grander fulfilment. O God of eternal might, let the strength of our Lord Jesus be more clearly seen, and let the nations see it as coming forth out of the midst of thy feeble people, even from Zion, the place of thine abode. Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies as he does whenever his mighty sceptre of grace is stretched forth to renew and save them. Moses' rod brought water out of the flinty rock, and the gospel of Jesus soon causes repentance to flow in rivers from the once hardened heart of man. Or the text may mean that though the church is situated in the midst of a hostile world, yet it exerts a great influence, it continues to manifest an inward majesty, and is after all the ruling power among the nations because the shout of a king is in her midst. Jesus, however hated by men, is still the King of kings. His rule is over even the most unwilling, so as to overrule their fiercest opposition to the advancement of Iris cause. Jesus, it appears from this text, is not inactive during his session at Jehovah's right hand, but in his own way proves the abiding nature of his kingdom both in Zion and from Zion, both among his friends and his foes. We look for the clearer manifestation of his almighty power in the latter days; but even in these waiting times we rejoice that to the Lord all power is given in heaven and in earth.

Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth. In consequence of the sending forth of the rod of strength, namely, the power of the gospel, out of Zion, converts will come forward in great numbers to enlist under the banner of the Priest King. Given to him of old, they are his people, and when his power is revealed, these hasten with cheerfulness to own his sway, appearing at the gospel call as it were spontaneously, even as the dew comes forth in the morning. This metaphor is further enlarged upon, for as the dew has a sparkling beauty, so these willing armies of converts have a holy excellence and charm about them; and as the dew is the lively emblem of freshness, so are these converts full of vivacity and youthful vigour, and the church is refreshed by them and made to flourish exceedingly. Let but the gospel be preached with divine unction, and the chosen of the Lord respond to it like troops in the day of the mustering of armies; they come arrayed by grace in shining uniforms of holiness, and for number, freshness, beauty, and purity, they are as the dewdrops which come mysteriously from the tooming's womb. Some refer this passage to the resurrection, but even if it be so, the work of grace in regeneration is equally well described by it, for it is a spiritual resurrection. Even as the holy dead rise gladly into the lovely image of their Lord, so do quickened souls put on the glorious righteousness of Christ, and stand forth to behold their Lord and serve him. How truly beautiful is holiness! God himself admires it. How wonderful also is the eternal youth of the mystical body of Christ! As the dew is new every morning, so is there a constant succession of converts to give to the church perpetual juvenility. Her young men have a dew from the Lord upon them, and arouse in her armies an undying enthusiasm for him whose "locks are bushy and black as a raven" with unfailing youth. Since Jesus ever lives, so shall his church ever flourish. As his strength never faileth, so shall the vigour of his true people be renewed day by day. As he is a Priest King, so are his people all priests and kings, and the beauties of holiness are their priestly dress, their garments for glory and for beauty; of these priests unto God there shall be an unbroken succession. The realization of this day of power during the time of the Lord's tarrying is that which we should constantly pray for; and we may legitimately expect it since he ever sits in the seat of honour and power, and puts forth his strength, according to his own word, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."

We have now reached the heart of the psalm, which is also the very centre and soul of our faith. Our Lord Jesus is a Priest King by the ancient oath of Jehovah: "he glorified not himself to be made an high priest, "but was ordained there unto from of old, and was called of God an high priest after the order of Melchizedek. It must be a solemn and a sure matter which leads the Eternal to swear, and with him an oath fixes and settles the decree for ever; but in this case, as if to make assurance a thousand times sure, it is added, " and will mot repent." It is done, and done for ever and ever; Jesus is sworn in to be the priest of his people, and he must abide so even to the end, because his commission is sealed by the unchanging oath of the immutable Jehovah. If his priesthood could be revoked, and his authority removed, it would be the end of all]lope and life for the people whom he loves; but this sure rock is the basis of our security —the oath of God establishes our glorious Lord both in his priesthood and in his throne. It is the Lord who has constituted him a priest for ever, he has done it by oath, that oath is without repentance, is taking effect now, and will stand throughout all ages: hence our security in him is placed beyond all question.

The declaration runs in the present tense as being the only time with the Lord, and comprehending all other times. "Thou art, "i.e., thou wast and art and art to come, in all ages a priestly King. The order of Melchizedek's priesthood was the most ancient and primitive, the most free from ritual and ceremony, the most natural and simple, and at the same time the most honourable. That ancient patriarch was the father of his people, and at the same time ruled and taught them; he swayed both the sceptre and the censer, reigned in righteousness, and offered sacrifice before the Lord. There has never arisen another like to him since his days, for whenever the kings of Judah attempted to seize the sacerdotal office they were driven back to their confusion: God would have no king priest save Iris son. Melchizedek's office was exceptional none preceded or succeeded him; he comes upon the page of history mysteriously; no pedigree is given, no date of birth, or mention of death; he blesses Abraham, receives tithe and vanishes from the scene amid honours which show that he was greater than the founder of the chosen nation. He is seen but once, and that once suffices. Aaron and his seed came and went; their imperfect sacrifice continued for many generations, because it had no finality in it, and could never make the comers thereunto perfect. Our Lord Jesus, like Melchizedek, stands forth before us as a priest of divine ordaining; not made a priest by fleshly birth, as the sons of Aaron: he mentions neither father, mother, nor descent, as his right to the sacred office; he stands upon his personal merits, by himself alone; as no man came before him in his work, so none can follow after; his order begins and ends in his own person, and in himself it is eternal, "having neither beginning of days nor end of years The King Priest has been here and left his blessing upon the believing, and now he sits in glory in his complete character, stoning for us by the merit of his blood, and exercising all power on our behalf."

"O may we ever hear thy voice

In mercy to us speak,

And in our Priest we will rejoice,

Thou great Melchizedek."

The last verses of this psalm we understand to refer to the future victories of the Priest King. He shall not forever sit in waiting posture, but shall come into the fight to end the weary war by his own victorious presence. He will lead the final charge in person; his own right hand and his holy arm shall get unto him the victory.

The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. Now that he has come into the field of action, the infinite Jehovah comes with him as the strength of his right hand. Eternal power attends the coming of the Lord, and earthly power dies before it as though smitten through with a sword. In the last days all the kingdoms of the earth shall be overcome by the kingdom of heaven, and those who dare oppose shall meet with swift and overwhelming ruin. What are kings when they dare oppose the Son of God? A single stroke shall suffice for their destruction. When the angel of the Lord smote Herod there was no need of a second blow; he was eaten of worms and gave up the ghost. Concerning the last days, we read of the Faithful and True, who shall ride upon a white horse, and in righteousness judge and make war: "Out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God."

He shall judge among the heathen, or, among the nations. All nations shall feel his power, and either yield to it joyfully or be crushed before it. He shall fill the places with the dead bodies. In the terrible battles of his gospel all opponents shall fall till the field of fight is heaped high with the slain. This need not be understood literally, but as a poetical description of the overthrow of all rebellious powers and the defeat of all unholy principles. Yet should kings oppose the Lord with weapons of war, the result would be their overwhelming defeat and the entire destruction of their forces. Read in connection with this prophecy the passage which begins at the seventeenth verse of Re 19:1 and runs on to the end of the chapter. Terrible things in righteousness will be seen ere the history of this world comes to an end. He shall wound the heads over many countries. He will strike at the greatest powers which resist him, and wound not merely common men, but those who rule and reign. If the nations will not have Christ for their Head, they shall find their political heads to be powerless to protect them. Or the passage may be read, "he has smitten the head over the wide earth." The monarch of the greatest nation shall not be able to escape the sword of the Lord; nor shall that dread spiritual prince who rules over the children of disobedience be able to escape without a deadly wound. Pope and priest must fall, with Mahomet and other deceivers who are now heads of the people. Jesus must reign and they must perish.

He shall drink of the brook in the way. So swiftly shall he march to conquest that he shall not stay for refreshment, but drink as he hastens on. Like Gideon's men that lapped, he shall throw his heart into the fray and cut it short in righteousness, because a short work will the Lord make in the earth. "Therefore shall he lift up the head." His own head shall be lifted high in victory, and his people, in him, shall be upraised also. When he passed this way before, he was burdened and had stern work laid upon him; but in his second advent he will win an easy victory; aforetime he was the man of sorrows, but when he comes a second time his head will be lifted in triumph. Let his saints rejoice with him. "Lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh." In the latter days we look for terrible conflicts and for a final victory. Long has Jesus borne with our rebellious race, but at length he wilt rise to end the warfare of longsuffering, by the blows of justice. God has fought with men's sins for their good, but he will not always by his Spirit strive with men; he will cease from that struggle of long suffering love, and begin another which shall soon end in the final destruction of his adversaries. O King priest, we who are, in a minor degree, king priests too, are full of gladness because thou reignest even now, and wilt come ere long to vindicate thy cause and establish thine empire for ever. Even so, come quickly. Amen.

Whole Psalm. The preceding Psalm is a Passion Psalm, and it is now followed by a Psalm of Christ's Resurrection, Ascension, and Session in glory. We have seen the same connection in Ps. 22-24, and in Ps. 45-47. The present psalm grows up from the former Psalm, as the Hill of Olivet, the Hill of Ascension, rises up from the Vale of Gethsemane below it. Christopher Wordsworth.

Whole Psalm. This psalm has been well designated the crown of all the Psalms, of which Luther saith that it is worthy to be overlaid with precious jewels. More especially does the Reformer call verse 5 a well spring, —nay, a treasury of all Christian doctrines, understanding, wisdom, and comfort, richer and fuller than any other passage of Holy Writ. In his own peculiar manner, he styles Christ the Sheblimini (`Sit on my right hand').`Full sure, the devil must let alone my Sheblimini, and cannot bring him down either by his scorn or by his wrath.' Christ still liveth and reigneth, and his title is Sheblimini. On his stirrup is engraven, "I will make thine enemies' thy footstool, "and upon his diadem, "Thou art a priest for ever." —Alfred Edersheim, 1873.

Whole Psalm. The ancients (by Cassiodorus' collection) term this psalm the sun of our faith, the treasure of holy writ: "verbis brevis, sensu infinitus", (saith Augustine,)short in words, but in sense infinite. Theodoret notes how it is connected with the psalm going before: "there (saith he) we have his cross and sufferings, here his conquest and trophies." For he cometh forth as the heir apparent of the Almighty, the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, graced with,

1. Title, "My Lord."

2. Place, "Sit thou on my right hand."

3. Power, "Until I make thine enemies thy footstool." —John Prideaux, in a Sermon entitled, "The Draught of the Brooke," 1636.

Whole Psalm. This psalm is one of the fullest and most compendious prophecies of the person and offices of Christ in the whole Old Testament, and so full of fundamental truth, that I shall not shun to call it Symbolum Davidicum, the prophet David's creed. And indeed there are very few, if any, of the articles of that creed which we all generally profess, which are not either plainly expressed, or by most evident implication couched in this little model. First, the Doctrine of the Trinity is in the first words; "The Lord said unto my Lord." There is Jehovah the Father, and my Lord, the Son, and the consecrating of him to be David's Lord which was by the Holy Ghost, by whose fulness he was anointed unto the offices of king and priest; for so our Saviour himself expounds this word "said, "by the scaling and sanctification of him to his office, Joh 10:34,35,36. Then we have the Incarnation of Christ, in the words, "my Lord, "together with his dignity and honour above David (as our Saviour himself expounds it, Mt 22:42,45). Mine, that is, my Son by descent and genealogy after the flesh, and yet my Lord too, in regard of his higher son ship. We have also the Sufferings of Christ, in that he was consecrated a priest (Ps 110:4) to offer up himself once for all, and so to drink of the brook in the way. We have his Completed Work and conquest over all his enemies and sufferings; his Resurrection, "he shalt lift up his head"; his Ascension and Intercession, "Sit thou on my right hand." We have here also a Holy Catholic Church gathered together by the sceptre of his kingdom, and holding in the parts thereof a blessed and beautiful Communion of Saints; "The LORD shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.". We have the Last Judgment, for all his enemies must be put under his feet, (which is the Apostle's argument to prove the end of all things, 1Co 15:25); and there is the day of his wrath, wherein he shall accomplish that judgment over the heathen, and that victory over the kings of the earth (who take counsel and band themselves together against him), which he doth here in his word begin. We have the Remission of sins, comprised in his priesthood, for he was to offer sacrifices for the remission of sins, and "to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, "Eph 1:7 Heb 9:26. We have the Resurrection of the body, because he must "subdue all enemies under his feet, and the last enemy to be destroyed is death, "as the Apostle argues out of this psalm, 1Co 15:25,26. And lastly, we have life everlasting, in the everlasting merit and virtue of his priesthood, "Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek, "and in his sitting at the right hand of God, whither he is gone as our forerunner, and to prepare a place for us, Heb 6:20 Joh 14:2; and therefore the apostle from his sitting there, and living ever, infers the perfection and certainty of our salvation, Ro 6:8,11 8:17 Eph 2:16 Col 3:1-4 1Co 15:49; Php 3:20,21 1Th 4:14 Heb 7:25 1Jo 3:2. Edward Reynolds, 1599-1676.

Whole Psalm. Although the Jews of later times have gone about to wrest it to another meaning, yet this Psalm is so approved and undoubted a prophecy of Christ, that the Pharisees durst not deny it, when being questioned by our Saviour (Mt 22:42,43) how it should be, seeing Christ is the son of David, that David not with standing should call him Lord, saying, "The Lord said unto my Lord, " they could not answer him a word, whereas the answer had been very easy and ready if they could have denied this psalm to be meant of Christ. But they knew it could not be otherwise understood, and it was commonly taken amongst them to be a prophecy of their Messias, according to the very evidence of the text itself, which cannot be fitted to any other, but only to Christ our Saviour, the Son of God. For whereas some of them since then have construed all these things as spoken in the name of the people of Judah concerning David their king, the text itself refuseth that construction, when in those words, "Sit thou at my right hand, "it mentions an honour done to him of whom it speaketh, greater than can be fitted to the angels, and therefore much less to be applied unto David. Again, that which is spoken in the fourth verse of the priesthood, cannot be understood of David, who was indeed a king, but never had anything spoken as touching the priesthood to appertain unto him, and of whom it cannot be conceived how it should be said, "Thou art a priest for ever, "etc. Yea, there is nothing here spoken whereof we may see in David any more but some little shadow in comparison of that which hath come to pass in Jesus Christ. Robert Abbot (1560-1617) in "The Exaltation of the Kingdom and Priesthood of Christ."

Whole Psalm. The sixty-eighth psalm hails the ascent of the Messiah, prefigured by the translation of the ark, and gives a rapid and obscure view of the glories and the blessings consequent upon that event. The twenty-fourth exhibits to us the Messiah ascending to his redemption throne borne up by the wings of angels and archangels, and hosannahed by the whole intelligent creation; it marks in the most glowing colours the triumphant entry of Messiah into the heavenly regions, and the tone of authority and power with which he commands that entrance —it sends him attended by the angelic host to his Father's throne, there to claim that preeminence which was his by inheritance and by conquest. At this point the Psalm before us "takes up the wondrous tale"; it exhibits to us the awful solemnities of his reception, it represents the Father bestowing on his well beloved Son the kingdom which he had earned, exalting him to the throne, and putting all things under his feet; receiving him in his office of prophet, and promising universality and permanence to "the rod of his strength"; receiving him in the office of priesthood, his own peculiar priesthood, and confirming its efficacy and duration by an oath; thus perfecting the redemption scheme, and completing the conquest over sin and death, and him who had the power of death. Man united with God was raised to the throne of being: man united with God perfected the sacrifice which was demanded, and the angelic host is represented by the Psalmist as taking up the strain, and hymning the future triumphs of the King of Glory —triumphs over his foes, whom he will visit in the day of his wrath, and triumphs with his willing people, whom he will assist with his Spirit, refine by his grace, and exalt into his glory. Such do I conceive to be the occasion, the object, and the tendency of this sacred song: to me it appears to be eminently an epinicion, or song of victory: it celebrates the triumph of the conqueror, it presents him with the rewards of victory, and it predicts future conquests as crowning his glory; while elsewhere we see the Captain of our salvation militant, here we sec him triumphant; while elsewhere we see his offices inchoate, here they are perfected by the approval of the Godhead, and the promise of eternity: here we have instruction consolidating empire, and the atonement completed by the everlasting priesthood. J.H. Singer, in "The Irish Pulpit," 1839.

In this one verse we have a description of Christ's person, his wars and his victory; so that we may say of it, (and so indeed of the whole psalm, which is an epitome of the Gospel), as Tully did of Brutus in his laconical epistle, "Quam multa, guam paucis!" How much in a little. John Trapp.

The LORD said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand. An oft quoted passage —because it contains a memorable truth. We find it quoted by Messiah himself to lead Israel to own him as greater than David, Mt 22:44. It is quoted in Heb 1:13, to prove him higher far than angels. It is brought forward by Peter, Ac 2:34, to show him Lord as well as Christ. It is referred to in Heb 10:12,13, as declaring that Jesus has satisfactorily finished what he undertook to accomplish on earth "the one sacrifice for ever", and is henceforth on that seat of divine honour "expecting till his enemies be made his footstool" in the day of Iris Second Coming. Andrew A. Behar.

The Lord said. Albeit the understanding of Christ's person and office be necessary unto the church, yet none know the Son save the Father, and they to whom he will reveal him: for David knew Christ only by the Father's teaching: "The Lord said", said he. David Dickson.

My Lord. From hence we learn that though Christ was man, yet he was more than a bare man, since he is Lord to his father David. For jure naturae, no son is lord to his father; domination doth never ascend. There must be something above nature in him to make him his father's sovereign, as our Savour himself argues from these words, Mt 22:42,45. Edward Reynolds.

My Lord. It was a higher honour to have Christ for his son, than to be a king; yet David does not say that Christ is his son, but rejoices that Christ is his Lord, and he Christ's servant. But this joy has also been procured for it: see Lu 1:43; Joh 20:28 Php 3:3,8. They who regard the Messiah only as the son of David, regard the lesser part of the conception of him. A dominion to which David himself is subject, shows the heavenly majesty of the King, and the heavenly character of his kingdom. John Albert Bengel.

Until I make thine emimies thy footstool. Every word is full of weight. For though ordinarily subdivisions of holy Scripture and crumbling of the bread of life be rather a loosing than an expounding of it; yet in such parts of it as were of purpose intended for models and summaries of fundamental doctrines, (of which sort this psalm is one of the fullest and briefest in the whole Scriptures), as in little maps of large countries, there is no word whereupon some point of weighty consequence may not depend. Here then is to be considered the term of duration or measure off Christ's kingdom: "until." The author of subduing Christ's enemies under him: "I, the Lord." The mariner thereof; ponam and ponam scabellum put thy foes as a stool under thy feet. Victory is a relative word, and presupposes enemies, and they are expressed in the text... Enmity shows itself against Christ in all the offices of his mediation. There is enmity against him as a prophet. Enmity against his truth, —in opinion by adulterating it with human mixtures and superinducement, teaching for doctrines the traditions of men; in affection, by wishing many divine truths were razed out of the Scriptures, as being manifestly contrary to those pleasures which they love rather than God; in conversation, by keeping down the truth in unrighteousness, and in those things which they know, as brute beasts, corrupting themselves. Enmity against his teaching, by quenching the motions, and resisting the evidence of his Spirit in the Word, refusing to hear his voice, and rejecting the counsel of God against themselves. There is enmity against him as a priest, by undervaluing his person, sufferings, righteousness, or merits. And as a king; enmity to his worship, by profaneness neglecting it, by idolatry misappropriating it, by superstition corrupting it. Enmity to his ways and service, by ungrounded prejudices, misjudging them as grievous, unprofitable, or unequal ways; and by wilful disobedience forsaking them to walk in the ways of our own heart. Edward Reynolds.

Make thine enemies thy footstool! This expression, that the conquest of Christ's enemies shall be but as the removing of a stool into its place, notes unto us two things: first, the easiness of God's victory over the enemies of Christ. They are before him as nothing, less than nothing, the drop of a bucket, the dust of the balance, a very little thing...Secondly, as this putting of Christ's enemies like a stool under the feet notes easiness, so also it notes order or beauty too. When Christ's enemies shall be under his foot, then there shall be a right order in things; then it shall indeed appear that God is a God of order, and therefore the day wherein that shall be done, is called "the times of the restitution of all things, "Ac 3:21. The putting of Christ's enemies under his feet is an act of justice; and of all others, justice is the most orderly virtue, that which keepeth beauty upon the face of a people, as consisting itself in symmetry and proportion. This putting of Christ's enemies as a stool under his feet, also denotes unto us two things in reference to Christ: first, his rest, and secondly, his triumph. To stand, in the Scripture phrase, denotes ministry, and to sit, rest; and there is no posture so easy as to sit with a stool under one's feet. Till Christ's enemies then be all under his feet, he is not fully in his rest. Furthermore, this "footstool" under Christ's feet, in reference to his enemies, denotes unto us four things. First, the extreme shame and confusion which they shall everlastingly suffer, the utter abasing and bringing down of all that exalteth itself against Christ. Secondly, hereby is noted the burden which wicked men must bear: the footstool beareth the weight of the body, so must the enemies of Christ bear the weight of his heavy and everlasting wrath upon their souls. Thirdly, herein is noted the relation which the just recompense of God bears unto the sins of ungodly men. Thus will Christ deal with his enemies at the last day. Here they trample upon Christ in his word, in his ways, in his members; they make the saints bow down for them to go over, and make them as the pavements on the ground; they tread under foot the blood of the covenant, and the sanctuary of the Lord, and put Christ to shame; but there their own measure shall be returned into their bosoms, they shall be constrained to confess as Adonibezek, "As I have done, so God hath requited me." Lastly, herein we may note the great power and wisdom of Christ in turning the malice and mischief of his enemies unto his own use and advantage; and so ordering wicked men that though they intend nothing but extirpation and ruin to his kingdom, yet they shall be useful unto him, and, against their own wills, serviceable to those glorious ends, in the accomplishing whereof he shall be admired by all those that believe. As in a great house there is necessary use of vessels of dishonour, destined unto sordid and mean, but yet daily, services: so in the great house of God, wicked men are his utensils and household instruments, as footstools and staves, and vessels wherein there is no pleasure, though of them there may be good use. Condensed from Reynolds.

Thy foot stool. As this our king has a glorious throne, so has he also a wonderful footstool; and as his royal throne imparts to us comfort in the highest degree, so his footstool also imparts to us joy. How joyful shall his poor subjects be when they hear that their prince and king has slain their enemies and delivered them out of their hands! How did their poor subjects go forward to meet Saul and Jonathan when those kings had slain the Philistines! ...Moreover, because our King has his enemies under his feet, thus shall he also bring all our enemies under our feet, for his victory is ours, God be thanked, who has given us the victory through Christ our Lord. Joshua Arnd, 1626-1685.

The rod of thy strength, or rather, "The sceptre of thy might", i.e., of "Thy kingly majesty, "as in Jer 48:17; Eze 19:14. Chrysostom plays upon the word rabdov (LXX) as a rod of strength and consolation, as in Ps 23:4; a rod of chastisement, as in Ps 2:9, 1Co 4:21; a symbol of kingly rule, as in Isa 11:1, Ps 45:6. It was by this rod, he says, that the disciples wrought when they subdued the world, in obedience to the command, "Go and make disciples of all nations"; a rod far more powerful than that of Moses, "for that divided rivers, this brake in pieces the ungodliness of the world." And then with profound truth he adds, "Nor would one err who should call the Cross the rod of power; for this rod converted sea and land, and filled them with a vast power. Armed with this rod, the Apostles went forth throughout the world, and accomplished ali that they did, beginning at Jerusalem." The Cross, which to men seemed the very emblem of shame and weakness, was, in truth, the power of God. J.J. Stewart Perowne.

The rod of thy strength. The power of this sceptre and word of Christ appeareth greatly in the saving of his elect... So mightily hath it prevailed and overruled the minds of men against nature, and reason, and learning, and wisdom, and custom, and whatsoever else is strong to hold men in the liking of those things which they have once received and followed, as that they have been content to renounce the devotions which their forefathers had so long embraced; to cast away the gods which themselves had devoutly served; to stop their ears against the contrary motives and persuasions of father and mother; to harden their hearts against the kneeling and weeping and embracing of wife and children; to forego their honours, and inheritances, yea, and their lives also, rather than lose that peace and joy of heart which the same word of Christ had ministered unto them. Yea, how strange is it, and how greatly doth it commend the power of this word, to see weakness hereby prevailing against strength, simplicity against policy; to see the lamb standing without fear before the lion, the gentle turtle before the devouring kite; women and children and weaklings before the great monarchs and potentates of the world, not fearing their threatening words, nor dreading their tormenting hands, but boldly uttering the word of their testimony (Re 12:11), in despite of all their fury, and never yielding to shrink from it, by anything that could be devised against them. The word of God in their hearts gave them courage and resolution and strength to go through fire and water, to bear all adventures of wind and weather, and howsoever they seemed to be beaten against the rocks, yet they escaped shipwreck, and arrived safe at the haven of their desire. Robert Abbot.

Out of Zion. We need not say much about how the omniscience of God is displayed in the wonderful fact, that in the very land of the covenant —in the very midst of that people who rejected and crucified the Saviour, the first church of Christ on earth was established. What would cavillers and blasphemers have said, had it been otherwise? had the Christian community been formed in any of the heathen countries? Would it not have been considered as a fiction of the idolatrous priests? Israel scattered among the nations, and the Church of Christ having begun in Zion at Jerusalem, are the most wonderful and enduring monuments, and incontestable witnesses of the truth of Christianity. Benjamin Weiss.

From his ruling in the midst of enemies we learn that the kingdom of Christ in this life is the kingdom of the Cross, of persecutions, and of dangers. Enemies are never wanting, not only external adversaries, but also spiritual and eternal; and therefore great sorrow is always awaiting the godly. In this most terrible conflict, however, their minds are lifted up by this consolation, viz., that the rod of the kingdom is strong, and cannot be overcome by any force or power; yea, more, albeit assailed with contendings and all kinds of storms, it will continue stable, firm, and perpetual: and there will always be a Church among men, which will fear and worship this King; because the experience of all the ages teaches, that this kingdom has the more grown and increased the more it has been opposed, according to that saying of Basil, en taiv yliqesi mallon yallei h ekklhsia, the Church flourishes more by tribulation. Rivetus.

Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. Set up thy power over them and reign in them. This is a commission to set up a kingdom in the very midst of those who were his enemies; in the hearts of those who had been and were rebellious. His kingdom is set up not by destroying them, but by subduing them, so that they become his willing servants. They yield to him, and he rules over them. It is not here a commission to cut them off, but one much more difficult of execution, —to make them his friends, and to dispose them to submit to his authority. Mere power may crush men; It requires more than that to make rebels willingly submissive, and to dispose them voluntarily to obey. Albert Barnes.

Thy people. That is, those whom thou dost receive from thy Father, and, by setting up the standard and ensign of the Gospel, gather to thyself. "Shall be willing." The word is willingness, that is, a people of great willingness and devotion, or (as the original word is elsewhere used, Ps 119:108), shall be freewill offerings unto thee. The abstract being put for the concrete, and the plural for the singular, notes how exceeding forward and free they should be; as the Lord, to signify that his people were most rebellious, saith, that they were rebellion itself, Eze 2:8. So then the meaning is, thy people shall, with most ready and forward cheerfulness, devote, consecrate, and render up themselves to thy government as a reasonable sacrifice, shall be of a most liberal, free, noble, and unconstrained spirit in thy service, and shall be voluntaries in the wars of thy kingdom. Edward Reynolds.

Thy people, O Jesus Christ, which were given thee by the Father, purchased and redeemed by thee, who acknowledged thee for their Lord, and are bound to thee by a military oath, are extremely willing, being devoted to thy service with the greatest readiness of soul, alacrity, inclination, and voluntary obedience. Nor are they willing only, but willingness itself in the abstract; nay, willingness in the plural number, the highest and most excellent willingness, all which add an emphasis. This is seen to be so Plyh Mwyb "in the day of thy valour power, "in which thy generous spirit laying hold of them, animates them to grand and bold enterprises. Then they go forth in the beauties of holiness, by which they are a terror to the devil, a delight to God and angels, and a mutual edification to one another. Herman Witsius, 1636-1708.

Thy people shall be willing. Willing to do what? They shall be willing while others are unwilling. The simple term "willing, "is very expressive. It denotes the beautiful condition of creatures who suffer themselves to be wrought upon, and moved, according to the will of God. They suffer God to work in them to will and to do. They are willing to die unto all sin, they are willing to crucify the old man, or self, in order that the new man, or Christ, may be formed in them. They are willing to be weaned from their own thoughts and purposes, that the thoughts and purposes of God may be fulfilled in them. They are willing to be transferred from nature's steps of human descent to God's steps of human ascent. Or, to abide by the simplicity of our text, God is Will, and they are "willing." God will beautify them with salvation, because there is nothing in them to hinder his working. They will be wise, they will be good, they will be lovely, they will be like God, for they are "willing"; and there proceeds from God a mighty spirit, the whole tendency of which is to make his creatures like himself. John Pulsford, in "Quiet Hours," 1857.

Thy people shall be willing. They are willing in believing, loving, obeying, adhering, living piously and justly in this world; so that they do not need the constraints of laws or threats, because they are led by the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there, also, is liberty. Wolfgang Musculus.

Thy people shall be willing. Am I one of the "willing people" —not only my obedience and allegiance secured from a conviction of the truth, but my heart inclined, and my will renewed? To do the will of God, to bear the will of God, to coincide with the will of God —and that with calm if not cheerful consent of the heart, as seeing him who is invisible, and holding fast my living apprehensions of his person and character? All unwillingness, whether practical or lurking in the heart, springs from unbelief —from a failure to realise him or his purposes. Were Jesus, as God become incarnate, and as giving himself for me, and his counsel of grace towards me, ever or even in any measure before my heart, how could I hesitate to yield myself, absolutely and implicitly, to him and his guidance? Again, this "willingness" is the essence of holiness; it constitutes "the beauties of holiness" —the beauty of Christ cast over the soul. The cure, therefore, for all my misery and sin is more faith, more of Christ, and nearer to him. This let me seek and ask with ever increasing earnestness. Alfred Edersheim.

Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, etc. The prophet here notes three things respecting the subjects of the kingdom of the Messiah:

1. Their prompt obedience.

2. Their attire or vesture.

3. Their abundance, or multitude.

This representation admirably agrees with what precedes. He had said that the Messiah should reign in the midst of his enemies, but lest any one should think that he would reign only over enemies, unwilling and opposing, as the devils are made subject to Christ, now he lets us know that he will have a loyal people, and obedient subjects, for else there would be wanting that same glory of which Solomon speaks in Pr 14:28, "In the multitude of people is the king's honour." He affirms also, that he would have his own people, who would recognise, receive, and serve him as King, with true obedience, nor would it be a small company, but like the dew, which waters the face of the whole earth. Rivetus.

Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. It is power acted and executed with all sweetness, mildness, and gentleness. Here is "leading, but no force; conduct, but no compulsion, "vehemence, inclination, non coactio: {1} the will is determined, but not the least violence is done to it, to the infringing of its liberty. How spontaneously does the person led follow him that leads him! So it is here. This and all other workings of the Spirit are admirably suited to the nature of reasonable and free agents. Efficacious grace does not at all destroy natural liberty. Where the spirit does not find sinners willing, by his sweet method he makes them willing: "Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power." A "day of power, "yet "willing" Even the Spirit's drawing is managed with all consistency to the freedom of the will; elknei o yeost, alla bonlomenon elknei {2}. He draws; "but it is one that he makes willing to follow." "Behold, I will allure her" (Ho 2:14): aye, there is the Spirit's leading! this being the constant and avowed doctrine of the Protestants, and particularly their explication of the Spirit's leading in the text Ro 8:14; how injurious and invidious are the Popish writers in their traducing and calumniating of them, as if they asserted the Spirit, in this or any other act, to work with compulsion, or in a way destructive to man's essential liberty! It is a vile scandal! {1} Gorranus {2} Chrysostom —Thomas Jacomb, in "The Morning Exercises."

In the day of thy power. In the day of thy strength, saith the Vulgate: of thy force and valour, say Tremellius and Junius: of the assemblies, say they of Geneva: of the armies, saith Munster; "at such times as thou shalt bring thy bands and join battle, "so Vatablus, Castalio, and the Chaldee Paraphrase have it. All which the original Plyh mryp may bear without straining. John Prideaux, 1578-1650.

The subjects of the Priest King are willing soldiers. In accordance with the warlike tone of the whole Psalm, our text describes the subjects as an army. That military metaphor comes out more closely when we attach the true meaning of the words, "in the day of thy power." The word rendered, and rightly rendered, "power, "has the same ambiguity which that word has in the English of the date of our translation, and for a century later, as you may find in Shakespeare and Milton, who both used it in the sense of "army". Singularly enough we do not employ "powers" in that meaning, but we do another word which means the same thing —and talk of "forces", meaning thereby "troops" ..."The day of thy power" is not a mere synonym for "the time of thy might", but means specifically "the day of thine army", that is, "the day when thou dost muster thy forces and set them in array for the war". The King is going forth to conquest. But he goes not alone. Behind him come his faithful followers, all pressing on with willing hearts and high courage. Alexander McLaren, 1871.

In the day of thy power. This refers in a general way to the gospel dispensation, and in particular to the period of conversion. To the perishing sinner the gospel comes, "not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance." It is an arresting power; it meets the sinner, and stays his mad career, as in the case of Saul of Tarsus. It is a convincing power, it teaches the sinner that he is ruined in every respect, and leads him to cry out, "What shall I do to be saved?" ... It is a life giving power; it quickens dead souls, and will eventually bring the dead bodies from their graves; "all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God and shall live." This is the style of Jehovah, "it will, they shall"; none other dare speak thus. It is also liberating power; "if the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." —Theophilus Jones, in a Sermon preached at Surrey Chapel, 1823.

Thy people, etc. In homage, they shall be like a company of priests in sacred vestments, for they shall appear "in the beauties of holiness". In number, they shall be like the countless dewdrops "from the womb of the morning", sparkling in the rays of the rising sun, and reflecting his radiance. In glory they shall bear the likeness of Christ's resurrection in all its vernal freshness: "Thou hast the dew of thy youth". Benjamin Wildon Cart.

In the beauties of holiness. In holy vestments as priests. They are at once warriors and priests; meet for the service of Him who was King and Priest. Neander (Mem. of Chr. Life, ch. 4) remarks on the connection between these two sides of the Christian character. God's soldiers can only maintain their war by priestly self-consecration. Conversely: God's priests can only preserve their purity by unintermitted conflict. William Kay.

In the beauties of holiness. This expression is usually read as if it belonged either to the words immediately preceding, or to those immediately following. But in either case the connection is somewhat difficult and obscure. It seems better regarded as a distinct and separate clause, adding a fresh trait to the description of the army. And what that is we need not find any difficulty in ascertaining. "The beauties of holiness" is a frequent phrase for the sacerdotal garments, the holy festal attire of the priests of the Lord. So considered, how beautifully it comes in here. The conquering King whom the psalm hymns is a Priest for ever; and he is followed by an army of priests. The soldiers are gathered in the day of the muster, with high courage and willing devotion, ready to fling away their lives; but they are clad not in mail, but in priestly robes; like those who wait before the altar rather than like those who plunge into the fight, like those who compassed Jericho with the ark for their standard and the trumpets tor all their weapons. We can scarcely fail to remember the words which echo these and interpret them. "The armies which were in heaven followed him on white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean" —a strange armour against sword cut and spear thrust. Alexander McLaren.

The beauties of holiness. Godliness is our spiritual beauty. Godliness is to the soul as the light to the world, to illustrate and adorn it. It is not greatness that sets us off in God's eye, but goodness: what is the beauty of the angels but their sanctity? Godliness is the curious embroidery and workmanship of the Holy Ghost: a soul furnished with godliness is damasked with beauty, and enamelled with purity: this is the "clothing of wrought gold" which makes the King of heaven fall in love with us. Were there not an excellency in holiness, the hypocrite would never go about to paint it. Godliness sheds a glory and lustre upon the saints: what are the graces but the golden feathers in which Christ's dove shines? Ps 68:13. Thomas Watson.

Thou hast the dew of thy youth. These words are often misunderstood, and taken to be a description of the fresh, youthful energy attributed by the Psalm to the Priest King of this nation of soldier priests. The misunderstanding, I suppose, has led to the common phrase, "the dew of one's youth". But the reference of the expression is to the army, not to its leader. "Youth" here is a collective noun, equivalent to "young men". The host of his soldier subjects is described as a band of young warriors, whom he leads, in their fresh strength and countless numbers and gleaming beauty like the dew of the morning... It is as a symbol of the refreshing which a weary world will receive from the conquests and presence of the King and his host, that they are likened to the glittering morning dew. Another prophetic Scripture gives us the same emblem when it speaks of Israel being "in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord". Such ought to be the effect of our presence. We are meant to gladden, to adorn, to refresh this parched, prosaic world, with a freshness brought from the chambers of the sunrise. The dew, formed, in the silence of the darkness while men sleep, falling as willingly on a bit of dead wood as anywhere, hanging its pearls on every poor spike of grass, and dressing everything on which it lies with strange beauty, each separate globule tiny and evanescent, but each flashing back the light, and each a perfect sphere: feeble one by one, but united mighty to make the pastures of the wilderness rejoice —so, created in silence by an unseen influence, feeble when taken in detail, but strong in their myriads, glad to occupy the lowliest place, and each "bright with something of celestial light", Christian men and women are to be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord. Alexander McLaren.

The dew of thy youth. There does not, indeed, appear to me any reason to doubt that, in this place, David extols the divine favour displayed in increasing the number of Christ's people; and hence, in consequence of their extraordinary increase, he compares the youth or race which would be born to him to the dew. As men are struck with astonishment at seeing the earth moistened and refreshed with dew, though its descent be imperceptible, even so, David declares that an innumerable offspring shall be born to Christ, who shall be spread over the whole earth. The youth, therefore, which, like the dewdrops, are innumerable, are here designated the dew of childhood, or of youth. John Calvin.

From the womb of the morning is, with the utmost pertinency, applied to the conception and production of dews; agreeably to a delicate line in that great master of just description and lively painting, Mr. Thomson: "The meek eyed morn appears, mother of dews." We meet with a fine expression in the book of Job, which may serve to confirm this remark; and may illustrate the propriety of the phrase used in this connection: "Hath the rain a father, or who hath begot ten the drops of dew?" It seems, the oriental writers delighted to represent the dew as a kind of birth, as the offspring of the morning. And if so, surely there could be no image in the whole compass of the universe better adapted to the psalmist's purpose, or more strongly significant of those multitudes of proselytes, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God; by the powerful energy of his word and Spirit. Upon this supposition, the whole verse describes the willing subjection, the gracious accomplishments, and the vast number of Christ's converts. James Hervey (1713-14 —1758), in "Meditations and contemplations."

The dew of thy youth. The most apparent reference is to multitude. Compare Ps 72:16, and the proverbial use of the dew together with the sand of the sea shore to express a vast number. The people of the Messiah are a great number that no man can number: Re 7:9. But this is only the common enwraping veil of a further sense. We must further note, First, THE ORIGIN OF THE DEW. From what comes it? From earthly matter, vapour and mist, as the new born soldier of Christ comes from the confused, dark substance of the old nature. By what is it produced? Through the influence of the heavenly warmth of the beams of the morning sun: so the people of God owe themselves to the light from above. In the vivifying light of heaven, the dewdrops are begotten, and from it they come more properly than from the earth water. How are they produced? Invisibly, wonderfully, by the secret, incomprehensible influence of the divine power. We have by no means exhausted the figure, for we notice, Secondly, THE DESIGN OF THE DEW. It is for the fertilizing and refreshing of the earth. The spiritual Israel are a fructifying, quickening dew among men. It is also for the ornament of the earth, which the dew bestrews as with precious stones; and this beauty is caused because each little drop of dew reflects the morning sun and is an earthly reflection of the heavenly light. Condensed from Rudolph Stier.

Verse 3 (last clause). With singular beauty and propriety does the psalmist compare the first preachers of the gospel to dew. In the first place, they may be compared to the drops of dew on account of their multitude. But, in order to judge of the correctness of the comparison in this respect, we must consider, that, in the Holy Land, the dews are remarkably abundant. A French traveller, {1} has observed of Judea, that in the morning the ground is as much moistened by dew, as if it had rained. We are informed in the sacred history, that, when the Dayspring from on high visited the earth, many were the followers of Christ; and that very soon after his ascension into heaven, "multitudes both of men and women were added to the Lord". Justly then may those who hastened to the blessed Jesus, when the glorious light of his gospel first dawned upon the world, or immediately on the commencement of his mediatorial kingdom, be compared in number to the drops of dew, which at the dawn of day fall to the earth. It is mentioned also in this verse, that the first subjects of the Messiah were to present themselves adorned "with the beauties of holiness"; vrq yddhk in the splendours of holiness. In brightness, then, as well as in multitude, did they resemble the glittering drops of the morning dew. Our great poet has combined these two ideas in his beautiful comparison of an host innumerable to the "Stars of morning, dewdrops which the sun impearls". {2} The formation of the dew is represented in Scripture as the work of God, and not of man: and its descending to refresh and fertilize the earth is mentioned as his peculiar gift and in opposition to human means of rendering the earth more fruitful. "Who, "saith Job, "hath begotten the drops of dew?" (ch. 38. 28) And the prophet Micah declares, that "the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the LORD, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men" {1} Eugene Rogers. {2} Milton's" Paradise Lost, "Book v., line 745. (ch. 5. 7). Well, then, might the term be applied by the Psalmist to those whom "God of his own will begat with the word of truth"; and who were his appointed instruments, by their preaching, to cause "the desert to rejoice and to blossom abundantly"; and "the wilderness to become a fruitful field." Let it also be remembered, that those whom the Psalmist compares to dew are described under the image of young soldiers, going forth to fight the battles of a victorious prince. Now this comparison is used in 2Sa 17:11,12: "I counsel, "said Hushai to Ahithophel, "that all Israel be generally gathered unto thee, from Dan even to Beersheba, as the sand that is by the sea for multitude; and that thou go to battle in thine own person. So shall we come upon him in some place where he shall be found, and we will light upon him as the dew falleth upon the ground". It is perhaps not undeserving of notice, that amongst the Romans those troops who first attacked the enemy, and who were composed of young men, were, from a supposed resemblance to dew, called Rorarii. It is not incumbent upon me to investigate the reason of their receiving that name; it is sufficient to point out its similarity with the expression of the psalmist, which is applied to those who were first to engage in the conflict with the enemies of the Gospel of Christ. Richard Dixon, 1811.

Verse 3.

Thee, in thy power's triumphant day,

The willing nations shall obey;

And, when thy rising beams they view,

Shall all (redeemed from error's night)

Appear as numberless and bright

As crystal drops of morning dew. —N. Brady and N. Tate.

Verse 3.

Lord, let thy day of power be known,

Thy people be confessed;

Eager and valiant —priests each one,

In holy garments dressed.

Countless they shine, as dews from heaven

When eastern skies grow bright —

More glorious than those dews are given,

Sparkling in morning light. —George Rawson, in "Hymns, Verses, and Chants," 1876.

The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, etc. It should be diligently considered, that God has consecrated Christ, priest by an oath, and that this was done for our sakes; First, That we might know how exceedingly momentous was this transaction, and the more reverently and with the stronger faith believe it. Secondly, That we might acknowledge the goodness of God, who, being most truthful in himself, and concerning whose faithfulness it is the greatest crime to doubt, nevertheless has been pleased to speak to us not only with a bare word, but also, after the manner of men, to confirm his decree by an oath. Rivetus.

Sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever. God might have made the levitical priest by oath, and yet he might have been changed, but if he had made him by oath to be a priest for ever, then he could not have repented, that is, changed; but he must of necessity have been a priest for ever. Therefore you must take special notice, that God did not only swear that Christ should be a priest, or that he should be a priest for a long time, but a priest "for ever; "so that there should never be any priest joined with him, or come after him. So that if we consider the oath, and the thing confirmed by this oath, two things will be manifest:

1. That Christ's priesthood is personal, and settled in one single person for ever; so that he can have no fellow nor copartner, nor any successor in his priesthood.

2. That, by this oath, God did limit his own supreme and absolute power in this particular; and took away the use and exercise of it, and that for ever.

For now he hath no power to make Christ no priest, or take away his priesthood at will and pleasure: and in this God discovered his unspeakable love unto Christ, in that he did so much honour him, and so highly reward him. By this he also displayed his abundant mercy to man; for by this oath known unto man, he signifies that man shall never be destitute of a powerful and effectual priest, able for ever to save; and this doth minister unto sinful man most sweet and heavenly comfort. George Lawson, 1662.

The form and manner of our Saviour's investiture or consecration was most honourable and glorious, God the Father performing the rites; which were not imposition of hands, and breathing on him the Holy Ghost, but a solemn testimony, with a protestation, "Thou art a priest": ceremonies never used by any but God, nor in the investiture of any but Christ, nor in his investiture into any office but the priesthood. At his coronation we hear nothing, but the Lord said, "Sit thou on my right hand": the rule of the whole world is imposed upon our Saviour by command; and even in this did Christ show his obedience to his Father, that he took upon him the government of his church. But at the consecration of Christ we have a great deal more of ceremony and solemnity, God his Father taketh an oath, and particularly expresses the nature and condition of his office, a priesthood for ever after the order of Melchizedek: and he confirmeth it unto him for ever, saying, "Thou art a priest for ever." —Daniel Featley, in "Claris Mystica." 1636.

What doctrine doth the Scripture afford more comfortable to a drooping soul than this, that God hath sworn his Son a priest for ever, to sanctify our persons, and purge our sins, and tender all our petitions to his Father? What sin is so heinous, for which such a priest cannot satisfy by the oblation of himself? what cause so desperate, in which such an advocate if he will plead, may not prevail? We may be sure God will not be hard to be intreated of us, who himself hath appointed us such an intercessor, to whom he can deny nothing; and to that end hath appointed him to sit at his right hand to make intercession for us. Abraham Wright.

And will not repent. The meaning of this phrase is, that the priesthood of Christ is not like that of Aaron, which was after a time to expire, and is now actually with all the ceremonial law abolished, but a priesthood never to be altered or changed. Daniel Featley.

Thou art a priest. The reasons which moved our Lord to take upon him the office of priest are conceived to be these.

1. Because the salvation and redemption of mankind, wrought by the sacrifice of his priesthood., being a most noble work, and not inferior to the creation, it was not fit that any should have the honour of it, but the Son of God.

2. Neither was it agreeable that any should offer him, who was the only sacrifice that could expiate the sins of the whole world, but himself: therefore by offering himself he added infinite worth to the sacrifice, and great honour to the priesthood of the Gospel.

For, as the gold sanctifieth not the altar, but the altar the gold; so it may be truly said without impeachment to the dignity of that calling, that Christ was rather an honour to the priesthood, than the priesthood an addition to him. For what got he by the priesthood which cost him his life? What preferment could it be to him, to take upon him an office, whereby he was to abase himself below himself, and be put to an ignominious and accursed death? What were we vile miscreants, conceived and born in original sin, and soiled with the filth of numberless actual transgressions, that to purge and cleanse our polluted souls and defiled consciences, the second person in the Trinity should be made a Priest? It was wonderful humility in him to wash his disciples feet; but in his divine person to wash our unclean souls, is as far above human conceit, as it seemeth below divine majesty. There is nothing so impure as a foul conscience; no matter so filthy, no corruption so rotten and unsavoury as is found in the sores of an exulcerated mind: yet the Son of God vouchsafed to wash and bathe them in his own blood. O bottomless depth of humility and mercy! Other priests were appointed by men for the service of God, but he the blood of beasts to save men, but he shed his own blood to save us, more like beasts than men: other priests offered sacrifice for themselves, he offered himself for a sacrifice: other priests were fed by the sacrifices which the people brought, but he feeds us with the sacrifice of his own body and blood: lastly, others were appointed priests but for a time, he was ordained a priest for ever. Daniel Featley.

Thou art a priest. This word, "Thou art," is "verbum constitutivum", a "constituting word", whereon the priesthood of Christ was founded. And it may be considered,

1. As declarative of God's eternal decree, with the covenant between the Father and the Son, whereby he was designed unto this office.

2. As demonstrative of his mission, or his actual sending to the discharge of his office. These words are the symbol and solemn sign of God's conferring that honour upon him, which gave him his instalment.

3. As predictive, for there is included in them a supposition that God would prepare a body for him, wherein he might exercise his priesthood, and which he might offer up unto him. John Owen.

Melchizedek. Some heretics of old affirmed that he was the Holy Ghost. Others, that he was an angel. Others, that he was Shem, the son of Noah. Others, that he was a Canaanite, extraordinarily raised up by God to be a priest of the Gentiles. Others, that he was Christ himself, manifested by a special dispensation and privilege unto Abraham in the flesh, who is said to have seen his day, and rejoiced, Joh 8:56. Difference there is also about Salem, the place of which he was king. Some take it for Jerusalem, as Josephus and most of the ancients. Others for a city in the half tribe of Manasseh, within the river Jordan, where Hierom reports that some ruins of the palace of Melchizedek were in his days conceived to remain. Tedious I might be in insisting on this point who Melchizedek was. But when I find the Holy Ghost purposely concealing his name, genealogy, beginning, ending, and descent, and that to special purpose, I cannot but wonder that men should toil themselves in the dark to find out that of which they have not the least ground of solid conjecture, and the inevidence whereof is expressly recorded, to make Melchizedek thereby the fitter type of Christ's everlasting priesthood. Edward Reynolds.

Melchizedek. These things concerning are certain:

First, That he was a mere man, and no more; for,

1. "Every high priest" was to be "taken from among men," Heb 5:1; —so that the Son of God himself could not have been a priest had he not assumed our nature:

2. That if he were more than a man, there would be no mystery in his being introduced in Scripture as," without father, without mother, without pedigree," for none but men have such:

3. Without this conception of him there is no force in the apostle's argument against the Jews.

Secondly, That he came not to his office by the right of primogeniture (which includes a genealogy) or by any way of succession, but was raised up and immediately called of God thereunto; for in that respect Christ is said to be a priest after his order. Thirdly, That he had no successor on the earth, nor could have; for there was no law to constitute an order of succession, and he was a priest only after an extraordinary call. These things belong unto faith in this matter, and no more... The first personal instituted type of Christ was a priest; this was Melchizedek. There were before real instituted types of his work, as sacrifices; and there were moral types of his person, as Adam, Abel, and Noah, which represented him in sundry things; but the first person who was solemnly designed to teach and represent him, by what he was and did, was a priest. And that which God taught herein was, that the foundation of all that the Lord Christ had to do in and for the church was laid in his priestly office, whereby he made atonement and reconciliation for sin. Everything else that he doth is built on the supposition of his priesthood. And we must begin in the application where God begins in the exhibition. An interest in the effects of the priestly office of Christ is that which in the first place we ought to look after. This being attained, we shall be willing to be taught and ruled by him. It may not be amiss to observe the likeness between Melchizedek and Christ. As for our Lord;

1. He was said to be, and he really was, and he only, first the king of righteousness, and then the king of peace, seeing he alone brought in everlasting righteousness and made peace with God for sinners. In his kingdom alone are these things to be found.

2. He was really and truly the priest of the most high God; and properly he was so alone. He offered that sacrifice, and made that atonement, which was signified by all the sacrifices offered by holy men from the foundation of the world.

3. He blesseth all the faithful, as Abraham, the father of the faithful, was blessed by Melchizedek. In him were they to be blessed, by him are they blessed, —through him delivered from the curse, and all the fruits of it; nor are they partakers of any blessing but from him.

4. He receive, all the homage of his people, all their grateful acknowledgments of the love and favour of God, in the conquest of their spiritual adversaries, and deliverance from them, as Melchizedek received the tenth of the spoils from Abraham.

5. He was really without progenitors or predecessors in his office; nor would I exclude that mystical sense from the intention of the place, that he was without father as to his human nature, and without mother as to his divine.

6. He was a priest without genealogy, or derivation of his pedigree from the loins of Aaron, or any other that ever was a priest in the world, and moreover, mysteriously, was of a generation which none can declare.

7. He had, in his divine person, as the high priest of the church, neither beginning of days nor end of life, as no such thing is reported of Melchizedek; for the death which he underwent, in the discharge of his office, being not the death of his whole person, but of his human nature only, no interruption of his endless office did ensue thereon. For although the person of the Son of God died, whence God is said to "redeem his church with his own blood, "Ac 20:28; yet he died not in his whole person: but in his divine nature was still alive. Absolutely, therefore, and in respect of his office, he had neither beginning of days nor end of life.

8. He was really the Son of God, as Melchizedek in many circumstances was made like to the Son of God.

9. He alone abideth a priest forever; whereof we must particularly treat afterwards. Condensed from John Owen.

The Lord...shall strike through kings, etc. He really threatens such great heads in an awful manner, that if they will not hear, and cannot obey, they shall be terrified to death. And assuredly he would willingly, by these means, allure them to repentance, and persuade them to turn, and to cease from raging against the Lord. But if they will not, they shall know against whom it is that they go on... This is our consolation which upholds us, and makes our heart joyful and glad against the persecution and rage of the world, that we have such a Lord, who not only delivers us from sin and eternal death, but also protects us, and delivers us in sufferings and temptations, so that we do not sink under them. And though men rage in a most savage manner against Christians, yet neither the gospel nor Christianity shall perish; but their heads shall be destroyed against it. If their persecutions were to go on unceasingly Christianity could not remain, wherefore he gives them a time, and says he will connive at them for a while, but not longer than till the hour comes which he here calls the "day of his wrath" And if they will not now cease in the name of God, they must then cease in the name of the devil. Martin Luther.

Shall strike through kings. To strike through notes a complete victory and full confusion of the enemy, all incurable wound, that they may stagger, and fall, and rise up no more, and that affliction may not arise a second time, Na 1:9; 1Sa 26:8. The only difficulty is what is meant by "kings". For which we must note that the kingdom of Christ is spiritual, and his war spiritual, and therefore his enemies for the most part spiritual. Edward Reynolds.

ln the day of his wrath. Note that it is not simply said, he will strike through kings in his wrath, but in the day of his wrath. Therefore as there is a time of grace and patience, so there is also an appointed time of wrath and vengeance of God. Frequent mention is made of this in the sacred Scriptures, that we may be admonished that the wicked will not be left always unpunished, because they contemn the patience of God, aye, provoke his anger; but that there will be a time when they will experience the wrath of God. Thus, armed with patience, we should persevere in the practice of piety, nor be turned aside from it, either by the example of the wicked, or from fear of them. Wolfgang Museulus.

Verses 5, 6, 7.

The sentenced heathen he shall slay,

And fill with carcasses his way,

Till he hath struck earth's tyrants dead;

But in the highway brooks shall first,

Like a poor pilgrim, slake his thirst,

And then in triumph raise his head. —N. Brady and N. Tate.

He shall fill the places with the dead bodies. This notes the greatness of the victory, that none should be left to bury the dead. There shall be an universal destruction of wicked men together in the day of God's wrath, they shall be bound up in bundles, and heaped for damnation, Mt 13:30; Ps 37:38; Isa 1:28; Ps 66:17. And it notes the shame and dishonour of the enemy, they shall be like dung upon the face of the earth, and shall be beholden to their victors for a base and dishonourable burial, as we see in the great battle with Gog and Magog, Eze 39:11-16. Edward Reynolds.

Dead bodies. Either the corpses of the vanquished enemy; or (possibly) the living bodies of men in a state of servitude, as in Ge 47:18; Ne 9:37. (The construction as in Ex 15:9) In the latter case, the meaning may be: that the bodies of those who had been enslaved by the Usurper, Death, were now claimed back by their rightful Lord. The full number is claimed back. The "last enemy" being destroyed, "all things" are brought beneath Christ's sway. William Kay.

The heads. Rather, the head; doubtless, the head of the Old Serpent (according to the prophecy in Ge 3:15), who acts in all who resist Christ. The verb "machats", which is used here, is employed to describe the prophetical and typical act of Jael, smiting the head of God's enemy, Sisera (Jud 5:26 4:22); and it is used in Ps 68:21, which describes Christ's victory, "God shall wound the head of his enemies"; and also by Hab 3:13, "Thou woundest the head out of the house of the wicked." —Christopher Wordsworth.

He shall drink of the brook, etc. He describeth the passion of Christ and his glory. "In the way", saith he, that is, in his life while he is in this misery, "he shall drink out of the brook, "that is, he shall suffer and be overcome. For to drink out of the cup is to suffer: but to drink out of the brook, is to be altogether full of trouble, to be vexed and tormented and utterly to be overwhelmed with a strong stream of troubles. Thus was it in David's mind to declare the passion of Christ. Afterward he saith, "therefore shall he lift up the head". After the passion followeth the glory, with the resurrection and ascension. Paul, (Php 2:8) speaketh of both, and saith: "Christ humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God hath exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name", etc. Myles Coverdale, 1487-1568.

I conceive that the "brook" here spoken of was not intended to give us the idea of a clear brook of refreshing water, which was to afford the Redeemer strength to endure the amazing conflict; as the drinking of the water enabled Gideon's chosen band of men to go forth to battle against the Midianites. No; in our Lord's case it was a polluted and turbid stream. Like the water of Marsh, which the Israelites could not drink, it was bitter; for sin had made it so. It bore along with it, as it flowed, the curse of the broken law, and the vengeance of offended justice, and the wrath of the eternal God. It was pain, sorrow, suffering, death. This was the "brook" of which he drank. The "cup" which his Father gave him to drink was filled with the bitter water of this "brook"; and he may be said to have first put his lips to it, when he declared to his disciples, in his way to Gethsemane, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death." But it is stated in the text that this "brook" was "in the way." It is described here as running by the path in which the Redeemer was going in order to the accomplishment of his great work of man's salvation; that work which he had engaged in the everlasting covenant to perform; and by the performance of which, man could alone be accepted of God. The sin of man was the source from whence this water issued; and it flowed along in the Saviour's "way, "through the wilderness of this world to his kingdom of glory in the next; as the brook Kidron, red with the blood of the typical sacrifices, flowed in his way to Calvary. Fountain Elwin, 1842.

In the expositions of most of the ancients and moderns, we are told that he drank of the brook, (1) of mortality by his incarnation; (2) of strictness and hardness in all his passage, by his voluntary wants and poverty; (3) of the strong potion of the law, by his exact obedience and subjection; (4) of the Jews' malice, by their continual indignities; (5) of the floods of Belial, by apparent and unknown temptations; (6) of the heaviest wrath of his Father, by his unspeakable agony and bloody sweat in the garden. And last of all, of death itself on the cross, by his sad and extreme passion. John Prideaux.

He shall drink of the brook in the way. These words were understood by Junius and Tremellius long ago as meaning, "He shall steadily press on to victory, as generals of energy act, who in pursuing routed foes, stay not to indulge themselves in meat or drink." Hengstenberg and others substantially approve of this view. While a few hold that allusion may be made to Samson at Ramath Lehi (as if the words spoke of Christ having a secret spring of refreshment when needful). Most seem inclined to take Gideon as the type that best expresses the idea. Pressing on to victory, Messiah, like Gideon, "faint yet pursuing" as he passed over Jordan, shall not desist till all is won. "He shall not fail nor be discouraged till he hath set judgment in the earth." Perhaps the full idea is this: —His career was irresistibly successful like that of Gideon; for he allowed nothing to detain him, nor did he shrink in the enterprise from any fatigue, nor did he stop to indulge the flesh. If we take it thus, there is both the Humiliation and the Exaltation of the Son of Man contained in the words; and Php 4:8,9 supplies a commentary. Andrew A. Bonar.

Schnurrer, says Rosenmuller, "seems to have perceived the meaning of the verse, which he gives in the following words: —Though fatigued with the slaughter of his enemies, yet he will not desist; but, having refreshed himself with water from the nearest stream, will exert his renovated strength in the pursuit of the routed foe." —Messianic Psalms.

Christ shall "lift up the head" by way of triumphing and rejoicing, when he shall have taken full vengeance of his adversaries, and freed, not himself only, but the whole body of his church from the assaults and dangers of all enemies. We see now that oftentimes, though not in himself, yet in his members, he is fain to hang down the head, and to wear the badges of reproach and shame, whilst the ungodly vaunt themselves (Job 31:2-6) and in their hearts despise the righteous, accounting more vilely of them than of the dust of their feet. Robert Abbot.

Here the Holy Ghost begins with the kingdom of Christ, which he describeth and magnifieth, —

1. By his unction, and ordination, thereunto, by the word or decree of his Father: "The Lord said".

2. By the greatness of his person in himself, while yet he is nearly allied in blood and nature unto us; "My Lord".

3. By the glory, power, and heavenliness of his kingdom, for in the administration thereof he sitteth at the right hand of his Father: "Sit thou at my right hand".

4. By the continuance and victories thereof: "Until I make thy foes thy footstool." —Edward Reynolds.

My Lord.

1. Christ's condescending nearness to us does not destroy our reverence: he was David's son, and yet he calls him Lord; he is our brother, bridegroom, and so on, and yet our Lord.

2. Christ's glory does not diminish his nearness to us, or familiarity with us. Sitting on the throne as Lord, he is yet "my Lord."

3. It is under the double aspect as Lord, and yet ours, that Jehovah regards him and speaks with him, and ordains him to the priesthood. Ever in these two lights let us regard him.

Sit, etc.

1. Our Lord's quiet amid passing events.

2. The abundance of his present power.

3. The working of all history towards the ultimate end, which will be —

4. His easy victory: putting his foot on his foes as readily as we tread on a footstool.

Verse 2.

1. What is that rod? The gospel (Illustrated by Moses' rod).

2. Who sends it? "The Lord."

3. Whence it comes? Out of the church of God.

4. What is the result? Jesus reigns.

A willing people and an immutable Leader.

1. The promise made to Christ concerning his people: "Thy people shall be willing, "etc.

(a) A promise of time: "In the day," etc.

(b) Of persons: "Thy people."

(c) Of disposition: "Shall be willing."

(d) Of character: "In the beauties of holiness."

(e) The majestic figure employed: "From the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth."

2. The promise made to Christ concerning himself: "Thou hast the dew of thy youth." Jesus Christ has the dew of his youth personally, doctrinally, and mystically, being surrounded by new converts, who are as the early dew. Spurgeon's Sermons, No. 74.

This is a prophecy of the subjects of Christ's kingdom.

1. Who they are; "Thy people."

(a) A people. This denotes distinction, separation, similarity, organization. They are not a confused rabble, but a united community.

(b) His people. By gift, by purchase, by effectual calling.

2. What they are.

(a) A loyal people: "willing."

(b) A conquered people: "in the day of thy power."

(c) A holy people: "in the beauties of holiness."

(d) A numerous people: "from the womb of the morning," etc. The number of converts at the first proclamation of Christ's gospel was but the dew of his youth. G.R.

First, the internal evidence of Christ's kingdom is in his people's willingness: "Thy people shall be willingness —thy people shall bc a people all willing" —all volunteers, not pressed men. Secondly, the external evidence of it lies in his people's holiness; "the beauties of holiness; "or as it may be rendered —"in the magnificence of his sanctuary, "for the ornaments of the sanctuary and the dress of the priests were very splendid. When you once give yourselves to God, you become temples of God; and sanctity must adorn that heart which is a living temple of the Holy Ghost. J. Bennett, in a Sermon, 1829.

All true followers of Jesus are (1) priests —beauties of holiness are their sacerdotal robes; (2) soldiers —"in the day of thine armies"; (3) volunteers; (4) benefactors —as the dew. —Suggested by a paper in The Baptist Magazine.

Here we have a cluster of subjects: —the willingness of the Lord's people, the beauty of holiness, young converts the life and glory of the church, the mystery of conversion, and so on.

The eternal priesthood of Christ. On what its perpetuity is founded and the blessed results flowing therefrom.

These words offer three points of special observation.

1. The ceremony used at the consecration of our Lord: "The Lord sware."

2. The office conferred upon him by this rite or ceremony: "Thou art a priest."

3. The prerogatives of his office; which office is here declared to be,

(a) Perpetual, "for ever."

(b) Regular, "after the order."

(c) Royal, "of Melchizedek." —Daniel Featley.

Melchizedek: a fruitful subject. See notes.

The certain overthrow of every power which opposes the gospel.

The fearful calamities which have happened to nations through their sinful rejection of the Lord Jesus.

Christ's alacrity, self denial, and simplicity, the causes of his success. Example to be imitated.

Christ's humiliation and exaltation.