Ps 110 (Part Two: The Oath)

Yhwh / has sworn

An irrevocable oath:

                “You are / a perpetual priest

                On the pattern of Melchizadeck.

The psalm began with an oracle. It now shifts to an oath. The oracle made the master into a vehicle for Yhwh’s sovereign power to cover the earth. Here, it designates the master to be a perpetual priest. The oath speaks to David’s covenant with Yhwh—in that it is irrevocable and because it is perpetual. What we see here, then, is that this psalm allows us to glimpse how the Davidic covenant was to participate in, or echo, Melichizdek, who was the first priest referred to in Scripture and, not surprisingly, the priest-king of Salem, where David would later rule and call Jerusalem. 

Why this combining of king and priest? The answer must lie, at least in part, in Adam. With Adam, the image of priest and king are absolutely wed. He is to be a priest to conducts liturgy in the Garden and he is also supposed to be the king who protects the Garden. Adam and Eve were then supposed to have children who would carry forward this mission of brining the Garden to the world, thereby perpetuating Yhwh’s act of taming the chaos and turning it into creation. However, Adam failed and in his failure the roles of priest and king were divided. What was unified in him became splintered and Israel’s history can largely be seen as Yhwh’s attempt to re-unify what Adam broke into pieces—through prophet, priests, kings and Temple. In Melchizadek, though, we see a glimmer of that original creation. He is a priest-king. And he is the priest-king, importantly, of Jerusalem where Zion is located. We know that Yhwh will extend the master-king’s scepter from Zion. Importantly, we also now know that this master-king will also be a priest like Melchizadeck. In other words, the pieces that Adam left in parts are being rebuilt.

And, crucially, they will be rebuilt, not from the Aaronic/Levitical line (the Mosaic), but from David’s line. It is clear that this priest will, perhaps because he is also a king, be superior to the Levitical priesthood. When Yhwh’s reign truly begins to pour over the edge of Israel, when the kingdom becomes empire, it will become, in this priest-king, a liturgical empire. Right liturgy (priest) and right order and justice (king) will be united under this single Priest-King, from which peace (salem; Jeru-salem) will emerge. The Mosaic covenant will be sidelined in favor of the Davidic and, notably, the Abrahamic covenant, because it was Abraham who approached Mechizadek and gave him a tithe. And it was Melchizadek who approached Abraham with “wine and bread”.