Psalm 110:7 has puzzled interpreters:
“He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head”
(ESV). Whereas in verse 6, Yahweh’s kind shatters the head (the Hebrew for “head,”
רֹאשׁ, being rendered “chiefs” by the ESV), in verse 7 he has his own head
lifted up. More could be said, but here I want to highlight the fact that
Gideon’s force is winnowed down to three hundred at the water, and those three
hundred were not those who “knelt down to drink” (Judg 7:4-8, ESV, esp. 7:5-6).
The men who were with Gideon seem to be those who kept their heads up at the
water. The “brook Besor” features prominently in 1 Samuel 30, as it was there that
“those who were left behind stayed” (1 Sam 30:9-10, ESV, cf. 30:21). The
reference in Psalm 110:7 to the conquering Melchizedekiah king drinking from
the brook by the way and therefore lifting up his head adds a subtle connection
point to those earlier episodes.
It is not surprising that
similarities between conquering warriors like Abraham and Gideon and David
would be noticed, nor that these similarities would be understood by a biblical
author to have been orchestrated by the sovereign God as types that point
forward to the promised king from David’s line. What is surprising is the way
that the expectation of a future king is woven together with the announcement
that the king will be a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. (James
M. Hamilton Jr., Typology Understand the Bible’s Promise-Shaped Patterns:
How Old Testament Expectations are Fulfilled in Christ [Grand Rapids,
Mich.: Zondervan Academic, 2022], 169-70)
