Psa 72:17 (71:17, LXX) and 110:3 (109:3, LXX) reads as following (taken from the Lexham English Septuagint):
Let his name be
blessed forever.
Before the sun his
name will remain,
and all the tribes of
the land will be blessed in him;
all the nations will
bless him. (Psa 71:17, LXX)
With you is authority
in the day of your might,
with the splendor of
the holy ones.
From the womb, before
the morning,
I begat you. (Psa
109:3, LXX)
Such texts were used to support the
personal pre-existence of Jesus in early Christianity. Note the following from
Justin Martyr (100-165) in his Dialogue with Trypho:
And Trypho said, “If I
seem to interrupt these matters, which you say must be investigated, yet the
question which I mean to put is urgent. Suffer me first.”
And I replied, “Ask whatever you please, as it
occurs to you; and I shall endeavour, after questions and answers, to resume
and complete the discourse.”
Then he said, “Tell me, then, shall those who lived
according to the law given by Moses, live in the same manner with Jacob, Enoch,
and Noah, in the resurrection of the dead, or not?”
I replied to him, “When I quoted, sir, the words
spoken by Ezekiel, that ‘even if Noah and Daniel and Jacob were to beg sons and
daughters, the request would not be granted them,’ but that each one, that is
to say, shall be saved by his own righteousness, I said also, that those who
regulated their lives by the law of Moses would in like manner be saved. For
what in the law of Moses is naturally good, and pious, and righteous, and has
been prescribed to be done by those who obey it; and what was appointed to be
performed by reason of the hardness of the people’s hearts; was similarly
recorded, and done also by those who were under the law. Since those who did
that which is universally, naturally, and eternally good are pleasing to God,
they shall be saved through this Christ in the resurrection equally with those
righteous men who were before them, namely Noah, and Enoch, and Jacob, and
whoever else there be, along with those who have known this Christ,
Son of God, who was before the morning star and the moon, and submitted to
become incarnate, and be born of this virgin of the family of David, in order
that, by this dispensation, the serpent that sinned from the beginning, and the
angels like him, may be destroyed, and that death may be contemned, and for
ever quit, at the second coming of the Christ Himself, those who believe in Him
and live acceptably,—and be no more: when some are sent to be punished
unceasingly into judgment and condemnation of fire; but others shall exist in
freedom from suffering, from corruption, and from grief, and in immortality.” (Dialogue, 45)
“For
when Daniel speaks of ‘one like unto the Son of man’ who received the
everlasting kingdom, does he not hint at this very thing? For he declares that,
in saying ‘like unto the Son of man,’ He appeared, and was
man, but not of human seed. And the same thing he proclaimed in mystery when he
speaks of this stone which was cut out without hands. For the expression ‘it
was cut out without hands’ signified that it is not a work of man, but [a work]
of the will of the Father and God of all things, who brought Him forth. And
when Isaiah says, ‘Who shall declare His generation?’ he meant that His
descent could not be declared. Now no one who is a man of men has a descent
that cannot be declared. And when Moses says that He will wash His garments in
the blood of the grape, does not this signify what I have now often told you is
an obscure prediction, namely, that He had blood, but not from men; just as not
man, but God, has begotten the blood of the vine? And when Isaiah calls Him the
Angel of mighty counsel, did he not foretell Him to be the Teacher of those
truths which He did teach when He came [to earth]? For He alone taught openly
those mighty counsels which the Father designed both for all those who have
been and shall be well-pleasing to Him, and also for those who have rebelled
against His will, whether men or angels, when He said: ‘They shall come from
the east [and from the west], and shall sit down with Abraham, and
Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven: but the children of the kingdom
shall be cast out into outer darkness.’ And, ‘Many shall say to Me in that day,
Lord, Lord, have we not eaten, and drunk, and prophesied, and cast out demons
in Thy name? And I will say to them, Depart from Me.’ Again, in
other words, by which He shall condemn those who are unworthy of salvation, He
said, ‘Depart into outer darkness, which the Father has prepared for Satan and
his, angels.’ And again, in other words, He said, ‘I give unto you power to
tread on serpents, and on scorpions, and on scolopendras,
and on all the might of the enemy.’ And now we, who believe on our Lord Jesus,
who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, when we exorcise all demons and evil
spirits, have them subjected to us. For if the prophets declared obscurely that
Christ would suffer, and thereafter be Lord of all, yet that [declaration]
could not be understood by any man until He Himself persuaded the apostles that
such statements were expressly related in the Scriptures. For He exclaimed
before His crucifixion: ‘The Son of man must suffer many things, and be
rejected by the Scribes and Pharisees, and be crucified, and on the third day
rise again.’ And David predicted that He would be born from the womb before sun
and moon, according to the Father’s will, and made Him known, being Christ, as
God strong and to be worshipped.” (Dialogue, 76)
A footnote for the above adds the
following about Justin’s use of Psa 110:3 (109:3, LXX):
Justin puts “sun and
moon” instead of “Lucifer.” [Ps. 110:3, Sept, compounded with Prov. 8:27.]
Maranus says, David did predict, not that Christ would be born of Mary before
sun and moon, but that it would happen before sun and moon that He would be
born of a virgin. (ANF 2:236)
The KJV OT (which is dependent upon the MT tradition) reads:
