Psalms Chapter 110 verse 3 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 3. - Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. In the full sense of the word, Messiah can only rule over "willing" hearts. In the day of his power, his people will offer themselves gladly to be his soldiers and servants, and flock to his banner, as the Israelites to that of Deborah and Barak, when "the people willingly offered themselves" (Judges 5:2, 9; comp. Isaiah 49:18-23; Isaiah 60:1-5; Isaiah 66:19-23). In the beauties of holiness. At once warriors and saints, meet for the service of one who was at once Priest (ver. 4) and King. From the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth. This is the division of the clauses now generally adopted; but the intention of this last clause is very doubtful. Some understand it of Messiah himself, and explain, "As the dew of the morning, abundant, refreshing, spreading far and wide, miraculous, so is the might of thy perpetual youth" ('Speaker's Commentary,' vol. 4. p. 428); others, and the larger number, interpret it of Messiah's army, "As dew out el the early morning dawn, descending by a silent, mysterious birth from the star-lit heaven, so comes to Messiah his mighty host of followers" (comp. Isaiah 26:19).

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(3) This difficult verse runs, literally, Thy people willingnesses (or, willing offerings) in the day of thy force in holy attire, from the womb of morning dew of thy youth.The first clause is tolerably clear. The word rendered force means either "strength" or "an army;" and the noun willingnesses appears as a verb in Judges 5:9, to express the alacrity with which the northern clans mustered for battle. We may therefore translate: Thy people will be willing on thy muster-day.As to the next two-words there is a variation in the text. Many MSS. read, by the slightest change of a Hebrew letter, "on the holy mountains" (this was also, according to one version, the reading of Symmachus and Jerome), and, adopting the reading, we have a picture of the people mustering for battle with alacrity on the mountains round Zion, under the eye of Jehovah Himself, and in obedience to the outstretched sceptre.The second clause is not so clear. By themselves the words "from the womb of morning dew of thy youth," would naturally be taken as a description of the vigour and freshness of the person addressed: "thine is the morning dew of youth." With the image compare--"The meek-eyed morn appears; mother of the dews."THOMSON.(Comp. Job 38:28.)But the parallelism directs us still to the gathering of the army, and the image of the dew was familiar to the language as an emblem at once of multitude (2Samuel 17:11-12), of freshness and vigour (Psalm 133:3; Hosea 14:5), and was especially applied to Israel as a nation in immediate relation to Jehovah, coming and going among the nations at His command (Micah 5:7). Here there is the additional idea of brightness--the array of young warriors, in their bright attire, recalling the multitudinous glancing of the ground on a dewy morning: thy young warriors come to thee thick and bright as the morning dew. . . .