Mark 12:35-37

‘And Jesus answered and said as he taught in the Temple, “How do the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? David himself said in the Holy Spirit, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, you sit on my right hand until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet.’ David himself calls him Lord. In what sense then is he his son?” And the common people heard him gladly.’

‘As He taught in the Temple.’ Jesus’ ministry to the people continued unabated.

“How do the Scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?” The term Son of David was used in a Pharisaic writing called the Psalms of Solomon which was written prior to the time of Jesus in the 1st century BC, so that while it was not a commonly used description of the coming Messiah it was certainly in use as such by some. And it is in fact possible that some Rabbis, especially perhaps with Jesus in mind, were downgrading ‘the Messiah to come’ into a kind of lesser David, a mere ‘son of David’, in contrast with the glorious figure often presented in apocalyptic literature (for all would have agreed that the Coming One would be the son of David in some way as the Old Testament makes clear - e.g. 2 Samuel 7:13; 2 Samuel 7:16; Isaiah 9:2-7; Isaiah 11:1-4; Jeremiah 23:5-6; Jeremiah 30:9; Ezekiel 34:23-24; Ezekiel 37:24; Hosea 3:5). We have no record of the Pharisees actually seeing Jesus as the son of David, indeed there is evidence that they refused to do so (Matthew 21:15-16), presumably because they could not accept that He was the Messiah, about whom there were, in fact, many differing views, as is especially witnessed by the Dead Sea Scrolls where the Messiah of David appears in some ways to be inferior to a Messiah of Aaron. Others thought in terms of the coming of a teaching Messiah.

Jesus was neither directly denying that He was the son of David, nor was He directly here referring to Himself as such. But both Matthew and Luke have already made clear in their genealogies that He was the Son of David, while Mark has brought it out by its use elsewhere (Mark 10:47-48). What He was arguing against was that that was all that the Messiah was. As we have seen earlier (on Mark 10:47) ‘Son of David’ was not a prominent Messianic title at this time, although undoubtedly used by some as is evidenced by its use in the Psalms of Solomon.

‘David himself said in the Holy Spirit.’ It is clear from this that Jesus accepted the divine inspiration of the Psalms as ‘prophetic’ books. He is referring here to Psalms 110:0 which is headed ‘a psalm of David’. Reference to the institution of ‘the order of Melchizedek’ (Mark 12:4), referring to the old King of Salem in Genesis 14:0, suggests that it was written not long after the capture of Jerusalem by David, when it would have been suitable for pacifying the Jebusites and incorporating them into the covenant, and yet before a time when it would be looked on as heresy. David and his heirs were to be seen as priest-kings in Jerusalem, acknowledged by the Jebusites there, even if nowhere else. This would have aided their assimilation into the faith of Israel.

There are good grounds for stating that this Psalm was interpreted Messianically in the pre-Christian period. This is confirmed by the Midrash on Psalms 18:36 where Psalms 110:1 is quoted by way of illustration in a Messianic sense. Later the interpretation was dropped by the Rabbis because the Christians had taken it over. Now, said Jesus, if David wrote this Psalm with a future king in mind, now interpreted as the Messiah, he was addressing the Messiah as ‘Lord’. And he was not only addressing Him as Lord but was portraying Him as God’s right hand man. That being so he must have recognised the Messiah to be far superior to himself.

Psalms 110:0 is constantly quoted Messianically in the New Testament. See Acts 2:34, of His ascending the throne of God as both Lord and Messiah; Hebrews 10:12 where, after offering one sacrifice for sins for ever, He ‘sat down at the right hand of God’; and with regard to the Melchizedek priesthood in Hebrews 6:20; Hebrews 7:17; Hebrews 7:21.

So Jesus was here concerned to bring home to His listeners in His usual veiled way that His status far exceeded that of David and that He was destined to sit at God’s right hand with His enemies subdued before Him (compare Mark 14:62). This idea also contained the idea of Sonship, for in Judah it had regularly been the son who acted alongside his father in ruling Judah, but also of essential unity. He spoke as representative of the throne.

‘And the common people heard Him gladly.’ His popularity with ordinary people continued unabated, no doubt to the chagrin of the authorities. All their efforts to diminish Him seemed to be in vain.