Joel M Bradshaw

1The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”–Psalm 110

Your Bible probably writes the two titles differently. The Hebrew reads ne-um YHWH ladoni or “said Yahweh to my Lord”. What’s cool is that the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, has two forms of the same Greek word for Yahweh and Adonai. I was expecting a different word like in the Hebrew. When the rabbis later translated the Hebrew text into Greek, they took the holy name of God that translated to Yahweh (which no observant Jewish person will say or write) and gave it the Greek kyrios (Lord). This is the word I found in the Septuagint of our verse today. Essentially, “Kyrios said to my Kyrios.” A rare moment when he Hebrew was more specific than the Greek.

Why do I bring this up? Because Jesus once brought it up.

Then Jesus said to them, “Why is it said that the Messiah is the son of David? David himself declares in the Book of Psalms: “‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand  until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”’ David calls him ‘Lord.’ How then can he be his son?” (Luke 20:41-44)

Luke’s Greek almost perfectly matched the only Old Testament he could have actually read, which would have been the Greek Septuagint. He had Jesus also quoting David as saying, “Kyrios said to my kyrios.”

Jesus’ argument is this:

1. By Jesus’ day, Psalm 110:1 was understood to be a conversation between God the Father and the Messiah, who would in Heaven sit at God’s right hand. Nobody sits in Heaven but God.
2. The people referred to the Messiah as the Son of David.
3. No father would call his son Adonai.
4. So the Messiah would be greater than David.
5. Jesus was therefore claiming to be the Messiah, David’s Son, and David’s Lord, that Yahweh made a great promise to.

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11)

Paul’s Greek was in all caps here and it majestically read: KYRIOS IHSOUS CHRISTOS. JESUS CHRIST IS LORD. Jesus Christ is Kyrios. Jesus is linked emphatically to the same title translated for Yahweh, God the Father. The New Testament is not only summarized in this verse, but so is the deity of Jesus. 

Therefore from a Trinity standpoint, Psalm 110:1 recorded God the Father speaking a great cosmic promise to God the Son. David called Him Lord, because he was his Lord. He differentiated him from Yahweh, because God the Son is a different person than God the Father, though both equally God. Jesus linked himself to God the Son in his quotation of David.

What the verse in Philippians accomplished is that it gave the earliest Christians a name they could praise. The highest possible name. Jesus Christ is KYRIOS. 

There’s tension in Psalm 110, for the observant Jewish person can’t just simply substitute Adonai for Yahweh. Otherwise it would read “Adonai said to Adonai” and lose its intrinsic meaning. David was telling us that his Lord was not a man, but another category of being entirely above him. He was someone that could sit at Yahweh’s right hand and one day be given a kingdom that only Yahweh was said to rule. 

David’s psalm opened up another category in the same fashion as the interplay between the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man in Daniel chapter 7. There is another that Yahweh treats as God and is different in personhood than Yahweh. This would have been mind-blowing theologically. We grasp it as Christians with the Trinity, but still.

The Jesus we praise has been exalted by Yahweh to the highest place. One day every knee shall bow and tongue confess that Jesus is both Christos and Kyrios. The Christ or Messiah is God in the flesh (John 1:14) who will one day receive a kingdom from Yahweh. He is our Savior and our God. Thousands of years ago, David recorded it all. He would be both David’s son and exalted Lord. Amen and AMEN!–JMB