Chapter LXXXIII.—It is proved that the Psalm, “The Lord said to My Lord,”
etc., does not suit Hezekiah.
“For your teachers have ventured to refer the passage, ‘The Lord says to my Lord, Sit at
my right hand, till I make Thine enemies Thy footstool,’ to Hezekiah; as if he were requested
to sit on the right side of the temple, when the king of Assyria sent to him and threatened
him; and he was told by Isaiah not to be afraid. Now we know and admit that what Isaiah
said took place; that the king of Assyria desisted from waging war against Jerusalem in
Hezekiah’s days, and the angel of the Lord slew about 185,000 of the host of the Assyrians.
But it is manifest that the Psalm does not refer to him. For thus it is written, ‘The Lord says
to my Lord, Sit at My right hand, till I make Thine enemies Thy footstool. He shall send
forth a rod of power over512 Jerusalem, and it shall rule in the midst of Thine513 enemies.
In the splendour of the saints before the morning star have I begotten Thee. The Lord hath
sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.’ Who
does not admit, then, that Hezekiah is no priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek?
And who does not know that he is not the redeemer of Jerusalem? And who does not know
that he neither sent a rod of power into Jerusalem, nor ruled in the midst of his enemies;
but that it was God who averted from him the enemies, after he mourned and was afflicted?
But our Jesus, who has not yet come in glory, has sent into Jerusalem a rod of power, namely,
the word of calling and repentance [meant] for all nations over which demons held sway,
as David says, ‘The gods of the nations are demons.’ And His strong word has prevailed on
many to forsake the demons whom they used to serve, and by means of it to believe in the
Almighty God because the gods of the nations are demons.514 And we mentioned formerly
that the statement, ‘In the splendour of the saints before the morning star have I begotten
Thee from the womb,’ is made to Christ.
512 ἐπί, but afterwards εἰς. Maranus thinks that ἐπί is the insertion of some copyist.
513 Or better, “His.” This quotation from Ps. cx. is put very differently from the previous quotation of the
same Psalm in chap. xxxii. [Justin often quotes from memory. Kaye, cap. viii.]
514 This last clause is thought to be an interpolation.
Chapter LXXXIII.—It is proved that the Psalm, “The Lord said to My Lord,” etc., does not suit Hezekiah.
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Chapter LXXXIII.—It is proved that the Psalm, “The Lord said to My Lord,”…