1A David psalm.
The LORD’s utterance to my master:
“Sit at My right hand
a stool for your feet.”
2Your mighty scepter
may the LORD send forth from Zion.
Hold sway over your enemies.
3Your people rally to battle
on the day your force assembles
on the holy mountains, from the womb of dawn,
yours is the dew of your youth.
4The LORD has sworn, He will not change heart.
By my solemn word, my righteous king.”
5The Master is at your right hand.
On the day of His wrath He smashes kings.
6He exacts judgment from the nations,
fills the valleys with corpses,
smashes heads across the great earth.
7 From a brook on the way He drinks.
Therefore He lifts up His head.
PSALM 110 NOTES
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1. to my master. Although many translations render this as “my LORD,” with a capital L, the Hebrew clearly shows ʾadoni, with a first-person singular suffix, whereas the noun at the beginning of verse 5 reads ʾadonai, showing the plural suffix invariably used when the noun ʾadon is a designation for God. This is a royal psalm, and the speaker, by referring to the king as his master, would appear to be a court poet.
till I make your enemies / a stool for your feet. God’s protection of the king against the nation’s enemies is a prominent theme in most of the royal psalms. Some Egyptian murals actually depict an enthroned pharaoh with feet resting on the heads of kneeling captives.
3. Your people rally to battle. It is at this point that the language of this psalm begins to be cryptic, a problem that will persist to the end of the poem. The literal sense of the Hebrew here (just two words) is “your-people acts-of-volunteering.” But the noun ʿam, “people,” and the verbal root n-d-b, “to volunteer,” “to act nobly,” in conjunction are associated with volunteering to do battle, as in the Song of Deborah, Judges 5:9. So this translation assumes an ellipsis with that general sense here.
on the day your force assembles. The Hebrew says only “on the day of your force.” Again, an ellipsis is assumed.
holy mountains. The Masoretic Text reads “holy majesties,” hadrey qodesh, which sounds very odd in the Hebrew. But many manuscripts show harerey qodesh, “holy mountains,” and the similar-looking letters dalet and resh are often switched in scribal transcription.
from the womb of dawn. The second of the two nouns here in the Masoretic Text, mishḥar, is doubtful in meaning. The translation follows the Septuagint in reading mireḥem shaḥar, “from the womb of dawn.” A scribe may have inadvertently repeated the mem at the end of reḥem and at the beginning of shaḥar as well (an instance of dittography). The image is evidently of an army sallying forth at daybreak.
yours is the dew of your youth. This somewhat mystifying phrase might refer to the fresh energy of a young king. Many manuscripts read “I gave you birth” instead of “your youth” (a difference only of vocalization), but this scarcely improves matters because the idea of giving birth to the king like (?) dew is puzzling.
4. You are priest forever. At least in the David story, there is some indication of combining the functions of king and priest, though later they would be clearly separated. Some interpreters imagine that this psalm actually refers to David.
my righteous king. This could be a proper noun, Melchizedek, or a punning reference to that name. Melchizedek is the king priest of Jerusalem who participates in Abraham’s victory over the alliance of eastern kings in Genesis 14:18.
5. On the day of His wrath He smashes kings. In this celebration of the imagined military victory of the king, God appears as a warrior at the king’s right hand, crushing the enemy.
6. fills the valleys with corpses. The cryptic Hebrew of the received text merely reads “filled with corpses” (maleiʾ gewiyot). Something is clearly wrong with the text. The translation, following a suggestion of two ancient Greek versions, reads mileiʾ geiʾayot gewiyot, “fills the valleys with corpses.” The similarity of the Hebrew words for “valleys” and “corpses” may have led a scribe to skip the former in copying the text.
7. From a brook on the way He drinks. This is evidently an image of God as warrior pausing to drink during or after hot pursuit of the enemy.