READING THE BOOK OF PSALMS
PART LXVI
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Psalm 110
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Psalm 110 is a royal psalm. This text depicts the monarch as a member of the divine council, and as sitting at God’s right hand. This seating position places the king second to God. So, YHWH says to the king:
Sit at My right hand
while I make your enemies your footstool.
–Verse 1b, TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures
In Psalm 110, God is a triumphant warrior, royal power flows from God, and the kingdom’s enemies are God’s foes.
I resist the interpretation that Psalm 110 refers to Jesus. Seeking Jesus in the Hebrew Bible can go to ridiculous extremes and falsely reduce the Jewish canon to a mere prologue to the New Testament. No, the Hebrew Bible stands on its own. If we understand “messiah” to refer to the regnant king of the Davidic Dynasty, then a messianic interpretation fits with ancient Jewish readings of this text.
Those of us for whom the divine right of kings is a relic of the past best left there may experience difficulty identifying with Psalm 110. Perhaps we read it through a dispassionate, historical lens and recognize a testimony of the national religion of united Kingdom of Israel then of the southern Kingdom of Judah.
Amos 5:18f, cognizant of the perils to religion from reducing it to an arm of politics, destroys the national religion and the incorporated delusion that God is a “partisan of national arrogance,” to quote Artur Weiser. That is a point worth remembering in the contemporary age, too. We must never mistake God for a national deity. Our national enemies may not be God’s foes. Our country may not be on God’s side. And to wed religion and the state is to subordinate religion to the state.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
FEBRUARY 9, 2023 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF BROTHER LAWRENCE OF THE RESURRECTION, FRENCH ROMAN CATHOLIC MONK
THE FEAST OF SAINT ALTO OF ALTOMUNSTER, ROMAN CATHOLIC HERMIT
THE FEAST OF BRUCE M. METZGER, U.S. PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER, BIBLICAL SCHOLAR, AND BIBLICAL TRANSLATOR
THE FEAST OF SAINT DIMITRI KLEPININ, RUSSIAN ORTHODOX PRIEST AND MARTYR, 1944
THE FEAST OF EDWARD JOHN HOPKINS, ANGLICAN ORGANIST AND COMPOSER
THE FEAST OF SAINT PORFIRIO, MARTYR, 203
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BLOGA THEOLOGICA 
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