cy. The historical occasion for it may indeed be
connected with David's kingship and conquest of Melchizedek's city; but
the real source of it is a direct predictive inspiration. We have here
not merely the devout psalmist meditating on the truths revealed before
his day, but the prophet receiving a new word from God unheard by mortal
ears, and far transcending even the promises made to him by Nathan.
There is but one person to whom it can apply, who sits as a priest upon
his throne, who builds the temple of the Lord (Zech. vi. 12, 13).

As the former Divine word, so this is followed by the prophet's
rapturous answer, which carries on the portraiture of the priest-king.
There is some doubt as to the person addressed in these later verses.
"The Lord at thy right hand crushes kings in the day of His wrath."
Whose right hand? The answer generally given is, "The Messiah's." Who is
the Lord that smites the petty kinglets of earth? The answer generally
given is, "God." But it is far more dramatic, avoids an awkward
abruptness in the change of persons in the last verse, and brings out a
striking contrast with the previous half, if we take the opposite view,
and suppose Jehovah addressed and the Messiah spoken of throughout. Then
the first Divine word is followed by the prophetic invocation of the
exalted Messiah throned at the right hand and expecting till His enemies
be made His footstool. The second is followed by the prophetic
invocation of Jehovah, and describes the Lord Messiah at God's right
hand as before, but instead of longer waiting He now flames forth in all
the resistless energy of a conqueror. The day of His array is succeeded
by the day of His wrath. He crushes earth's monarchies. The psalmist's
eye sees the whole earth one great battle-field. "(It is) full of
corpses. He wounds the head over wide lands," where there may possibly
be a reference to the first vague dawning of a hope which God's mercy
had let lighten on man's horizon--"He shall bruise thy head," or the
word may be used as a collective expression for rulers, as the
parallelism with the previous verse requires. Thus striding on to
victory across the prostrate foe, and pursuing the flying relics of
their power, "He drinks of the brook in the way, therefore shall He lift
up the head," words which are somewhat difficult, however interpreted.
If, with the majority of modern commentators, we take them as a
picturesque embodiment of eager haste in the pursui