Melchizedek And the Hidden Deity in Psalm 110

The Adon Swap

I’ve previously proposed that Biblical authors would sometimes take narratives about other gods and replace the names of those gods with the generic title “Elohim”. They would then add in a layer about their own god, such as Yahweh. You can see examples of how El and Baal were replaced here, here and here.

Building on this, I am exploring a new theory: that some Biblical authors used the title “Adon” (Lord) rather than “Elohim” as a placeholder to mask the identities of original deities. By applying this "Adon Swap" lens to Psalm 110 and the figure of Melchizedek, we can uncover a hidden narrative of divine displacement.

A Deity Erased

There are two locations in Psalm 110 that variations of “Adon” are used. The text begins with:

“Yahweh says to my Lord (L’Adoni)”

And in verse 5:

“The Lord (Adonai) is at Your right hand”

I contend that these specific references are editorial substitutions designed to overwrite the name of a deity present in the original source material. The challenge, then, is to identify the god who was erased.

Unfortunately we don’t have many clues in such a short text. There are no other gods mentioned explicitly. However, there may be a name of a god hidden in the name of Melchizedek.

The name Melchizedek can be translated as “King of Righteousness”, “My King is Righteousness” or “My King is Tzedek”, with “Tzedek” referring to a deity. It’s very ambiguous as to which meaning was intended.

Ultimately, If Melchizedek was intended to mean “My King is Tzedek”, I don’t take Tzedek to be the deity replaced by “Adon” because of reasons discussed below.

But we can look to other texts about Melchizedek to see if they mention any other deities. Oftentimes, Biblical authors were either forced to use the original deity's name because it was so integral to the text, or they used the original deity’s name to try to spin the narrative in a different direction. I think that Genesis 14 and The Melchizedek Scroll(11Q13) were both doing the latter.

Genesis 14:18:

And Melchizedek the king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of El Elyon.

The Melchizedek Scroll

And it was concerning him (Melchizedek) that he said, (Let the assembly of the peoples) return to the height above them; El will judge the peoples.

For the purpose of this post, I’ll be referring to “El Elyon” as the deity that was originally in Psalm 110, which would give us:

Verse 1:

“Yahweh says to El Elyon”

And in verse 5:

“El Elyon is at Your right hand”

A Foreign God?

A Far Away Land

There are indications in the text of Psalm 110 that point to a foreign deity.

Zion was not always the same a Jerusalem. See my post Poetic Propaganda And The Zion That Wasn't There on how Biblical authors used parallelisms to change the narrative and my video Storm Gods vs Sea Gods in the Bible to see how Zion was associated with Baal and El.

This may indicate that Psalm 110 was dealing with a deity such a El Elyon that was not native to Israel

Another indication of a foreign deity is the reference to ‘Your people...from the womb of the dawn”

To the ancient mind, the cosmos was a solid dome resting over a flat disk. The sun entered this dome at the horizon where the sky met the earth, traveled across the firmament, and exited at dusk. In this context, I think "the womb of the dawn" likely refers to the literal entrance point at the extreme eastern edge of the world. By describing El Elyon’s people as originating from this "womb," the text suggests they were a distant people from the far East, further marking El Elyon as a foreign deity.

Rule in the Midst of Your Enemies

The instruction to “Rule in the midst of your enemies” in verse 2, provides another significant clue. This phrasing acts as a clever apologetic, providing a theological justification for why a high deity like El Elyon was originally found among peoples whom Israel considered adversaries. It frames his foreign origin not as a mistake, but as a divine appointment.

A Deity Retired

So with El Elyon inserted into the text, let’s see what the narrative was trying to accomplish:

Psalm 110:1-2

Yahweh says to El Elyon:

“Sit at My right hand

Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”

Yahweh will stretch out Your strong scepter from Zion, saying,

“Rule in the midst of Your enemies.”

This is Yahweh taking over for El Elyon. The Biblical author is basically having Yahweh say “Have a seat, El Elyon, I’m in charge now”.

This dynamic mirrors the Ugaritic Baal Cycle, in which the young, vigorous storm god Baal ascends to prominence and effectively displaces the aging patriarch-god El.

Yahweh is not only retiring El Elyon but relocating him as well. The text is basically saying that “Yahweh would conquer El Elyon’s enemies (but they were really Israel’s enemies) and then El Elyon would go rule in the midst of those enemies (away from Israel so that Yahweh doesn’t have any competition).

Resolving a Tension in the Text

There is a tension in the text. In the reconstructed Psalm 110:5-7, it says:

El Elyon is at Your right hand;

He will shatter kings in the day of His wrath.

He will judge among the nations,

He will fill them with corpses,

He will shatter the chief men over a broad country.

He will drink from the brook by the wayside;

Therefore He will lift up His head.

In this reconstructed reading, El Elyon appears to be the one judging the nations, as the recurring “He” in these verses grammatically points back to him as the most recent antecedent. However, this creates a sharp internal contradiction with the opening of the Psalm: 

In verse 1, Yahweh explicitly instructs El Elyon to “sit” and remain passive while Yahweh handles the warfare, promising to be the one who makes El Elyon's enemies a footstool. 

This friction, where Yahweh is the promised enforcer but the later verses credit the judging to the “Lord” (El Elyon), persists regardless of whether one reads the text as referring to El Elyon, Jesus or David.

When viewed through the lens of propaganda, this tension makes perfect sense. The author likely co-opted an existing hymn about El Elyon judging the nations (verses 5–7) and attempted to fold it into a new Yahwistic framework. Because these ancient narratives were deeply entrenched, they couldn't be deleted; they could only be manipulated. The author of Psalm 110 did what they could: they established Yahweh as the primary "Enforcer" in the opening verses and made it as ambiguous as possible as to who the “He” referred to in verse 5b-7. The author had to replace El Elyon with “adoni” (the human version of “adon”) in verse 1 in order to subjugate it to Yahweh, but in verse 5, “Adonai” (the divine title version of “adon”) is used because it was connected to judging the nations. The Biblical author was caught in a propaganda catch 22.

From High God to the Order of Melchizedek

With all of this in mind, we now turn to the text about Melchizedek.

Psalm 110:4

Yahweh has sworn and will not change His mind,

“You are a priest forever

According to the order of Melchizedek.”

This is a further downgrading of El Elyon so that Yahweh could ascend. The Biblical author moves El Elyon from a high god to a divine priest.

We see another indication that El Elyon has become a priest in Verse 3a which can be read literally as “Your people will be voluntary offerings on the day of your army”

El Elyon becomes a priest offering his people to Yahweh.

Finally this brings us to who Melchizedek. Who exactly was he? When we peel back the layers of the "Adon Swap," several intriguing possibilities emerge regarding his identity and function within the text:

If we interpret Melchizedek as “King of Righteousness,” the title functions as a poignant, less literal allusion to El Elyon’s former status as a sovereign high deity prior to his demotion by Yahweh.

Alternatively, translating Melchizedek as “My King is Righteousness” shifts the focus toward Yahweh, effectively acting as a declaration of fealty that underscores El Elyon’s displacement and subservience to the new supreme power.

If we take it to mean “My King is Tzedek”, then it could be referencing a god named Tzedek that was even more ancient than El Elyon and from which he descended.

But I think that it’s most likely that the meaning of the name of Melchizedek is irrelevant, and that his line was simply the priestly line serving Yahweh before Levi and then Aaron replaced it. This makes sense because, if there was a priestly line of Yahweh, and Yahweh made El Elyon a priest, then El Elyon would need to become part of that line. And since the original author was most likely a priest of that line himself, then it would make sense that he would want to mention that, to reduce any threat to that line.

Interpretive Framework

This reconstructed Psalm provides a framework for understanding how other works may have adapted or altered the story of Melchizedek. We see such commonalities such as El Elyon and a priest/king in Genesis 14 and a Melchizedek who is divine-like in The Melchizedek Scroll.

Conclusion: A Document of Divine Regime Change

Ultimately, Psalm 110 is a document of divine regime change. By utilizing the "Adon Swap," the biblical authors were able to inherit the prestige of the ancient Canaanite high god El Elyon while simultaneously stripping him of his power. This sophisticated editorial maneuver allowed Yahweh to stand atop the ruins of an older pantheon, not by erasing the past, but by rewriting it so that every ancient glory was reframed as a mere prelude to his own supremacy.