David wrote this psalm, and yet its opening line has David describing someone else. 1"The LORD says to my Lord." Two different Hebrew words sit behind LORD and Lord, and the gap between them is the engine of the psalm. Jesus presses that gap when he asks the Pharisees, "If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?" (Matthew 22:45). No one could answer, because the honest answer overturns what everyone assumed. The Messiah is David's own Lord, seated in a place no mere descendant was entitled to occupy, 1"at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool." Peter reaches for the verse at Pentecost, arguing that David is dead and buried and never ascended, so he must have been speaking of another (Acts 2:34-35). It is the clearest place where the king enthroned beside God is someone other than the human king on Israel's throne.
The middle verses describe the coronation itself. 2"The LORD sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter." This is the language Israel used to install its kings, a companion to Psalm 2 or Psalm 72. What breaks the pattern is verse 4, a second oracle, sworn and not merely spoken: 4"You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek." No king in Israel could be a priest. The offices belonged to two tribes, Judah and Levi, kept apart by the law. David could rule Israel and could never offer a sacrifice for it.
The name in verse 4 is strange. Melchizedek appears once before, centuries earlier, as king of Salem and priest of God Most High, blessing Abram and receiving a tenth of what he owned (Genesis 14:18-20). His name means king of righteousness. Genesis records no father, mother, birth, or death for him, an unusual silence in a book that tracks who begat whom. Hebrews seizes on it, since his priesthood rests on "an indestructible life" (Hebrews 7:16) and no inherited office. That is why God, wanting a priest-king who would never die and need replacing, reached past Aaron's line to this one unexplained figure and swore by oath that his own King would be a priest like him.
Hebrews spends its fullest chapter on what that oath secures. Because Christ did not die and stay dead, "he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever" (Hebrews 7:24). He offered himself once and now continues without successor, while every Aaronic priest had to repeat his sacrifice year after mortal year. He always lives to make intercession for those who draw near to God through him (Hebrews 7:25).
The psalm's last picture is almost jarring after all that glory. 7"He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head." Even in the middle of shattering kings and executing judgment, he stops at a stream, weary enough to need refreshment, before he is exalted. It is a small human note inside an overwhelming vision, and it fits the one who fulfills the psalm. On the other side of his weariness God lifted up his head.
When you are tired, remember that your King and Priest was tired too, and that he intercedes for you at this moment.
Prayer
Father, we thank you that our King is also our Priest, seated at your right hand and interceding for us now. Thank you that his priesthood never lapses. When we are weary and thirsty, remind us that he was too. Hold us near the throne of our King and great High Priest forever. In Jesus' name, amen.