Psalms 110:3

Thy people shall be willing in the day of that power..... Or, in the day of thine army (s).

Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.

Thy people; thy subjects. Shall be willing, Heb. willingnesses, i.e. most willing, as such plural words are frequently used, as 21:7. Or, free-will offerings, as the word properly signifies; whereby he may intimate the difference between the worship of the Old Testament and that of the New. They shall offer and present unto thee as their King and Lord, not oxen, or sheep, or goats, as they did under the law, but themselves, their souls and’ bodies, as living sacrifices, as they are called, , and as free-will offerings, giving up themselves to the Lord, , to live to him, and to die and be offered for him. The sense is, Thou shalt have friends and subjects as well as enemies, and thy subjects shall not yield thee a forced and feigned obedience, as those who are subject to or conquered by earthly princes frequently do, of which see on ,45, but shall most willingly, and readily, and cheerfully obey all thy commands, without any dispute, or delay, or reservation; and they shall not need to be pressed to thy service, but shall voluntarily list themselves and fight under thy banner against all thy enemies. In the day of thy power; when thou shalt take into thy hands the rod of thy strength, as it is called, , and set up thy kingdom in the world, and put forth thy mighty power in the preaching of thy word, and winning souls to thyself by it. Or, in the day of thine army, or forces; when thou shalt raise thine army, consisting of apostles, and other preachers and professors of the gospel, and shalt send them forth to conquer the world unto thyself. In the beauties of holiness; adorned with the beautiful and glorious robes of righteousness and true holiness, wherewith all new men or true Christians are clothed, ; compare ,14; with various gifts and graces of God’ s Spirit, which are beautiful in the eyes of God and of all good men. The last clause noted the inward disposition, the willingness, of Christ’ s subjects, and this notes their outward habit and deportment; wherein there seems to be an allusion either, 1. To the beautiful and glorious garments of the Levitical priests, all Christians being priests unto God, ,9. Or, 2. To the military robes wherewith soldiers are furnished and adorned, all Christians being soldiers in the Christian warfare. But the words are and may well be rendered thus, in the beauties or glories of the sanctuary, i.e.

Psalms 110:3 Thy people [shall be] willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.Ver. 3. Thy people shall be willing] All Christ’ s subjects are volunteers, free hearted, like those isles that wait for God’ s law, Isaiah 42:8 Zechariah 8:21. They love to be his servants, Isaiah 56:6. Lex voluntarios quaerit, saith Ambrose. In the day of thy power] Copiarum tuarum, of thine army, or of thy militia, when thou shalt lead on thy Church militant, and be in the head of them, conquering and to conquer, Revelation 6:2. Some understand it to be the Christian sabbath day. In the beauties of holiness] i.e. In Church assemblies, in the beauty of holy ordinances, at the administration whereof, Christ’ s birth dew, that is, the influence of his Spirit and his presence in those ordinances, is from the womb of the morning, i.e. is of that generating and enlivening virtue that the dew of the teeming morning is to the seeds and plants of the earth. An apt similitude both to express the multitude of Christ’ s converts, and the manner of their heavenly generation. See Micah 5:7.

(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 (2 Samuel 17:11-12), of freshness and vigour (Psalms 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.Milton has the same figure for the innumerable hosts of angel warriors:— “An host Innumerable as the stars of night Or stars of morning, dewdrops, which the sun Impearls on every leaf and every flower.”

Verse 3. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power] This verse has been wofully perverted. It has been supposed to point out the irresistible operation of the grace of God on the souls of the elect, thereby making them willing to receive Christ as their Saviour. Now, whether this doctrine be true or false, it is not in this text, nor can it receive the smallest countenance from it. There has been much spoken against the doctrine of what is called free will by persons who seem not to have understood the term. Will is a free principle. Free will is as absurd as bound will, it is not will if it be not free; and if it be bound it is no will. Volition is essential to the being of the soul, and to all rational and intellectual beings. This is the most essential discrimination between matter and spirit. MATTER can have no choice; SPIRIT has. Ratiocination is essential to intellect; and from these volition is inseparable. God uniformly treats man as a free agent; and on this principle the whole of Divine revelation is constructed, as is also the doctrine of future rewards and punishments. If man be forced to believe, he believes not at all; it is the forcing power that believes, not the machine forced. If he be forced to obey, it is the forcing power that obeys; and he, as a machine, shows only the effect of this irresistible force. If man be incapable of willing good, and nilling evil, he is incapable of being saved as a rational being; and if he acts only under an overwhelming compulsion, he is as incapable of being damned. In short, this doctrine reduces him either to a punctum stans, which by the vis inertiae is incapable of being moved but as acted upon by foreign influence; or, as an intellectual being, to nonentity. "But if the text supports the doctrine laid upon it, vain are all these reasonings." Granted. Let us examine the text. The Hebrew words are the following: עמך נדבת ביום חילך ammecha nedaboth beyom cheylecha, which literally translated are, Thy princely people, or free people, in the day of thy power; and are thus paraphrased by the Chaldee: "Thy people, O house of Israel, who willingly labour in the law, thou shalt be helped by them in the day that thou goest to battle." The Syriac has: "This praiseworthy people in the day of thy power." The Vulgate: "With thee is the principle or origin (principium) in the day of thy power." And this is referred, by its interpreters, to the Godhead of Christ; and they illustrate it by John 1:1: In principio erat Verbum, "In the beginning was the Word." The Septuagint is the same; and they use the word as St.

3. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power] Rather, Thy people offer themselves willingly (lit. are freewill offerings) in the day of thy muster (lit. army). The promised victory is not to be won without human agency, and Jehovah inspires the king’s subjects with a spirit of loyal self-devotion. Theirs is no forced unwilling service. Their alacrity recalls the days of Deborah, when the people and the governors of Israel “offered themselves willingly” to fight the battles of Jehovah (Judges 5:2; Judges 5:9). The connexion of the clauses in the remainder of the verse is somewhat uncertain. It is possible, with R.V. marg., to join in the beauties of holiness, or, as it should rather be rendered, in holy adornments, with the preceding clause, and from the womb of the morning with the following clause. In this case from the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth might describe the constantly renewed youthful vigour of the king. But it is preferable, with R.V. text, to adhere to the Massoretic accentuation, and join both clauses with what follows, In holy adornments, from the womb of the morning, thou hast the dew of thy youth. These words will then be a further description of the army mustering to march forth to battle for the king. Thy youth denotes the youthful warriors who flock with eagerness to his standard. They are clad in holy adornments, as it were an army of priests following their priestly leader. They are compared to dew; the mysterious birth of the morning, so abundant and so precious in hot Eastern countries. The comparison, however, need not be limited to a single point. It may further suggest their sudden appearance in obedience to the Divine command, their freshness, their inspiriting effect upon the king, their numbers, the glittering of their armour in the sunshine. Cp. Hosea 14:5; Isaiah 26:19; 2 Samuel 17:12; Micah 5:7, for various emblematical uses of dew. Cp. also Milton, Par. Lost, v. 744, An host Innumerable as the stars of night Or stars of morning, dewdrops, which the sun Impearls on every leaf and every flower.” in the beauties of holiness] Rather, in holy adornments. The similar phrase in Psalms 29:2; Psalms 96:9 (= 1 Chronicles 16:29); 2 Chron. 22:21; denotes the “holy garments for glory and for beauty” in which the priests were arrayed (Exodus 28:2). Israel was “a kingdom of priests”; these warriors had in an especial manner offered themselves to fight the battles of Jehovah, and their armour was the symbol of their consecration. Those who follow the priest-king are at once priests and warriors. The reading however is uncertain. The plural hadrη (δγψι) ‘adornments’ does not occur elsewhere, and a trifling change in a single letter gives the reading harrη (δψψι); on the holy mountains (Psalms 87:1), i.e. the mountains of Zion, where the army musters. This reading is supported by Symmachus and Jerome (in montibus Sanctis), and agrees well with the figure of the dew. Cp. Psalms 133:3.

Thy people - All who are given to thee; all over whom thou art to rule. This verse has been variously translated.

3. In this verse the King Messiah appears as conqueror, preparing for war, his willing people freely enlisting.