The
Lord / on your right / shatters
Kings /
on his day of anger
He
executes judgment / among the nations
Heaping
up corpses
Shattering
heads
The wide
world over
He drinks
/ from the stream / beside the road
Therefore
he holds / his head high
Who is who? The psalm opened with the king being enthroned
on Yhwh’s “right”. But here, when the psalmist contemplates the king as a
priest, the “Lord” is on the right. The only person “on the right” in this
psalm is the king, but are we to see him as now “The Lord”? The “he” of the
following verses would indicate it is the king. It is difficult to picture Yhwh
as “drinking from the stream” and therefore “lifting his head high”. The middle
portion works either way—with either Yhwh shattering the kings’ head or the
priest-king. Or, is the “right” here
just metaphorical, a position that Yhwh is often seen in when he protects his
chosen ones?
I think the psalm is intentionally fusing the two together—the
priest-king and Yhwh. In the first part of the psalm, the oracle is delivered,
and then it says “your (king) strong scepter will Yhwh (Lord) extend from Zion,
so that you rule your enemies around you.” The scepter is the ‘kings’ but it is
Yhwh who “extends it”. The two are seen as “working together” in some fashion. Then,
“your people will volunteer on your (king) day
of power.” In this second portion of the psalm, the two are fused together—the
Lord-and-priest-king shatters “kings” on “his day of anger”. It is both Yhwh and the king who shatter and it is
both Yhwh and the king’s “day of anger.”
Doing this analysis is important because of a profound point
that emerges. The prophets always look forward to the “day of the Lord”. It is
a day when the Age changes. When Yhwh turns the ages from old to new and
establishes his justice and Israel. But, here, that “day” is now the day of
both Yhwh and his priest-king. It is as if Yhwh, in the king, and the king in
Yhwh, turn a great key that turns the ages, like some great clock. Their
intimacy is so profound that the psalmist fuses them together in this second
portion of the psalm. What was very closely wed in the first part is now “one
flesh” in the second.
This is why, I think, the reference to Melchizadek was
made—this is not simply David, although he will come from David. This psalm is
looking forward to a future priest-king. One who will be after David because he
was before David. One who will fulfill the Davidic covenant of establishing a
perpetual kingship, but who will fulfill it as, also, a perpetual priest. Of
course, David is not from the tribe of Levi, so this future priest’s authority
must arise from a different authority or priesthood. But, crucially, the
psalmist looks backward to a time when the priesthood and the kingship was
united—in Melchizadek. This future priest-king though will, arguably, exceed
his authority, because he will only be “on the pattern of Melchizadek”. The
momentum of this psalm, and its unity of Yhwh and the priest-king in their
actions and their “day”, is toward a king who will be the glory of Yhwh, his
perfect image.
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