Having said that, nothing he does precludes the potential messianic interpretation.  He is simply providing a potential interpretation which is not messianic.  It is our job to decide if he is correct.  The Hebrew of Psalm 110:1 says the Lord (YHWH) says to my Lord (adonai)… Singer says that in this passage, adonai is a reference to a human lord, not God, and he says that the word adonai is never used of deity in the Old Testament. He claims that Christian translations which use capital L in the second word Lord is a mistranslation. This claim that adonai is never a term for deity is not true.  Full stop.   Psalm 24:1 “The earth is the Lord’s (adonai), and everything in it.” Genesis 15:8 “Sovereign Lord (adonai) how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”  I could quote literally dozens of passages in which the Hebrew word adonai is unambiguously use of God/deity.  Yet, Singer claims that it is never used in this way!  Singer is simply not telling the truth here.

However, Singer does make a case that there is a possible interpretation of Psalm 110:1-2 which is non-messianic, and I agree with him on this claim.  He is making a patently false claim about the word adonai, but his point that the word is sometimes used to refer to a human lord is correct.  So, who is right on this?  Let us get to that.

Then Singer tries to undermine the New Testament understanding, especially in Hebrews 7, that Melchizedek is a messianic prefigure.  His argument here is even weaker in my opinion, as Psalm 110:2 clearly marks Melchizedek out as a special an unique figure in the Old Testament.  However, his argument regarding Melchizedek does properly offer a possible non-messianic interpretation.  What Singer definitely does NOT do is prove that passage is not messianic.  Here he completely falls short.

This brings us to the question at hand.  Is Psalm 110:1-2, in fact, a messianic passage?  Is Singer right, or is the writer of Hebrews right?  Singer does nothing to “prove” that the passage is not messianic, but we should at least consider his proposal as a possibility.

My answer is an unambiguous, slam-dunk confidence that Singer is wrong.  Here is why:  First and foremost, Jesus is indeed the Messiah!!!  Jesus walked on water, Jesus healed thousands, he raised Jarius’ daughter from the dead, he raised Lazarus from the dead, he calmed a great storm, he turned water to wine and he, in turn, was raised from the dead on the third day.  Jesus did not just fulfill Psalm 110:1-2. He fulfilled Micah 5:2, having been born in Bethlehem.  He fulfilled Psalm 22:16-17 in that they pierced his hands and his feet.  He fulfilled Zechariah 9:9 when he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, and Isaiaah 53:1-2 when he was silent when accused, when he was pierced, and much more, as well as fulfilling Zechariah 11:10-12 when he was betrayed for thirty (count them… thirty) pieces of silver and he fulfilled Daniel 9:25-26 when he was killed in Jerusalem in the year AD 30, and we can go on and on.  Jesus is the only person who ever lived a perfect life.

Singer interprets Psalm 110:1-2 through a lens which is colored by an assumption which is wrong.  Period. End of story.  Therefore, his interpretation, naturally, is also wrong.  Besides, the New Testament is as much the inspired Word of God as is the Hebrew Old Testament.  I could give you hundreds of pages to support this claim, but will spare you for now.  Whose interpretation of Psalm 110:1-2 ought I to believe, that of the non-inspired (by his own admission) Singer, or that of the inspired-by-the-Holy-Spirit writer of Hebrews?  That Hebrews is inspired by God is self-evident to anyone who has a deep grasp of the Old Testament, who knows the biography of Jesus and who reads this amazing God-inspired book.

To summarize, if we only had Psalm 110:1-2, and nothing else, such as the story of Jesus, his miracles, his fulfilling of dozens of other messianic prophecies, then Singer’s interpretation of the Psalm is a reasonable one (although we should strongly reject his false claim about the word adonai!), but this is not the case.  The life of Jesus, the place of Psalm 110:1-2 in the Old Testament, the clear evidence for the inspiration of the New Testament and many other lines of evidence tells us that Singer’s interpretation is a false one.  Possible if taken in isolation, but not possible if we take the entirety of the Old Testament, the life of Jesus and the New Testament into account. I would argue that the messianic nature of Psalm 110:1-2 is a solid slam dunk!

One more thing.  You ask about the author of Psalm 110.  The Psalm begins with, “Of David, a Psalm.”  We know from 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles that David wrote many psalms.  The fact that this particular psalm leads with the statement, “Of David, a Psalm” does not prove beyond a doubt that he wrote it.  People will have varying opinions on this, and we ought to be humble and admit that we cannot prove this either way.  I believe that David wrote this psalm, but I would not bet my eternal salvation in this belief. To me, given the clear messianic nature of the Psalm, proved beyond a reasonable doubt above, this is a reasonable conclusion, but, like I said, the fact that it is labeled “Of David” does not preclude the possibility that it was written in honor of David rather than by David.  Singer is quite biased, but his claim that David is not the author is not a completely crazy proposal.  I am absolutely convinced he is wrong in the messianic nature of the Psalm, but only somewhat confident he is wrong on the author.

John Oakes