This mysterious King-Priest Melchizedek, although given such scant mention in history, was not lost to sight. Nine hundred years later the Most High God inspired another king of Salem, King David of Jerusalem, to prophesy and show just how significant Melchizedek had been within the purpose of the Most High God. According to this, Melchizedek was the prefiguring of a still greater king, one even greater than David, one whom even David would be obliged to call “my Lord.” This prefigured king could be no one else but the Messiah, the “seed” of God’s “woman.” So, under the power of God’s holy spirit, David wrote, in Psalm 110:1-4:

“The utterance of Jehovah to my Lord is: ‘Sit at my right hand Until I place your enemies as a stool for your feet.’

But in this case David was not referring prophetically to his son, King Solomon, who was the most glorious king of David’s line to throne on Mount Zion and reign over all twelve tribes of his people. David never addressed his son Solomon as “My Lord,” neither any other of the kings on Zion who followed Solomon all the way down to King Zedekiah. Furthermore, neither Solomon nor any of the succeeding kings on Mount Zion were priests as well as kings, as Melchizedek was.—2 Chronicles 26:16-23.

20. How would this prophetic one, although being David’s son, yet be David’s “Lord”?

²⁰ However, since this promised ruler was to be a “son” of King David, why would David refer to him as “My Lord”? This was due to the fact that this outstanding “son of David” would be a king far higher than David. Although David sat on the “throne of Jehovah” on earthly Mount Zion, he never, even at his death, ascended to heaven and sat down on the “right hand” of Jehovah. But the one who would become David’s “Lord” would do so. His royal position at Jehovah’s right hand in heaven could be referred to as a heavenly Mount Zion because it was pictured by the earthly Mount Zion, which used to be enclosed within Jerusalem’s walls but is not so today. As Jehovah himself said, in Psalm 89:27, with regard to the Messiah: “Also, I myself shall place him as firstborn, The most high of the kings of the earth.”