A few months back, when we were covering the Come Follow Me: Psalms 102–103; 110; 116–119; 127–128; 135–139; 146–150 lesson for August 22-28, I was struck by Psalm 110. It is both one of the most quoted Psalms in the New Testament and one of the least understood. Indeed, as I began to dig into the cultural, linguistic, and historical context of the Psalm, I became shocked by just how deeply it is misunderstood. Most Christians see it as a Psalm of David where King David is seen as a symbol for the Messiah, with it therefore being a Psalm that is really about Jesus.
But this is entirely wrong.
In fact, almost everything that can derived from Psalm 110 sets it in direct opposition to the (apostate) teachings of contemporary sectarian Christianity. In truth, Psalms 110 deeply affirms some of the most unique and precious truths of the Latter-day Saints revealed through modern prophets. The Godhead, God the Father having a Goddess Wife, the Children of God that existed before the Creation, the existence of priesthood authority, the division of priesthood authority, the Priesthood of Aaron being a lesser priesthood focused on ritual sacrifice, the Melchizedek Priesthood being a higher priesthood that officiates in the temple and all roles of the Aaronic Priesthood, the existence of sacred priesthood robes to be worn inside the temple, and a temple ritual that made one a priest, king, and prepared one to become a god are all taught in Psalms 110. Therefore, Psalms 110, properly understood, reveals more evidence for the truthfulness of the Restoration through the Prophet Joseph Smith.
The Historical Setting of Psalms 110
First, we should place these verses in their historical context so that we can see why they’re important to our understanding of David, priesthood authority, and temple theology as a whole:
- 2 Samuel 5 and 1 Chronicles 11: Gibeah as Saul’s capital, David’s conquest of the Jebusite city of Jerusalem to be his capital. He had been politically anointed as the king of Israel in Hebron previously. So, the anoniting in Psalm 110 is not about him ascending the the Israelite throne.
- Psalm 110: theorized to be used at the start of David’s enthronement as the new Jebusite ruler. David authenticates his rule by claiming the spiritual and political power of the Jebusite priest-kings who had ruled the city-state previously, the “priesthood after the order of Melchizedek.”
- 2 Samuel 6 and 1 Chronicles 15–16: the procession/celebration of the entry of the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. David uses the authority of the Melchizedek priesthood to offer sacrifices, control the Ark, and give priestly blessings, roles that the Law of Moses otherwise reserved for Aaronic priests. Later kings like Uzziah are punished with leprosy for doing these same things. This means that David is special. Not because he is David or because he is the king, but because his Melcizedek priesthood is superior to the Aaronic priesthood.
Thus, we can see that, in historical context, the ordinance that Psalm 110 is an important one, even an essential one if we’re to understand the original, unchanged theology of the Israelite temple itself. I really want you to be in a temple mindset, especially the Endowment. I hope it becomes clear why as we go through the verses. Keep in mind that this is not the full ritual itself, but a fragment of it, likely part of the proclamation that began the ritual, explaining what the purposes of the ritual were and what David would become through completing the rites. Below are the relevant verses:
The Lord says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”The Lord sends forth from Zion
your mighty scepter.
Rule in the midst of your enemies!Your people will offer themselves freely
on the day of your power,
in holy garments;
from the womb of the morning,
the dew of your youth will be yours.The Lord has sworn
Pslams 110:1-4, ESV
and will not change his mind,
“You are a priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek.”
Ascension Into Heaven
Who is talking here in Verse 1? It is tricky to find out. The ESV and KJV both read: “The LORD said unto my Lord,” or “Yahweh said unto my Lord.” The Hebrew is “ne’um Yahweh la·ḏō·nî” which can literally be translated as “an oracle of Yahweh to my master.” An oracle is Yahweh’s revelation given through his prophets. Thus, as originally given, Psalms 110 are the revealed words of Yahweh to David through one authorized to speak in Yahweh’s name, through a prophet. Which prophets, we don’t know. It is possible that it was Gad the Seer here as he was associated with David during this time in his life, but that is just supposition. This fact matters because the Psalms are often considered hymns or poems. Modern hymns often contain fictitious quotes from God or Jesus, as in verse three of How Firm A Foundation. That is not happening here. These are presented as the literal, directly quoted words of Yahweh and this is an ordinance being carried out by a prophet.
Next we have to ask ourselves what this verse means when it says that David will “sit down at the right hand” of Yahweh? Yahweh is the God of Heaven, where He sits upon His divine throne ruling all things. (See also Psalm 103:19) What does it mean for David to ascended into Heaven and sit down on the right hand of God? To find this out we must compare David to others described as being on the right hand of God. To that end, the Apostle Paul taught that the Father, “worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,” (Eph. 1:20) and of all references to someone ascending to sit on the right hand of God in all the Bible there are only two that do it – David and Jesus Christ. This tells us a great deal about what David is being promised here. He is ascending to the position of a God, which is why David is seated beside the throne of Yahweh. This idea of beside is essential to understanding what is being said. David’s seat – his heavenly throne? – isn’t behind, beneath, or a level below Yahweh. All of these would suggest David’s inferior position to Yahweh. No, David’s seat is “beside” Yahweh’s throne, on an equal level with Him. That suggests equality with Yahweh. Whatever the ordinance this fragment is attesting to, its purpose was to prepare David to become a god. He is being invested as a priest-king with god-like power and the promise of becoming a god if he lives worthily.
I’ll be brief with the second verse, because it matters but is talking about David’s kingship on earth as opposed to His heavenly destination. I find it fascinating that God is not promising David will rule OVER his enemies, only among them. David is not a divine all-conqueror as you see in other religions. He is no pharaoh, crushing all his foes as a god-king incarnate. David is not an Alexander, nor is he meant to be an Alexander. He is meant to defend God’s people, not be the master of kingdoms by military force.
The Holy Garments of the Priesthood
The third verse seems to return to the theme of David becoming a priest-king. The Hebrew phrase bə-haḏ-rê-qō-ḏeš in this verse is translated as “beauties of holiness” in the KJV Bible. But bə-haḏ-rê-qō-ḏeš almost always refers to the consecrated vestments worn by priests as seen in Exodus 28:2. Thus, the ESV translates it as “holy garments” in Psalms 110. Understanding this phrase effects the entire meaning of the first part of this verse. David is being told that his people will willingly serve him in the holy garments/holy robes of the priesthood. As Yahweh had explained to Moses, those who made and kept their covenants with Him would be, “my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Exodus 19:5-6) The people of God have always been a holy people bound by covenant with priesthood authority spread out among the people, not located in a central, single location. Here Yahweh renews this promise to Israel by covenant through David as he takes part in the temple rites of the Melchizedek Priesthood.
Of this kind of ceremony, Dr. Hugh Nibley taught:
Whether in coronation, temple, or funeral rites, the ceremonial “equipping” of the candidate with symbolic vestments shows him “ready to play the role in the divine world where he is going to continue his existence.” Anointing and clothing rites belong primarily to coronation. It is by being clothed in full ritual attire that the candidate becomes “the ‘son.’” …To be received into heaven is the equivalent ritually of being received into the temple.
The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, pgs. 354-355 in book.
This is why David is able to ascend to the right hand of God, the place occupied by Jesus in all other scripture. Through temple ritual and by being invested in the holy robes of the Melchizedek Priesthood, David has ritually become The Son of God and now, by right, has authority to sit at the right hand of God and rule as a god in Heaven over the Earth. Those who have been through the Latter-day Saint temple Endowment should have all sorts of signal bells going off in their heads right now.
Becoming A God
The second part of verse three is equally fascinating. But, trying to figure out what it means for David to come “from the womb of the morning” led me down a huge rabbit hole. The reference to coming from the womb is an obvious rebirth metaphor. David must be “born again,” in order to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. But what does it mean to be born “of the morning?” The Hebrew here is mishchar, the root word of which is shachar, the meaning of which is the exact moment of daybreak or dawn, not dawn in the general sense of “the time the Sun is coming up.” But shachar isn’t just the dawn, it is the name of the Canaanite God of the Dawn worshipped by the Jebusites. Shachar was the brother of Salim, the God of the Dusk, and their father was El (God), the Supreme Deity of the Universe. (original book pgs. 22-23) Their story is found in the myth The Gracious and Most Beautiful Gods. The Morning Star in this mythology was Helel ben Shachar, “The Shining Son of Shachar.” (see footnote a) This is relevant because it tells us that to be born of Shachar is to become a star in the Heavens.
Why a star? Because ancient peoples, such as the Egyptians and the Canaanite Jebusites of Jerusalem believed the stars were gods. These two aren’t chosen by accident. Both languages and cultures influenced one another, which is why we see loan words and ideas from each in the other. We can see some of these religious influences in the ways they thought about man, the gods, and the cosmos.
The Egyptians
The oldest written Egyptian texts, The Pyramid Texts, are a collection of ritual texts and ordinances that not only guided the soul of the dead pharaoh Unas into the heavens after death, but through the rites which would give him the knowledge to pass the tests trying to prevent his ascent and, upon finally achieving his goal, transform him into a star. Why a star? Because the ancient Egyptians believed the stars were gods, both generally and specifically (i.e. the stars were generally gods and some specific stars were specific gods or goddesses.) On this topic, Dr. John H. Walton has written that it is, “important to note that in Egyptian descriptions of the cosmic geography, all of those elements that w might consider cosmic structures (firmament, sun, moon, stars, air, earth, etc.) are depicted as gods.” (The Lost World of Genesis One, pg. 28) Thus, by becoming a star Unas also became a god, with his godhood being given him by the Father of the Gods.
Ancient Old Kingdom Egyptian temples symbolized the birth/rebirth of the initiate as emerging from the “womb of the morning.” Dr. Walton explained that both, “Sumerian and Egyptian texts identify the temple as the place from which the sun rises: ‘Your interior is where the sun rises, endowed with wide-spreading plenty.'” (The Lost World of Genesis One, pg. 80) In this interview, Dr. John S. Thompson, whose doctorate is in Egyptology with a specialization in Old Kingdom Egypt, describes how Egyptian temples were built to mimic the rising sun. The pylons out front of them represented the mountains of the world. Entering the temple through the pylons was symbolic of the Sun going beneath the Earth moving into the Underworld, which caused it to die and brought about each night. Completing the holy rites and emerging from the temple represented the Sun being reborn in the depths of the Underworld and returning to the world. In both cases, the initiate was the Sun/a star/a god. (starting 44:29) Likewise, Dr. Colleen Darnell explains:
The two towers of a pylon, called bekhenet in ancient Egyptian, symbolize and physically represent the twin mountains of the horizon, the akhet in ancient Egyptian, written with a hieroglyph of a sun disk between a pair of hills. Through the architectural horizon of the pylon, images of the deities of a temple also go and come, or “rise” and “set,” at the Egyptians described in cosmic terms ritual procession of a divine statue.
Looking Through The Pylon
Emerging from the temple between the pylons meant you were emerging from the sun, the place where the morning was born in the temple. Thereby the initiated became a child of the Sun, a rising star reborn from the temple womb of the morning, a god returning from the Underworld to join your brethren in the heavens. David, as a temple initiate, was born from the birth place of the Sun, born and reborn from the womb of the morning, a star born of a star, a god born of a god to become a god if found worthy upon death.
The Canaanite Jebusites
Figuring out what the Jebusites believed is significantly more difficult. There are only hints like Psalms 110 in the Bible and there are no written records which have survived detailing their beliefs. In order to find even the broadest strokes of what the Jebusites believed, we have to look them in the context of ancient Canaan and what the ancient Canaanite peoples believed. The ancient Canaanites, worshipped a divine pantheon, the head of which was ‘il or El:
The name of the head Canaanite god is ‘il or El, which is the same word for “god” in many of the West Semitic traditions and other ancient Near Eastern cultures, including Israel. While El can also be used as an appellative of deity in the Ugaritic texts, it is much more commonplace as a proper name. Frank Moore Cross shows evidence of El being used in the “earliest old Akkadian sources without the case ending, unambiguously the divine name and not an appellative.” Cross also points out that Amorites used the term ‘il to denote “god” and that ‘il is also found as a divine proper name in Old South Arabic. Cross believes that because of the fact that ‘il appears as a proper name in the earliest strata of languages belonging to East Semitic, Northwest Semitic, and South Semitic, we may conclude that this denotation of ‘il belongs to Proto-Semitic. The question of whether El was the proper name of a god is laid to rest by the texts found at Ugarit where El is repeatedly portrayed as the head of the pantheon.
The word ‘il is used over five hundred times in the texts from Ugarit. The most obvious usage of the word is the name of the divine patriarchal god, who was the head of the pantheon. El has a role as the father (‘ab) of the pantheon and of humankind. He is seated before the divine council (El’s family) as its head. He is portrayed as being elderly and bearded and is often called the “ageless one” or “father of years.” He acts as a help to both the lesser gods and mankind. Interestingly, El is also seen as the creator in a Hurrian-Hittite text discovered in Anatolia. El sits on the throne with his consort and wife Athirat, or biblical Asherah, the “Progenitress of the Gods.” El’s attributes as a kind father are expressed in the phrase “Kind El, the Compassionate.” Another important epithet associated with El is that of “Bull,” found in almost all mythological or epic texts.
The God of the Patriarchs and the Ugaritic Texts: A Shared Religious and Cultural Identity (pdf pgs. 4-5)
Like most of the people in the Near East, the ancient Canaanites saw their kings as the chief priests and ritual leaders of the god or gods of their city. The king didn’t just decide what tax policy should be, he established the temple of the god and led the cult of the god in the rites that would please the deity and bring his blessings upon the population of the city. When the king died, his spirit descended into the Underworld where it would prove itself worthy of divinity before ascending into the heavens. The rites which prepared him mentally and spiritually with the knowledge and ability to pass the challenges of the Underworld, pass the guardians of the heavens, and take his place among the gods, were performed while he was alive.
When the king arrived in heaven, he became one of the “stars of El,” and, therefore, one of the stars in the sky. The idea of becoming a shining light was deeply interwoven into the Hebrew and Canaanite concept of God. The word El itself mean, “might, strength, and power.” The most obvious manifestation of El’s might and power was that he was exploding with light:
Throughout the literatures of the ancient Near East, the gods and their chosen representatives were believed to possess a visible, overwhelming power that set them apart from ordinary beings. In Mesopotamian texts spanning more than two millennia, this power was called melammu, a term that has been rendered as “splendor,” “awe-inspiring luminosity,” and “radiance,” though none of these translations captures its full range of meaning. It could manifest as a blinding glow, a terrifying aura, or a tangible covering draped over the body of a god or king. A deity who possessed it was sovereign; an enemy who faced it could only flee or submit. The concept was not merely decorative but functioned as the visible proof of supreme, irresistible power.
From Shining Gods to Shining People
Those who were gods shined with their power, with El being the most powerful and, perhaps amusingly to modern audiences, the most shiny. To become a star was to become a heavenly, shining light, a god. This didn’t mean he became a god equal to El, but the human king did become divine in that he was greater than the living, could be beseeched for blessings, could curse you if you angered him, and seemingly served in the Court/Divine Council of El. (see pages 49-52) Notably, the “stars of El” are the divine children of El and His Wife, and it seems that the dead kings of Canaan where seen as becoming equal to the Divine Children that ran the nations of the world, which included Yahweh/Jehovah. So, maybe the Canaanite kings didn’t become the Supreme God, but they became equal to the greatest of gods, at least from Israel’s perspective. And that brings us back to David.
The Priest King
Verse 4 tells us that through this ritual, David will become “a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” This priesthood was not just a false Jebusite priesthood that David assumed in order to smooth over his reign. It was essential to his rule as he righteous king of Israel. It is why, as the historical setting above lays out, David can perform the ordinances and actions of priests and the priesthood with the blessing and favor of God while later kings are punished for doing the same. David holds the Melchizedek Priesthood and the later kings do not. Further, the events of 2 Samuel 6 and 1 Chronicles 15–16 establish this Melchizedek Priesthood as being superior to the Israelite Priesthood of Aaron because David can do all the things that the priesthood of Aaron can do, but they cannot do all the things that he can do. The dual nature of the priesthood can be seen in the fact that after conquering Jerusalem, David appointed two high priests, Zadok and Abiathar, the son of Aaron. Zadok, whose name means Righteous, has contradictory Israelite lineages asisgned to him in the Bible and was likely actually a Jebusite priest that later Israelite scribes tried to write into the family of Aaron. Being a righteous Jebusite priest, it seems possible that Zadok was the one who ordained David to the Melchizedek Priesthood, holding it in ordination lineage from Melchizedek himself. (see also pdf pgs. 34-35, especially Footnote 5.)
Without going into too much detail on Melchizedek himself, the previous links can give more insight than I can in the limited space here, it is worth noting that Melchizedek didn’t worship Yahweh. Melchizedek worshipped El Elyon, which is often translated as Most High God, but as the Hebrew shows, could also be translated as the Supreme God. In some ways these terms are functionally equivalent. In order to be the Most High God there must be lesser gods for you to rule over. But translating El Elyon as the Supreme God helps make it clear that Melchizedek was a Canaanite who worshipped El, the Supreme God who, along with His wife, Elyat or Asherah, were the Heavenly Parents of the stars of El, the divine god-children who constituted the elohim and were the lesser gods over whom El ruled as Most High. Thus, it seems likely, that to become a priest after the order of Melchizedek would mean to worship not only Yahweh, but to also worship God the Father of Yahweh.
Zadok’s descendants would become very important, not only in leading the Jerusalem Temple but as the priesthood family who officiated in the Jewish temple in the Egyptian city of Leontopolis/On, from 154 B.C. until 73 A.D. It is an interesting thought to consider that Zadok, being a Jebusite, could officiate in the sacrificial rites of Aaron, by which the sacrifice was slaughtered to redeem the people, and the rights within the temple that transformed one into a priest, king, and god. This is mirrored exactly in our modern day divisions of Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthoods wherein the Aaronic Priesthood priest officiates in the sacrifice of the Lamb of God in the form of the bread and water of the holy sacrament in order to redeem the people but cannot perform the rites of the Melchizedek Priesthood while those who hold the Melchizedek Priesthood can officiate both in the temple rites and all the rites of the Aaronic Priesthood. It is also interesting to note that the Jewish priesthood of the Second Temple Era was likely led by a family that was non-Israelite in origin and which did not by familial right hold the Priesthood of Aaron.
In any case, it seems clear here that whatever this ritual was, it made David the Priest-King of Jerusalem and initiated a transformation of the Israelite religion by (re)introducing the Melchizedek Priesthood to it, even though that priesthood was eventually lost by both the kings of Jerusalem and the priests descended from Zadok himself. Notice, David is being reborn from the womb of the morning, being born as one of the children of the dawn, the children of Sachar. By becoming a Child of Shachar, David is becoming one of the Shining Ones. David is ritually anointed that if he lives worthy then he will become a star in Heaven. That is to say, David will become a god, one of the stars of El, with a throne beside Yahweh, the greatest star and son of El and His Wife. David is not yet a god, but he has been anointed that he will become such if he lives faithful to the responsibilities the rites place upon him as the priest and king of his people.
The Iron Age Endowment of David
Psalms 110 isn’t preserving a record of just any old ritual, brothers and sisters. This biblical fragment is a record of one of the most important rituals ever. In it, the king became the visible Presence of God in the temple, seated upon the Throne of God, wearing a golden robe that reflects the light around him so as to make him shine, and reigning as the Melchizedek, the King of Righteousness. (pgs. 3-4,10) In other words, the ultimate purpose of this ritual was to turn a man into a god. Consequently, I find the conclusion inescapable. Psalms 110 is a fragmentary record of an Iron Age Endowment. In it, David is ritually anointed and promised that he will become a star/god as a Child of God, that he is or will join the Divine Council, is given a priesthood robe that represents this future divine state, is ordained as a priest and a king in the Melchizedek Priesthood, and worships God the Father along with Yahweh, God the Son.
This concept of humans being ritually anointed and instructed in how to become gods stretches through out the entirety of biblical record. Men such as Moses (Exodus 34:29–30) and Jesus Christ (Matthew 17:1-3) are described as “shining” after their encounters with the Father God. Daniel 12:3 promises that, “The wise will shine like the brightness of the heavenly expanse. And those bringing many to righteousness will be like the stars forever and ever,” and Matthew 13:43 proclaims that, “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.”
Apostle Neal A. Maxwell once taught:
According to the Prophet Joseph Smith, the crucial holy endowment was administered to Moses ‘on the mountaintop.’ President Joseph Fielding Smith expressed the belief that Peter, James, and John also received the holy endowment on a mountain, the Mount of Transfiguration. Nephi, too, was caught up to an exceedingly high mountain (see 1 Nephi 11:1) and was instructed not to write or speak of some of the things he experienced there (see 1 Nephi 14:25).
How Do the Book of Moses and Book of Mormon Help Us Understand the Endowment?
Brothers and Sisters, ancient Jerusalem was built along a mountain ridge. David, too, was endowed on a mountain. Like much of the rest of the Bible, plain and precious truths have been lost – like the entire rest of the ceremony, for example – and/or altered by careless scribes and conniving priests. But this fragment hints at ancient ideas and rituals that were lost in the past and have been restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith. No one in Joseph’s time had any idea what was happening in these verses and the evidence is still fragmented enough that scholars all come to very different conclusions.
Thanks to The Restoration we have the key to help us understand. Jesus who is the self-same Yahweh who spoke in these verses, has revealed, restored, and reinstituted His ancient temple rites. The presentation isn’t the same. Many of the symbols are different because our cultures are so very different from those of the past. We, for example, do not imagine that the stars in the sky are the ancient priest-kings of men ascended to godhood. The presentation is likely altered for every generation’s needs. Those who were endowed thirty or forty years ago can attest to how the presentation has changed to adjust to the needs of each generation over time in their lifetime. But the symbolism and the knowledge the presentation teaches, the Endowment itself, is the same. The presentation changes, the eternal truths do not.
Now, instead of being confined to a select few, such as kings, they are available to all so that all may enjoy the kingly and priestly exaltation promised. That is the meaning of the rent veil in Matthew. Through his Atonement, Christ has opened the way so that now all of us can become high priests and priestess after the order of Melchizedek and enter into the Presence of God in the Holy of Holies. As Peter taught, it is the will of God through Christ that we all become a royal nation of priests; that we may become kings, queens, priests, and priestesses, enter into the presence of God, sit down on divine thrones, and become like Him. Just as David was promised, so we are today if we live worthily of our covenants. This is the very purpose of the Endowment as the Prophet Brigham Young explained:
Let me give you the definition in brief. Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the House of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to give them the key words, the signs and tokens, pertaining to the Holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell.
In other words, the promise of the Endowment for us today is the same as it was for those ancients, including David. The Endowment is the ritual that mentally, spiritually, intellectually, and emotionally prepares us so that, by keeping the covenants we make in it, we will become the Shining Ones, the stars of El, and members of the Divine Council. The righteous are promised that they, like David, if true and faithful to their endowment covenants, will become stars in the sky – that they will become gods.