[110:4] Verse 4 first provides a new introduction
to an oracle of God. The speaker assures us that Yahweh’s statement is
guaranteed by a declaration that is irrevocable and sworn. On the “oath of
Yahweh,” cf. Amos 4:2; 6:8; Isa. 5:9; 14:24; Ps. 95:11; and often; on the oath
of God to David, cf. Pss. 89:3, 35; 132:11. As in v. 1 and in the second part
of v. 3, the king is addressed by Yahweh. The office of priest is conveyed to
him. Priestly functions of the king are familiar especially from ancient Sumer
(cf. H. Gressmann, Der Messias 23f.). But also in pre-Israelite
Jerusalem the city-king must have engaged in priestly activity (כהן לאל עליון מלך שׁלם
הוציא לחם ויין והוא,
Gen. 14:18). He was “priest of God Most High.” This office of honor is now also
conveyed to the Israelite city-kings of Jerusalem. The Jebusite cultic
traditions live on. Of the priestly activity of David and of his descendants we
hear in 2 Sam. 6:14, 18; 24:17; 1 Kings 8:14, 56. The king wears priestly
vestments (2 Sam. 6:14), blesses the people, intercedes for the cultic assembly
in prayer, and presides over the rites. Yes, he even presents the offering (1
Sam. 13:9; 2 Sam. 6:13, 17), draws near to God like the high priest (Jer. 30:21),
and also, in the conceptions of Ezekiel concerning the “prince,” he stands in
the midst of the worship (Ezek. 44:3; 45:16f., 22ff.; 46:2ff.). In Ps. 110:4
the king of Jerusalem is installed as “priest forever.” לעולם “is used to designate an unbroken continuance or to fix a given
state as final and unchangeable.… The strong emphasis therefore in the use of לעולם lies not so much on the temporal term of
the most remote, distant future, but rather on the various qualitative
determinations in the very expression for permanence, finality, immutability,
etc.” (E. Jenni, “Das Wort
‘ōlām im Alten Testament,” ZAW
64 [1952] 237).
על־דברתי points to the prototype of the tradition of the office of the
priest-king, to Melchizedek. The name of this pre-Israelite ancestor and
prototypical city-king—as we can quite frequently establish in Canaanite
name-giving—is formed with the old theophoric element מלך, where צדק
very likely has to be understood predicatively and therefore in no way
represents (as is occasionally thought) the city-God of Jerusalem; M. Noth, Die israelitischen Personennamen in Rahmen der
gemeinsemitischen Namengebung,
BWANT III, 10 (1928) 114, 161. On the explanation why מַלְכִּי in Greek is rendered with μελχι, cf. L. Köhler, ZAW 64 (1952) 196. What takes place under the promise of v. 4?
“David as Messiah has, it seems, simply come into the inheritance of
Melchizedek; what the Canaanite inhabitants of Jerusalem hoped for from their
priest-princes the Israelites conveyed to their King David” (G. von Rad, “Das jüdische
Königsritual,” GesStudAT I 211). This “transfer” of
most ancient traditions to David and his dynasty took place when the Jebusite
regulations and cultic traditions were adopted, traditions which experienced a
comprehensive reception in Israel. Cf. also H. E. del Medico, “Melchisedech,” ZAW 69 (1957) 160–170. (Hans-Joachim
Kraus, A Continental Commentary: Psalms
60–150 [trans. Hilton C. Oswald; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993], 350-51)
