The king of Psalm 110.4 is also
one like the priest-king Melchizedek, at whose shrine Abraham journeyed from Ur
to worship. In fact, if we follow the Hebrew rather than the Septuagint, he may
even be the Genesis Mechizedek himself. For the Hebrew text addresses him
directly by name, You are a priest for ever, according to my promise,
Melchizedek (the simple understanding of Hebrew al-divrati is that
the yodh indicates a pronominal suffix, as at Job 5.18, where the same
term occurs. Note that the heavenly hero of 11QMelch is not merely in the
order of Melchizedek, but is Melchizedek by name). Certainly, he is an
exalted priest. Therefore the Messiah of the Psalms is a Joshua, David, and
priestly figure combined. With this realization, we enter territory—a land of
multiple messianic paradigms—which will become to us later in the Testament
of Naphtali, the Qumran text of 4Q175, the Targum to Exodus 40, and the
Talmud’s ‘Four Craftsmen’ baraitha.
Yet there is more still. This is a
most heavenly king. Just as in Zechariah, so in Psalm 110, there is repeated conflation
of the king and the deity. Remove the Masoretic vowels which distinguish
between adoni and adonai, or ignore the convention that the
plural adonai, is always the Holy One, and it is not at all clear who is
at whose right hand in verse 5. If the adon there is the divinity, then
he drinks form a river in verse 7, and so he is a human divinity. Or if the adon
is the king, then it is his power which shatters kings, and so he is a most omnipotent
king. His heavenly nature is confirmed by ancient interpreters of the Psalms.
Daniel’s vision of a son of man, the only other Bible text which sees a man
co-enthroned in heaven, surely derives from this psalm. Daniel’s son of man,
who receives the heavenly throne at the hand of the Ancient of Days, proceeds
from the divine presence. Invested with authority over the earth, to rule all nations
(7:9-14). Likewise, the superhero of the Dead Sea text 11QMelchizedek must be
dependent on this psalm. Its Melchizedek hero, head of the sons of heaven, descends
from heaven to conquer Satan and his cohorts.
So in the figure of Psalm 110
multiple messianic paradigms fuse together in a heavenly king who borders on
divine. But this is not limited to this psalm alone. Let us go back to the
beginning. Seem in this light, it is the Masoretic vocalization makes it adonai
rather than adoni (v. 4). If the immediate antecedent is any clue, then
the one seated in heaven is meshiḥo, the LORD’s Messiah.
Moving on, there is the notorious
crux of Psalm 45, which says of the king: Your throne, elohim, is for ever
and ever (v. 7). Despite the reservations of the commentators, the vocative
is confirmed by the Septuagint, the Targum, the New Testament (Heb. 1:8),
Aquila, Symmachus, the Peshitta and the Vulgate. We must conclude that the
psalmist addresses the king of Israel as ‘elohim’.
Finally, we come to Psalm 81.6 and
that strange passage cited above.
He made it a decree for Yehoseph [יה֨וֹסֵ֤ף;
name is usually spelt יוֹסֵף]
when he went out over the land of Egypt.
This spelling of Joseph is found
nowhere else in the Bible. Gesenius thought it might be Chaldean. But why
should the Psalms’ redactor, who spelt the name in Hebrew way so far, suddenly adopt
a spelling found nowhere else? De Boer, more plausible, suggests it as a “portmantologism’
blending the initial letters of Judah to the last letters of Joseph (P.A.H. De
Boer, “Psalm 81.6a: Observations on Translation and Meaning of One Hebrew Line,”
in W.B. Barrick and J.R. Spencer (eds.), In the Shelter of Elyon [JSOT
Supp. Series 31; Sheffield: JSOT]:67-80). Maybe. But surely there is a more
obvious solution. Throughout the Bible the three letters YHV, that is ‘Yeho’,
occur as a standard contraction of the Tetragrammaton, YHVH. This is especially
so in Israelite personal names like Yehoshua (Joshua), Yehonatan (Jonathan), or
Yehoshafat (Jehosaphat). Indeed, one cannot imagine any Israelite ever writing
the three letters YHV and being unaware that they represent the name of Israel’s
God. They must surely be an intentional reference to the Tetragrammaton. And so
the name of Joseph in Psalm 81 has, like Yehoshua, gained a Yeho- prefix: Yehoseph.
This is certainly how the rabbis understood it, as in Midrash Tehillim,
as we saw already:
In the verse he appointed it (שמו
samo) in Yehoseph for a testimony (Ps 81,6), do not read ‘he
appointed it’ but ‘his name” (שמו šemo). YH, that is the name of the
Holy One, blessed be he, testified that Joseph had not touched Potiphar’s wife.
(see likewise B. Sot. 10b; B. Sot. 36b).
What are we to understand from
this name? Perhaps a divine Joseph Messiah? Or even a divine Joseph-Joshua-Judah
Messiah? Or does anyone have a better suggestion? (David C. Mitchell, Messiah
ben Joseph [rev ed.; Campbell Publications, 2021], 60-62, comment in square
bracket added for clarification)
