http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/psalm110_1.htm
Christians often appeal to Psalm 110:1 to prove that the Hebrew Bible teaches that Yahweh is multi-Personal, that there is more than one Person who is Yahweh God, and that the Messiah is God. The text in question reads:
"The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’" NIV
According to the Lord Jesus and the other NT writers this is a Psalm of David which he uttered in relation to Christ’s ascension into heavenly glory:
"And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, ‘How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared, "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet."
David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?’ And the great throng heard him gladly." Mark 12:35-36
"Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For
David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’ Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." Acts 2:33-36
On the basis of the above texts, Christians believe that Jesus is David’s Lord since he is the Christ. And since Yahweh is David’s Lord, Jesus must therefore be Yahweh God.
Many anti-Trinitarians claim that this is an erroneous conclusion or assumption since a careful reading of the Hebrew text disproves such a notion. The Hebrew uses two different words which English translations render as Lord:
"The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’" English Standard Version (ESV)
The words in Hebrew which the above version translates LORD and Lord are actually Yahweh and Adoni, two different words with two obviously different meanings (or so the argument goes)…..
……The assertion is that the use of two different words automatically proves that the Psalmist had two completely different beings in view, and that the second Lord refers to someone who isn’t God. The main problem with this claim is that just because the Psalmist used two different terms it doesn't necessarily follow that he had two beings in mind who were of completely different essences, i.e. one is Divine while the other is human or angelic. We do agree that the Psalmist had two distinct and different Persons in view, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are of different essences or share different beings. After all, isn't it true that David’s Lord is Yahweh God?
"I say to the LORD, ‘
You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.’" Psalm 16:2
"Awake and rouse yourself for my vindication, for my cause,
my God and my Lord!" Psalm 35:23
And wouldn't this open up the possibility that the use of Adoni for the second occurrence of Lord is a reference to Yahweh God as David’s Sovereign, David’s Lord? It is quite possible, and yet the anti-Trinitarian says it isn’t very probable.
The reason given for why it is highly improbable that David was addressing Yahweh is because of the fact that anti-Trinitarians claim that the word Adoni is never once used for God in the Hebrew Bible. It is always used for human beings or angels. Moreover, they also claim that David could have used the word Adonai (literally, "Lords" or "my Lords") if he had intended for his audience to understand that he was addressing Yahweh as his sovereign since this word is normally used of God.
These claims are erroneous for several reasons. First, in ancient, biblical Hebrew there were no vowel markings to distinguish between the different forms of the word Adon, the word from where we get Adoni and Adonai, which means that the verses would have read the same way since they have the same consonants, making this a moot point.
Second, just because Adoni is used elsewhere for human beings or angels doesn't mean that David didn't use it in reference to God. Psalm 110:1 may actually be a case where the word is being used for Yahweh God, making it the exception to the norm. One cannot simply dismiss this as a possibility on a priori grounds, but must be decided by first looking and exegeting the text itself before looking elsewhere.
Third, the word Adoni is used for the Angel of Yahweh in Judges 6:13 who clearly isn't a mere creature. This particular Angel is actually a manifestation of God himself, just as the immediate context shows:
"Now the angel of the LORD came and SAT under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites.
And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, ‘The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.’ And Gideon said to him, ‘
Please, my Lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, "Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?" But now the LORD has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.’
AND THE LORD TURNED TO HIM AND SAID, ‘Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?’ And he said to him, ‘Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.’
AND THE LORD SAID TO HIM, ‘But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.’ And he said to him, ‘If now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speaks with me. Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you.’ And he said, ‘I will stay till you return.’ So Gideon went into his house and prepared a young goat and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour. The meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the terebinth and presented them.
AND THE ANGEL OF GOD SAID TO HIM, ‘Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour the broth over them.’ And he did so.
Then the angel of the LORD reached out the tip of the staff that was IN HIS HAND and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes. And fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. And the angel of the LORD vanished from his sight. Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the LORD. And Gideon said, ‘
Alas, O Lord GOD! For now I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face. ’ BUT THE LORD SAID TO HIM, ‘Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.’" Judges 6:11-23
People normally become afraid of dying after seeing God face to face, and yet here Gideon is afraid because he saw the Angel face to face (cf. Genesis 32:30; Exodus 33:20; Judges 13:22). What this basically means is that the Angel was Yahweh himself who both appeared and spoke directly to Gideon, which means that Gideon was addressing Yahweh as his Lord or Adoni.
In another place, Joshua sees a man wielding a sword and addressed him as Adoni after he realized who this man actually was:
"When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold,
a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, ‘Are you for us, or for our adversaries?’ And he said,
‘No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come.’ And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, "
What does my lord say to his servant?’ And the commander of the LORD's army said to Joshua, "
Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so." Joshua 5:13-15
Compare the above with the following texts:
"Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
And THE ANGEL OF THE LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, ‘I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.’ When
THE LORD SAW that he turned aside to see, GOD CALLED TO HIM OUT OF THE BUSH, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said,
‘Here I am.’ Then he said, ‘Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’ And he said, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God." Exodus 3:1-6
"Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him. But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. When my angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I blot them out," Exodus 23:20-23
The man wielding the sword, the man who leads the armies of the Lord is actually the Angel of Yahweh sent ahead of Israel to fight their enemies, the One whom God says has his very own name within him and who can forgive sins, a divine prerogative.
Putting it simply, the Adoni who Joshua saw was the Angel of God who happens to also be God Almighty himself! It is little wonder that Joshua fell down and worshiped him.
Here is one final example where Adoni is used for a Divine Being:
"On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month of Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, son of Iddo, saying, ‘I saw in the night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse! He was standing among the myrtle trees in the glen, and behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses. Then I said, ‘What are these, my lord?’ The angel who talked with me said to me, ‘I will show you what they are.’ So the man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered, ‘These are they whom the LORD has sent to patrol the earth.’ And they answered the angel of the LORD who was standing among the myrtle trees, and said, ‘We have patrolled the earth, and behold, all the earth remains at rest.’" Zechariah 1:7-11
Zechariah provides enough clues that identify this specific Angel as being the very same Angel of Yahweh mentioned in the above texts:
"Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the LORD said to Satan, ‘The LORD rebuke you, O Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?’ Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, ‘Remove the filthy garments from him.’ And to him he said, ‘Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.’" Zechariah 3:1-4
The inspired prophet identifies this Angel as Yahweh God who has the power to forgive or remove sins!
The above texts refute the assertion that Adoni is never used of Yahweh, since in at least three places Adoni is used for a man, for an Angel, whom the texts explicitly identify as Yahweh. More on this point a little later.
Noted Messianic and Hebrew scholar Dr. Michael L. Brown beautifully summarizes the above points in his response to some similar arguments raised by an anti-missionary named Rabbi Tovia Singer:
"There are at least three problems with his argument: First, he is incorrect in stating that ‘my lord’ is reserved ‘for the profane, never the sacred.’ Just look in Joshua 5:14, where Joshua addresses the angel of the Lord as ‘my lord’ (‘adoni). Yet this divine messenger is so holy that Joshua is commanded to remove the shoes from his feet because he is standing on holy ground, just as Moses was commanded when the angel of the Lord – representing Yahweh himself – appeared to him (Exod. 3:1-6). This is hardly a ‘profane’ rather than ‘sacred’ usage! Similar examples can be found in Judges 6:13 and Zechariah 1:9, among other places. In each of these, angels are addressed as ‘my lord,’ and in some of these cases, the angels bear the divine presence. Second, Singer’s whole argument hinges on the Masoretic vocalization, which did not reach its final form until the Middle Ages. As every student of Hebrew knows, biblical Hebrew was written with consonants and ‘vowel letters’ only; the vowel signs were added hundreds of years later. Yet both ‘adonai (used only for Yahweh) and ‘adoni (used for men and angels, as we just noted) are spelled identically in Hebrew, consisting of the four consonants ‘-d-n-y. How then can Rabbi Singer make such a dogmatic statement about the differences between these two forms in the Bible? His argument stands only if we accept the absolute authority of the Masoretic vocalization, which in some cases follows the original writing by almost two thousand years. Third, it is not really important whether we translate with ‘my Lord’ or ‘my lord,’ since Yeshua’s whole argument was simply that David called the Messiah ‘lord’ meaning that the Messiah had to more than David’s son. While many Christian translations do render ‘adoni as ‘my Lord’ in Psalm 110:1, they are careful to distinguish between the first Lord (i.e., LORD) and the second." (Brown, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus: Messianic Prophecy Objections [Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI 2003], Volume Three, pp. 137-138)
More importantly, the Psalmist does refer to his Lord as Adonai right in verse 5:
"The Lord (Adonai) is AT YOUR RIGHT HAND; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head." Psalm 110:5-7
Here, Adonai is the One who will bring judgment against the nations and their kings, and will even drink from a brook! This clearly refers to David's Lord in verse 1, not just because he drinks from a brook of water, a human function, but also because he is said to be at "your right hand." In verse 1, this refers to the right hand of Yahweh:
"The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at MY right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’"
Now compare this again to verse 5:
"The Lord is at YOUR right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath."
"Your right hand" obviously refers to Yahweh's right hand. This means that the Lord or Adonai of verse 5 is actually David's Lord, the Messiah, since he is the one who is at Yahweh's right hand!
Moreover, the passage plainly states it is the Lord (Adonai) who executes judgment upon the nations and who will shatter kings in the day of his wrath which, according to the NT, is what Jesus will do when he returns to the earth:
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left." Matthew 25:31-33
……These texts provide further affirmation that the Adonai of 110:5 is indeed the Messiah, David's Lord.
With the foregoing behind us, we can resume our discussion of Psalm 110:1. In order to exhaust all points of views and arguments, so as to not leave anything out, there are really only three possibilities for us to consider. David could have been addressing one of the following three persons or beings as his Lord:
1. Yahweh God.
2. An angel.
3. A human being.
.....The problem with claiming that David was addressing another human being as his Lord is that, according to the Hebrew Bible, David was the highest ranking human ruler in all the earth:
"Of old you spoke in a vision to your godly one, and said: I have granted help to one who is mighty; I have exalted one chosen from the people. I have found David, my servant; with my holy oil I have anointed him, … He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’ And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth." Psalm 89:19-20, 26-27
Thus, there was no human ruler that was greater in prestige, power, authority, and rank than David. This means that the One he addressed as his Lord could not simply be a human figure, and we are therefore left with the other two options. Either David’s Lord was a Divine Being or an angelic creature; he couldn’t merely be a human sovereign.
.....Now someone may say that Jesus is merely a human being who was granted a higher rank than David, and therefore doesn’t prove that he is God. There are several problems with this explanation. First, Jesus’ question regarding this Psalm presupposes that the Christ is more than just a man:
"Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, ‘What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?’ They said to him, ‘The son of David.’ He said to them, ‘How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet"? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?’ And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions." Matthew 22:41-46
If the Christ were merely a man then he couldn’t be David’s Lord since the latter was his ancestor. In other words, Jesus is saying that David’s son couldn’t be his ancestor’s Lord since fathers are normally greater than their sons in position and authority.
Second, it will not do to say that because the Messiah would be greater in glory he would therefore be superior to David, since this assumes that David’s son is his Lord by virtue of his rank. Jesus’ point is basically that the Messiah’s rank or prestige still wouldn’t make him David’s Lord if he were merely a human son. After all, Solomon was granted greater riches, glory and wisdom than his father without this ever making him Lord over his father. In a similar manner, the Messiah’s prestige and glory wouldn’t be grounds for his becoming David’s sovereign.
Third, the NT documents teach that Jesus is God in essence, the very unique Son of God. Basically, this explains why David’s Son could be his Lord and supports our position that only One who is God could ever be sovereign over David.
To summarize the data, we discovered that:
1. According to the Lord Jesus and the NT writers David composed Psalm 110.
2. David, in Psalm 110, addressed some unnamed entity as his Lord, as his Sovereign.
3. Both the Lord Jesus and the NT documents also claim that David composed this Psalm about the Messiah. Hence, this is a Messianic Psalm composed about the greater David, the greater Solomon who was to come.
4. According to the Hebrew Bible, there was no human ruler higher in rank and authority than David who could therefore be his sovereign.
5. The Holy Bible also teaches that all of the kings sit/sat on God’s throne whereas angels do not, indicating that the former are/were greater than the latter.
6. This would therefore imply that David could not have been addressing any angel as his Lord, forcing us to conclude that he was actually addressing Yahweh.
7. Yet, since the Lord Jesus and his Apostles claimed that David was referring to the Christ, this means that the Christ (who is Jesus) is none other than Yahweh God himself.
8. But the same Psalm says that Yahweh was addressing David’s Lord, which implies that there are actually two distinct individuals that exist as God.
All scriptural quotations taken from the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Holy Bible, unless stated otherwise.
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