Levitical covenant
fulfilled by a superior priesthood—combined with kingship (Psalm 110)
The psalms that conclude these ‘Of David’
groups (Pss 110; 144-15) appear to have climactic significance and are of
particular importance in terms of elucidating the newness of the covenant.
Their placement coheres with that of other psalms that are structurally prominent
and that are royal and/or deal with matters of covenant relationships . . . In
keeping with the perspective of Psalm 2, the king of Psalm 110 rules in Zion,
and is absolutely victorious over his enemies, crushing kings on the day of
wrath (vv. 2, 5-6). The ambiguity in verse 5 (whose wrath—that of YHWH or the
king?) recalls, again, Psalm 2 and other portraits of the new-covenant king:
the clear distinction between YHWH and the psalmist’s ‘lord’ is evident in
verse 1 but not in verses 5-6. While these two figures operate in harmony,
ultimate authority lies with YHWH: it is he who delegates power to the king and
instals him as priest for ever (lě’ôlām)—by an irrevocable oath (v. 4;
cf. Ps. 132:11). (James Hely Hutchinson, Answering the Palmist’s Perplexity:
New-Covenant Newness in the Book of Psalms [New Studies in Biblical Theology
62; Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2023], 139)
I presuppose that the referent of ‘my/the
lord’ (‘ādōnî/’ādōnāy) is constant between vv. 1 and 5—as is also his position
at the right hand of YHWH. The third-person singular thus designates the king
throughout the last three verses of the psalm. According to this reading, the
king is addressed after the second oracle (vv. 5-7). This squares with our view
that it is the son’s wrath that is spoken of in Ps. 2:12 (cf. Ps. 110:5: ‘on
the day of his [sc. the king’s] wrath’). (Ibid., 139 n. 100)
We read in Zechariah 11:10: ‘And I
took my staff Favour, and I broke it, annulling the covenant that I made with all
the peoples’ (ESV). Thomas McComiskey expresses the exegetical difficulty as
follows: ‘The reference to “my covenant” within a series of first-person
suffixes referring to the prophet is unusual. We cannot refer to this suffix to
him, for only Yahweh could exercise control over the nations.’ Here is a
possible solution: ‘The reference to the covenant “that I had made” . .
. shows the immediacy of the divine presence in the prophet’s consciousness,
for he can move easily from his words to those of Yahweh.’
But Paul Lamarche’s structural analysis
may hold the keys to a more satisfying explanation. He identifies four sections
which describe ‘the successive people of the efforts made by the king or the
pastor to save the people of Israel’ (9:9-10; 11:4-17; 12:10-13:1; 13:7-9). In
other words, the figure that the prophet symbolizes in 11:4ff. had already been
evoked in 9:9-10: it is the shepherd-king who is intimately tied to YHWH. This
king had made a covenant with ‘all the peoples’ (11:10). But the link between
YHWH and this king is such that the wages that the king receives (v. 12)
correspond—at least according to the most natural reading of the syntax of
verse 13—to the ‘price at which [YHWH] was valued’ (NASB). Whose wages: YHWH’s
or the king’s? Who is the ‘I’ of verse 10 That this case of ambiguity between
YHWH and his king occurs in the context of new-covenant prophecy is
particularly clear in the last of Lamarche’s ‘messiah’ sections (see Zech.
13:9). (James Hely Hutchinson, “Appendix 2: Second example of ambiguity between
YHWH and his king in a prophecy concerning the new covenant,” in Answering
the Palmist’s Perplexity: New-Covenant Newness in the Book of Psalms [New
Studies in Biblical Theology 62; Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic,
2023], 191-92)
