The LORD said to My LORD…
“Now while
the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, “What
do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” They said to him, “The son of
David.”(
Matthew
22:41-42). How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? David
himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my
right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.” David himself calls him
Lord. So how is he his son?” And the great throng heard him gladly.” (Mark
12:35-37). And no
one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him
any more questions” (Matthew 22:46)”
This is THE most Important
question that any human being can ever be asked,
“What do you
think about the Christ?. The answer to this question will determine the eternal
destiny of every human, depending on what their answer is. Who is Jesus Christ?
To these Jews, Jesus says, “what do you think about The Messiah”, “Ho Christos”
being the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew, “Mashiach”.
Jesus is not
here denying that He is “The Son of David”, which means that His human line came
from David. This is confirmed in the very first verse in the Gospel of Matthew.
Those who heard Jesus preach, often called out to Him, “"Have mercy on us, Son
of David!" (Matthew 9:27; 15:22; 20:30, etc). To which Jesus never objected. The
Term, “The Son of David”, was known as a Title of the Messiah at this time, as
we read in Matthew 12:23, “All the crowds were amazed, and were saying, “This
man cannot be the Son of David, can he?”. And, “Has not the Scripture said that
the Christ comes from the descendants of David, and from Bethlehem, the village
where David was?” (John 7:42). These first century Jews knew what it meant by
“The Son of David”.
In these
passages in the Gospels, Jesus is quoting from the Old Testament Psalm 110.
“The LORD
said to My Lord…”
It is clear
from these passages, that Jesus Christ is here claiming for Himself, Absolute
Deity, as Yahweh, and fully equal with God the Father.
Psalm 110 is
understood as Messianic, by the older Jewish commentators. Which is what the
Jews in Jesus’ time would have known. As we see for verse 1:
“In the Midrash Tehillim on this passage, it is said, " God spake thus to the
Messiah”” (J Stewart Perowne, The Book of Pslams, p.288)
John Gill says in his commentary, that the Targum of Jonathan reads in verse 1,
“the Lord said to his Word”
Here we have, "The LORD (Yahweh) said”, “to My Lord (Adoni)” a direct address by
Yahweh to Adon (the root word), which is masculine and singular. It is argued by
some, that this Hebrew noun is used in the sense of “master, lord, sir,
governor”, as a title of “respect” for a more “noble” person, and always only
for humans, and never of God. As we shall see, that these arguments are
misleading, and do not reflect the use of “Adon”, in the Bible.
The Masoretes punctuate verse one: “Adoni”, which is the singular noun and
singular suffix, literally, “my lord”, or “my Lord”. This can be used for God as
well as humans. The form “Adonai”, plural noun and singular suffix, literally,
“my Lords”, or “Lord”, which is only used for God.
A website
that is used to promote “Unitarianism” as the Bible’s Teaching of the God of the
Bible, and is anti Trinitarian, says this on the use of “Adon” in this verse:
“The Hebrew word translated “my lord” is adoni (pronounced “Adon nee”) in the
standard Hebrew texts. This word is always used in Scripture to describe human
masters and lords, but never God...The difference between adon (the root word),
adoni (“lord,” always used of men or angels) and adonai (which is used of God
and sometimes written adonay) is critical to the understanding of Psalm 110:1.”
(https://www.biblicalunitarian.com/verses/psalm-110-1)
Likewise, we have the argument used by a Jewish Rabbi:
“I should note that the second “lord” in Hebrew is not “ado-nai” – the term the
Torah reserves for God, but “adoni”. The latter is a simple Hebrew word which
means “my lord” but is not sacred. Throughout the Torah that word is used in
reference to honored human beings but never to God, e.g. Genesis 18:3, 23:6,
24:18, 31:35, 33:8, 34:14, 44:18, etc. Thus, it was incorrectly capitalized in
your translation. In fact, Hebrew has no capital letters so capitalizations
which are found in English translations are merely based on translators’
assumptions, and as you can see, are not always reliable.” (Rabbi Dovid
Rosenfeld; https://www.aish.com/atr/Psalm-110-Two-Lords.html)
Are these comments factually right? The evidence from the
Old Testament itself, will show that these two websites are here are completely
wrong. There are many instances in the Old Testament, where “Adon” is used for
Almighty God. In Exodus 23:17, “the Lord (Adon) GOD”; Exodus 34:23, “before the
Lord (Adon) GOD, the God of Israel”; Joshua 3:11, 13, “the Lord (Adon) of all
the earth”; Psalm 97:5, “the Lord (Adon) of the whole earth”; Psalm 114:7 reads,
“Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord (Adon)”; Isaiah 1:24, 3:1,
10:16, 10:33, 19:4, “the Lord (Adon), the LORD of hosts”; Isaiah 51:22, “Thus
saith thy Lord (Adon) the LORD, and thy God”; Micah 4:13, “the Lord (Adon) of
the whole earth”; Zechariah 4:14, “the Lord (Adon) of the whole earth”; 6:5,
“the Lord (Adon) of all the earth”. In Deuteronomy 10:17, we read: “O give
thanks to the Lord of lords”; and Psalm 136:3, it says: “For the LORD your God
[is] God of gods, and Lord of lords”. In the Hebrew, where it says “Lord”, and
“lord”, in its 4 uses, the word used is, “Adon”.
They are in
the masculine plural, literally, “master of masters”. So, to say that
“Adon”,
“is always used in Scripture to describe human masters and lords, but never
God”, as these websites do, is downright misleading.
It matters not whether it reads as it does in Psalm 110:1, as “my Lord”, or, as
in Isaiah 51:22, “thy Lord”, or, simply “the Lord”. Each case the root word is
the same in the Hebrew, “Adon”. And we have clear uses of this word for the Lord
God in the Old Testament, and not as some suggest, only used for humans.
Verses that use “Adon” in these contexts, “the Lord of the whole earth”, and
“the Lord of all the earth”, and “For the LORD your God [is] God of gods, and
Lord of lords”, show that God is seen as The Absolute Ruler and Power in the
universe. Hardly of someone who is simply a “lord or master, or noble”!
Interesting, that in the Greek Old Testament by Symmachus, at the end of the 2nd
century, it says in Psalm 110:1, “The Lord said “τῷ δεσπότη μου”, which is not
simply “Lord”, but of “Absolute
Ruler”. The Greek “δεσπότης”, is from where we get our “Despot” from, which
means, “a ruler with absolute power and authority” (Webster’s Dictionary). Colin
Brown’s, New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, defines as, “despotes
expresses the arbitrary, unlimited exercise of power without any real
conditions”.
Verse 5 makes it very clear Who is “Adoni” is in verse 1.
Here it reads:
“The Lord at your Right Hand”
Which is a further reference to “Adoni”, Who is at the Right
Hand of “Yahweh”. In verse 5 the Hebrew word used in the greater majority of
manuscripts, is “Adonay”, and not “Adoni”. “Adonay” is always used in the Old
Testament for Almighty God, and never for any humans or heavenly beings. There
are about 20 Hebrew Masoretic Text, that reads in verse 5, “Yahweh”. Either Name
is that used for the Eternal, Unchanging, Self-Existing, God of the Holy Bible.
And here it is clearly used for the Lord Jesus Christ!
Some, who cannot accept the fact, that Jesus Christ is here
identified as Almighty God, have suggested that verse 5 does not mean what it
actually says. As Dr Cheyen says in his Commentary:
“The description in vv. 2, 3 is resumed. The Lord is Jehovah
(surely not the king), who is invisibly standing at His viceroy's right hand”
(p.303)
Others try to read, “the Lord
is at your Right Hand”, which is not
in the Hebrew.
The “Yahweh” of verse 1, now changes places with “Adon”, and
is on His Right Hand! This is no more than conjecture and the rejection of what
the Bible plainly Teaches. There is NO Scripture passage that says that God the
Father is at the Right Hand of Jesus Christ. What it does say in verse 5, is
that the “Adon”, which some of the Masoretic manuscripts, by the Jews, read
“Yahweh”, is COEQUAL with “Yahweh”. Verse one can be translated as “Yahweh says
to my Yahweh”.
The passages in the Gospels, when read with Psalm 110, is one
of the clearest and strongest, testimonies by The Lord Jesus Christ, on His
Absolute Deity. These passages also show that the God of the Holy Bible is not
“Unitarian”, as there are here TWO distinct “Persons” Who are EQUALLY Almighty
God.