Psalms 110:3

3. In this verse the King Messiah appears as conqueror, preparing for war, his willing people freely enlisting. While the imagery is that of war, it also indicates a peculiar kind of war: a priestly king and a holy warfare, as 2 Corinthians 10:4; Revelation 19:11-21.

Thy people shall be willing Literally, Thy people willingnesses, that is, abundantly willing, the plural for intensity. But it is better to give the sacrificial turn to the word, and translate thy people are freewill offerings, as the same word is often rendered in the law. Leviticus 22:18; Leviticus 22:21; Leviticus 22:23; Numbers 29:39; Deuteronomy 12:6; Deuteronomy 12:17. The fundamental idea of the “freewill offering” was its perfect voluntariness, as it might have been omitted without any sin or violation of duty. See Exodus 35:29; Exodus 36:3; Ezra 1:4. Here the people spontaneously offer themselves for the war, as in Judges 5:2; Jdg 5:9 ; 2 Chronicles 17:16, and as opposed to a drafted or hireling soldiery.

Day of thy power Day of thy host, or army. The language is strictly military, and the idea is, that on the muster day of Messiah’s army the people will enroll themselves with alacrity. This would be evidence of their faith and love, and an omen of victory. Popularly and widely this text has been quoted as if it read, “Thy people shall be made willing in the day of thy power,” and applied to prove that by an irresistible grace men would be made willing to repent and submit, when the special day or time of God for manifesting his saving power to them should arrive. A perversion of language and the laws of interpretation which falls below the dignity of criticism.

In the beauties of holiness The reference is to the dress and appearance of the army. הדרי , ( hadrey,) plural, translated beauties, has the sense of ornaments, honour, excellence, and may apply to apparel, as in Isaiah 63:1. The army appears in rich and ornamental dress. But the moral sense prevails here. Compare the army dress of “fine linen, clean and white,” (Revelation 19:14,) and see note on Psalms 96:9.

From the womb of the morning The Septuagint and Vulgate read, “I have begotten thee from the womb before the morning star,” as if Jehovah thus declared the eternal generation of the Son of God. But, though this would be a true doctrine, it does not arise from the Hebrew text, which, agreeably with the connexion, gives the clause as part of the description of Messiah’s army. The “womb of the morning” is a poetical phrase for the earliest dawn, which gives birth to the day. And such should be the freshness, vigour, and zeal of this army, like the morning issuing from the earliest dawn.

Thou hast the dew of thy youth Literally, To thee [is] the dew of thy young men; for the word must here be taken concretely for young men, as in Ecclesiastes 11:9-10, and not abstractly for the period of youth. See also its primitive form, (Genesis 4:23,) applied to Joseph when he was seventeen years old. Genesis 42:22. In the text, the multitude of enlistments in the army of this priest-king is the point of the metaphor. So Mendelssohn: “In the days of thy battle thy young men are unto thee as dew from the womb of the morning.” That this early dew, which is more copious in the East than with us, denoted great numbers, is seen in 2 Samuel 17:11-12. Such should be the gathering of converts through the publication of the gospel.