Monday, May 16, 2022

James M. Hamilton Jr., on Psalm 110:7

  

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)

 

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