Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 22:43

"He saith unto them, How then doth David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying," — Matthew 22:43 (ASV)

Does David in spirit call him Lord? — These words assume three things:

1. That David was the writer of Psalm 110.
2. That in writing it, he was guided by a Spirit higher than his own.
3. That its subject was not an earthly king from the house of David, but the distant Christ.

On this point, there was an undisturbed consensus among the schools of Judaism, as represented by the Targums and the Talmud. It was a received tradition that the Christ would sit on the right hand of Jehovah and Abraham on His left.

Its application to the Christ is emphatically recognized by St. Peter (Acts 2:34) and by St. Paul, though indirectly (Colossians 3:1). In the argument of the Epistle to the Hebrews, it occupies nearly the chief place of all (Hebrews 1:3; Hebrews 5:6).

The only hypothesis on which any other meaning can be assigned to it is that it was written not by David, but about him. Here, it will be enough to accept our Lord’s interpretation and to track the sequence of thought in His question. The words represent the LORD (Jehovah) as speaking to David’s Lord (Adonai), the true king, the anointed of Jehovah.

But if so, what was the meaning of that lofty title? Must not the one who bore it be something more than the son of David by mere natural descent? If the scribes had never even asked themselves that question, were they not self-convicted of incompetence as religious teachers?