King David of Israel(Image courtesy of www.crystalinks.com)
The previous passage ended, saying that because Jesus answered his critics so convincingly they didn't dare ask him anything else (v. 40). But the confrontation is not yet over! Now Jesus goes on the offensive, so to speak. He has questions for his critics. They have been criticizing him for doing things that imply he has authority equal to God Himself: forgiving sins, for example (Luke 5:20-26). In their eyes, because the Messiah was predicted to be a descendant of King David (i.e., a "son of David"; see 2 Sam 7:12-17), he was not greater in authority than David, who of course was subordinate to God. But Jesus has a very difficult question for them.
Most of the Psalms have what is called a superscription at the very beginning. Because modern editions of the Bible set them in different type from the words of the psalm proper and/or center them above the text, it can give the false impression that these are the remarks of modern editors, not the words of Scripture itself. But in fact they are found in the most ancient manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, and not written in such a way as to differentiate them from the following text. They are therefore part of the authoritative text of Scripture.
Psalm 110 was generally regarded as messianic in Jesus' day. The superscription in Psalm 110 reads "A psalm of David", which has been generally taken as the identification of the author, and was certainly understood this way in Jesus' days. If David is the author, he is the one speaking the words. And his words include the verse: "The LORD (Hebrew Yahweh, i.e., God) said to my lord (Hebrew אדֹנִי adoni), 'Sit at my right hand while I make your enemies into your footstool'" (v. 1). The Hebrew words translated as "LORD" (rightly capitalized in translation) and "my lord" are different. The first refers exclusively to God, the second is the ordinary word for one superior in rank, such as one's father, a priest or the king: someone whose authority over you you recognize.
Jesus' question is the obvious one: If David calls the Messiah "my lord", how can you interpret "David's son" in such a way as to make him in no way superior in authority? You criticize me and accuse me of blasphemy when I claim authority from God to heal, raise the dead and forgive sins, because I am "Son of David" to those who acclaim me the Messiah (see Matt 12:23; 15:22; 20:31; 21:9, 15; Luke 18:38-39). But you do not understand your own Scriptures, which clearly show that the Messiah was David's lord, and therefore superior in authority to any king.
I have paraphrased the clear intent of Jesus' question, which once again left his critics disarmed and unable to answer. Of course, Luke gives us no record of how Jesus himself answered the question on this occasion. Perhaps—as in the case of early situations in which he told his accusers that, since they would not answer him, neither would he answer them (Luke 20:1-8)—in this case he simply left them to ponder the question.
It is a question everyone should consider as the season of the Jewish Passover and the Christian Easter approaches. Who is the Messiah promised to David? Is it the man named Jesus, born in Bethlehem (the town where David was born) in fulfillment of the prophecy in Micah 5:2 (see also Luke 2:4 and John 7:42 ), born of a virgin to fulfill the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14, who healed and raised the dead, who taught and explain the law of Moses perfectly, and who then suffered death to pay the penalty of the sins of us all (Isaiah 53)? If so, then he is not only David's "lord", but is the lord of every one of us!
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