Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Mark 12:36

"David himself said in the Holy Spirit, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, Till I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet." — Mark 12:36 (ASV)

Rather than waiting for an answer, Jesus provided it himself with a quotation from Ps 110:1. Both the Davidic authorship of this psalm is assumed and David’s inspiration in writing it. “Speaking by the Holy Spirit” is a typical rabbinic formula to describe inspired utterance. In his reply, Jesus presupposed the psalm’s messianic usage. David called the Messiah “my Lord” (GK 3261) in this psalm. How could he at the same time be David’s son and David’s Lord? To Jesus, even though the Messiah was a descendant of David, he is also the Son of God and therefore senior in rank to David (see comments on Mt 22:41–45). Mark goes on to say that the crowd was delighted to listen to Jesus. Apparently they enjoyed seeing the so-called experts stumped!