On Line Bible Study - For the week October 12-18, 2009

Lesson 409

Mark 12: ³⁵While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, he asked, "How is it that the teachers of the law say that the Christ (Messiah) is the son of David? ³⁶David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared:
" 'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet." ' ³⁷David himself calls him 'Lord.' How then can he be his son?"
The large crowd listened to him with delight.

This is a tricky little passage - one that made sense to Jesus' contemporaries with less effort than it takes us to make sense of it. But the message is an important one - so let's unpack it a bit.

First, remember where Jesus is - in the temple ... In the Hebrew Bible the term "Messiah" was applied to priests, prophets, kings. Jesus is addressing only one of those categories - the king - in this passage. For many in Israel the king became the person and the role in which they put their messianic hopes. They looked for the day when Israel would have the kind of ruler that would restore them and their nation to the glory they had enjoyed during the reigns of David and Solomon.

Jesus then quotes from Psalm 110 (The Lord said to my Lord ... etc.). Jesus is quoting from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible in which the divine name (YHWH) is rendered with the word kyrios - So, in the Hebrew Bible it is God saying: Sit at my right hand .... In the Greek translation (Septuagint) it is the Lord who makes this statement. Here is the rub. Jesus accepts the notion that David wrote the Psalms.

God is the Lord. The king is addressed as Lord. David wrote the psalm. So the question being raised here is this: While we understand David's reference to God as the Lord - the first Lord in the quote, who is he referring to in his use of the word Lord at the end of the verse? Normally the king would be referred to as "lord"; but David speaks of the second "lord" as his Lord ... to whom was he referring?

Now, going back to the issue Jesus raises - that the teachers of the law say the Christ must be the son of David ... Given this psalm, in which David acknowledges God and a "lord" other than God - clearly he is not referring to his own son. The point: The Messiah is not the "son of David"; the Messiah is someone greater than merely a son of David. Jesus re-defines both the status and the role of the Messiah. In so doing he is preparing the way for his own suffering and death to become part of the messianic project - something that Israel's religious leaders would struggle with.

Jesus is doing some interpretive gymnastics here with the text from Psalm 110:1. His listeners got it, and they were delighted. We have to work a bit harder than they did in order to see the logic of Jesus' interpretation; but if we will ponder this and "get it", it will be just as delightful to us as it was to them.