The Fourth Crusade and the Conquest of Constantinople

This article will examine the fourth Crusade leading up to the conquest of Constantinople and shortly thereafter from the perspective of Geoffrey de Villehardouin, a thirteenth-century Frankish knight. The source used in assessing the fourth crusade will be the Conquest of Constantinople written by Geoffrey de Villehardouin and translated by Caroline Smith, Penguin Classic edition published in 2008. All page references given hereafter come from this work.

There have been many modern attempts to re-write history or paint a revisionist picture of this highly controversial subject. Using an eye witness account of the events that transpired the researcher can be sure to gather information from a primary source that presents the ‘bare bones’ of what occurred. Of course, the researcher has to take into account that Geoffrey de Villehardouin is by no means an objective source of information; after all he was one of the pilgrims sent on a crusade to Egypt which later became routed by the siege of Constantinople. The researcher needs to be aware of this fact and examine what Villehardouin records in comparison with other contemporary chroniclers of his time. Due to length considerations only Geoffrey’s view of the conquest will be examined in this article.

The fourth Crusade did not originally begin as a crusade against Constantinople but was rather a crusade preached by a priest known as Fulk of Neuilly, and later on given Papal authority by Innocent III as a pilgrimage to restore Jerusalem (p. 1). The indulgence offered by Innocent and described by Geoffrey as very generous was that all those who take the cross and serve the army for a year would be absolved from any sins they had committed and confessed (p. 1). During a conference in Compiegne, where a great deal of barons and counts who had taken up the cross met, a decision was made to send out six of their best envoys (which Geoffrey was a part of) in an attempt at planning the pilgrimage, namely the route they would take and a date the operation would begin (p. 7). These envoys were given full authority on behalf of the barons and counts binding them to whatever agreements the envoys arrived at (p. 7). The place Geoffrey and the rest of the envoys had agreed to visit in search of resources was Venice and rightly so as Geoffrey points out since the Venetians apparently had an abundance of ships and vessels, more than any other port (p.8).

Venice is where the envoys met Enrico Dandolo, the dodge of Venice, and struck up what can be viewed as one of the most important deals in the history of crusading. The envoys asked the dodge for ships and a fleet in order to conquer the Holy Land, and after about a week of consideration and some debate with the envoys and fellow statesmen the dodge set down his conditions for the deal: “We will build horse transports to carry 4,500 horses and 9,000 squires, with 4,500 knights and 20,000 foot sergeants travelling in ships. And we will agree to provide food for all these horses and people for nine months. This is the minimum we would provide in return for a payment of four marks per horse and two marks per man. All the terms we are offering you would be valid for one year from the day of our departure from the port of Venice…The total cost of what has just been outlined would amount to 94,000 marks….we will provide, for the love of God, fifty armed galleys, on condition that for as long as our association lasts we will have one half of everything we capture on land or at sea, and you will have the other” (p. 8,9).

The envoys confirmed this arrangement financially binding the barons of France to the Venetians and in return giving the Venetians a sweet deal of expanding their territorial prospects, from this point forward the Venetians and pilgrims literally have to work as a single cooperative body or the whole pilgrimage would become a disaster. A destination of Cairo Egypt had been chosen by the heads of the expedition but it was kept under wraps, instead it was said simply that the pilgrims were going overseas (p.11). Oaths were made to uphold the terms laid out by both parties and messengers were sent to Innocent III for confirmation of the deal, as Geoffrey puts it, the pope confirmed most willingly (p.11). The pilgrims borrowed 2,000 marks and made a down payment in order so that work on the fleet might begin, then they left to their homelands and began to recruit others for the pilgrimage (p.11).

The Venetians had assembled a massive and most impressive fleet and it was now time for the barons to return and pay their half of the deal. Unfortunately for the pilgrims and Venetians, many of the barons and counts did not come to Venice and thus could not pay what they owed (p.18). According to Geoffrey many of the preudommes were scared of the voyage undertaken at Venice and wanted the army to break up (p.16, 19), or the large numbers of pilgrims had simply taken different routes and ended up in other ports than Venice (p.17). This caused a great discord to both the pilgrims and the Venetians who rightfully wanted their money. The army was now in danger of disbanding and bringing failure to the whole expedition, the pilgrims simply did not have enough people to provide the money due the Venetians, thus the Venetians were under no obligation to provide the pilgrims with a fleet – in all Geoffrey records that the pilgrims were 34,000 silver marks short of what they owed (p.19).

The pilgrim leaders paid the Venetians what they had and asked to be taken if the Venetians were so willing (p.19). Enrico and the Venetians had a different deal in mind; they proposed that they would keep whatever was paid them and suspend the debt of 34,000 marks until a later time in return for help in retaking the city of Zara, which was captured from the Venetians by the king of Hungary (p. 19). The pilgrims agreed to this deal with some opposition from their people and Enrico Dandolo took up the cross in a great show of passion along with many other Venetians who followed his example (p.20).

On the tenth of November 1202 the expedition arrived before the city of Zara in Slovenia and took the city by force breaking the harbor chain and laying siege the next day (p.22). According to Geoffrey there had been messengers who came out of Zara and offered to surrender the city along with all its possessions if the pilgrims just spared the lives of the inhabitants (p.23). This offer was short lived as some of the pilgrims who wanted to see the army disband secretly told the messengers from Zara that the pilgrims would not dare to attack their city and the inhabitants had nothing to fear, having this insider information the messengers went back to the city and no deal was struck (p.23).

Apparently there had been much conflict among the pilgrims, some of which wanted to proceed with the siege, and some that wanted to end it on account of it being against fellow Christians (p.24). The argument as presented by Geoffrey went something along the lines of Christian fighting Christian (which would go against everything the crusading movement stood for) versus being shamed for a failed expedition. The abbot of Vaux announced on behalf of the Roman Pope that he forbids pilgrims campaigning against Christians, but he was quickly silenced and the barons proceeded with the siege (p.24). After five days of fighting the town of Zara was surrendered under the same conditions asked previously, the town was now under Venetian authority and split up in two sections, one side French the other Venetian, until after winter passed and the pilgrims could make their next move (p.24).

While in Zara envoys had arrived from Germany on behalf of King Philip and the prince of Constantinople who was King Philips brother by marriage. These envoys came bearing news that the Emperor of Constantinople (Isaac II Angelus) had been wrongly usurped of his throne being blinded and imprisoned by his own brother Alexius III Angelus (p.20, 26). Isaac’s son, or young Alexius (who would later be crowned Alexius IV Angelus), was also imprisoned by Alexius III but later managed to escape and now came seeking help from the pilgrims in order to restore him and his father as the rightful emperors. Young Alexius had promised to place the entire Romanian realm under the authority of Rome, to pay 200,000 silver marks and give provisions to the whole army, to personally accompany the crusade to Egypt with 10,000 of his own men for an entire year, and to maintain 500 knights in the Holy Land supported by his own money throughout his entire life – in return for the pilgrims help in restoring the young Alexius and his father as the rightful emperors (p.26).

Again there was discord among the pilgrims with many men, such as the abbot of Vaux, protesting on account of campaigning against more Christians. At this time the pilgrims were divided, with some in support of the treaty with the Greeks that had agreed to help young Alexius, some deciding rather to go to Syria and start their expedition there, and some even resorted to flight; this way a lot of pilgrims abandoned the quest and the army lost many useful knights (p. 27, 28). As Geoffrey puts it, the pope was not too happy with the capture of Zara so the pilgrims sent envoys to Rome begging the popes forgiveness and explaining their side of the story, for the most part they had no other option but to attack the mainly Christian city as their own men had defected and the army was now in danger of being lost (p.29). Geoffrey states the pope absolved all of the pilgrims from their sins and begged to keep the army together (p. 29).

The pilgrims had departed Zara to Constantinople and the Venetians were joined by young Alexius later before departing themselves (p. 30). After sailing around southern Greece and stopping at numerous ports and islands the pilgrims arrived at Chalcedon, one of the Byzantine Emperors palaces situated across Constantinople on the other side of the Straights of Saint George. From there they sailed closer to Constantinople reaching a palace called Scutari where they spent the next nine days while Alexius fortified his defense (p. 33, 36). The pilgrims announced why they had come and that the Emperor should surrender himself to the authority of young Alexius in exchange for a pardon, this offer was declined by the Greeks and so the pilgrims started organizing battalions for the attack (p.38).

There were a few skirmishes between the Greeks and the pilgrims prior to the main attack in which Geoffrey recount the great deeds of the frugal blind doge and the Venetians. The dodge had leapt out of his galley before any of his men could come ashore and had placed the banner of Saint Mark in the ground; this act compelled the Venetians to fight strongly, eventually capturing twenty five towers by themselves and setting fire between them and the enemy (p. 46).The Franks also fought bravely and undermanned, taking on sixty of the Greek battalions with their six, but when the dodge decided to help the pilgrim camp the Emperors forces withdrew ending the first siege of Constantinople (p. 47-48).

A great fortune befell the pilgrims during that night, the Emperor Alexius decide to sneak out and abandon his kingdom and thus the Greeks were left with no emperor. Their only choice was the imprisoned one, Isaac, and so the Greeks released him from prison and swore their obedience (p. 48). Isaac agreed to his son’s deal with the pilgrims and soon after Alexius was crowned co-emperor of the empire (p. 50-51).

As Geoffrey tells it the newly crowned emperor Alexius paid off some of the money promised to the pilgrims and then left Constantinople in order to further secure his lands after which time he would finish paying the debt (p.54). While Alexius was away a brawl had broken out between the Greek and Latin inhabitants of Constantinople in which one of the parties set the town ablaze, Geoffrey writes that he does not know who started the fire which ravaged for a week taking much of the city with it, but after it had passed none of the Latin residents wanted to stay inside of the city and crossed to the pilgrims camp. This marks a decline in relations between the Greeks and the pilgrims, according to Geoffrey, since there was nobody to blame but each-other(p.55).

When Alexius returned to Constantinople he decided that his debt had been paid and he owed nothing more to the pilgrims. The pilgrims recognized the emperors actions as wicked ‘Greek treachery’ sending out envoys to the emperor, among which Geoffrey was part, stating they would be very pleased if the emperor decided to pay back but “if you do not do so you should know that from this time forward they [the pilgrims] will not regard you as their lord or as their friend. Instead they will recover what is owed them by whatever means necessary” (p. 56-57). The Emperor was outraged and the envoys barely made it out of the palace alive, so war began anew.

Geoffrey once again mentions the Venetians grand victories on the sea, their ability to divert Greek attacks and use them against their enemy as they had done by sending burning galleys back up stream at the Greeks. This fighting apparently went on for a long time into winter (p. 58). A Greek highly regarded by the Emperor, named Mourtzouphlus, decided to betray Alexius by sneaking into his bedchamber at night to imprison him. When the emperor Isaac heard about this he fell ill and died. Mourtzouphlus took the crown for himself and shortly after he strangled Alexius spreading word that the emperor died of natural causes, following with an honorable burial and display of grief (p. 59).

The barons decided to besiege Constantinople nonetheless since the new ruler was in no position to hold lands as he acquired them through murder, and more so the Greeks were no longer under Roman authority (p. 60). Thus the second siege of Constantinople was under way. On the twelfth of April 1204, after many battles with Mourtzouphlus and with much help from the Venetian ships, the pilgrims succeeded in taking the city of Constantinople (p. 66). Mourtzouphlus fled the city and once more fire lit the skies of Constantinople, again with nobody around to blame; as noted by Geoffrey this being the third time Constantinople was on fire since the arrival of the Franks (p. 66).

Agreements had been made prior to the siege of how the new emperor was to be elected and any booty acquired distributed. The agreement between the Venetians and the Franks was that if they were successful in entering the city, “all the booty seized should be gathered together and then shared among the entire force, as was fitting….six Frenchmen and six Venetians would be chosen who would…elect as emperor the man they believed would be of greatest benefit to the land. The man made emperor…would receive one quarter of all their conquests both inside and outside the city, and would have the palaces of Bocoleon and Blachernae. The remaining three-quarters of their conquest would be divided equally, half going to the Venetians and half to the people of the army. Twelve of the wisest men from the pilgrim army and twelve from the Venetians would be chosen who would then distribute fiefs and possessions among the men, determining what service each of them owed to the emperor” (p. 62-63).

It was also agreed that anyone who wished to leave the service after one year was free to do so (p. 63). This seems fair since the Venetians played as big a role in the crusade as did the pilgrims. After the siege a council met and chose Count Baldwin and Marquis Boniface as the candidates for new emperor, in order not to arouse the jealousy of either one the council decided that whoever was elected should give the other all the lands located on the other side of the straights as well as the island of Greece (p. 69). Baldwin was elected emperor and the marquis became the emperor’s vassal.

During this time the pilgrims struggled to keep the army alive and continued to sack Greek cities. The pilgrims were not in a good position as they were surrounded on all sides by bitter Greeks and were fighting among themselves for possession of land. Even the marquis, who had received a great deal of land, had to be persuaded into staying by being granted the city of Salonika which he wanted in exchange for the lands agreed to previously (p. 71). This Baldwin did grant, but later on did not listen to the marquis when asked to stay behind, letting the marquis arrive in his lands unaccompanied by the emperor (p. 74). This resulted in the marquis defying the emperor and taking some of the emperor’s lands including Demotika and Adrianople, over which the emperor was enraged (p. 74-78). In turn the marquis was put in a bad position along with all the pilgrims causing discord and the ‘taking of sides’ among the army. Already there are factions forming based on loyalty to the immediate lord and one’s own homeland, or monetary and geographical gain.

Overall there were many problems for the new Latin Empire, among which was disagreement and infighting within the pilgrim ranks, and opposition and betrayal by the apparently loyal Greeks. Many Greeks defied their new lord rebelling and fighting back such as Sgouros, Michael of Arta, Theodore Lascarus , as well as Johanista, the king of Vlachia, setting out on campaigns into the new empire (p. 81, 84, 90). The pilgrims faced staunch opposition with dwindling resources from the ravaged towns, they simply did not have the manpower to run the new empire, and to the Greeks who looked for every opportunity to rebel they were unwelcomed trespassers.

A great weakness of the Latin Empire was its unpopularity with the Greeks which evoked many betrayals. The first instance of this was the rise of Greek strongmen after the fall of Constantinople. These included Sgouros (p. 81), holder of Corinth and Nauplia, Michael (p. 81), who held the city of Arta, and Theodore Lascarus (p. 84), who, out of all, had the best claim by being married to a daughter in the royal line and held the lands beyond the straights. All these strongmen contributed to the problem of stretching the manpower of the new empire beyond breaking point, thus any defeat suffered by them could lead to disaster for the Latin Empire. Another instance of Latin unpopularity with the Greeks was the Greeks betrayal by involvement with the Johanista, king of Vlachia and Bulgaria. The Greeks made a pact with king Johanista that they would make him emperor if he would help regain lands that were lost from the conquests made by the pilgrims and the Venetians (p. 90). The new empire now faced enemies on almost all of its fronts.

The Latin Empire, which although had a good organizational structure, proved to be impractical when trying to rule the territories of Constantinople and the surrounding areas. Problems of man power and a large opposition force compounded to make the Empire very weak and based on shaky ground. While trying to control the provinces that surrounded Constantinople, the armies of crusaders were faced with one enemy after another, sometimes striking at the same time, thus contributing to the many losses of territory. Yet it should be noted that many battles were won by the Latin armies and despite such opposition, the Latin Empire still held out for a number of years. This could be contributed to the unity of the crusaders and the fragmentation of their opposition, because of the number of Greek strongmen and the opposition of local natives, such as the Armenians, who wanted freedom from Greek control. Thus, even with the odds staked against them, the crusaders were not only able to take control of Constantinople, but also remain an Empire for a number of years.

It seems from Geoffrey’s account of the conquest that nothing would be possible if not for the Venetian ships and Enrico Dandolo. The Venetians were the life blood of the whole crusade dutifully helping their brothers in Christ while the pilgrims were rightly justified in the siege both times, each time because the emperor did not deserve the throne. Alexius had come to them for help, which they most graciously provided, and afterword expected nothing more than to be repaid for their exemplary service on which the emperor defaulted. The pilgrims were simply taking the only opportunity to go ahead with their expedition, in which after all Geoffrey had himself secured the plans for and no doubt hoped everything would go smoothly. In other words, there was no other choice for the pilgrims, according to Geoffrey.

Psalm 110 and the Divine Son

Kidner (1975: 392): "Those who deny David's authorship of the psalm on the ground that the psalm reads like an enthronement oracle curiously miss the point. It is just an oracle. What is unique is the royal speaker, addressing this more - than - royal person." No king of Israel was ever so close to God that he could normally be described, even metaphorically, as sitting at God's right hand. Terrien (2003: 752) terms this "stupendous for the Hebrew mind," suggesting an "exceptional degree of intimacy between God and the new monarch." The triumph over the king's enemies as he is arrayed in holy majesty (110:2-3) can possibly be taken of an earthly Davidic king, but 110:4 returns to language that seems highly inappropriate even for one as exalted as David (so also Carson 1984: 467). This "king" embodies an eternal priesthood (110:4), whereas legitimate Israelite kings in the line of David came from the tribe of Judah, not the tribe of Levi, from whom priests had to descend. And in 110:5 Yahweh is said to be at this king's right hand, rather than vice versa, as if God and king were interchangeable! Finally, this monarch will do what God alone is described elsewhere as doing: judging the nations and crushing the rulers of the whole earth (110:6) For all these reasons, B. C. Davis (2000) concludes that the psalm is purely messianic.

...The earliest rabbinic reference, in the name of Rabbi Ishmael (ca. AD 100) applies the psalm to Abraham. However, Ishmael was an anti-Christian zealot who probably introduced this distinctive interpretation to counter Christian use of the text (see Hengel 1995: 178-79). The older, messianic interpretation, hinted at in pre-Christian texts, became dominant again after AD 250. It almost certainly would not have been invented at that late date, given the then-regnant Christian interpretation (France 1971: 164-65).

...God speaks to the Messiah, telling him to remain in the honored position of presence at his right hand until some future date when all his enemies will be destroyed. The rest of the psalm unpacks the events that will surround this coming ultimate vengeance. Jesus fulfilled part of God's promises with his first advent as the legitimate Messiah, coming from and returning to Yahweh's right hand. He will fulfill the rest of God's promises when he returns and institutes the final judgment of all the earth's inhabitants.

...Clearly, Christology is central. The Messiah is no mere mortal, not even the most exalted of human kings. He is divine. God in his sovereignty has planned things this way. God's plan also includes the future implementation of perfect justice throughout the universe, at the end of time, through this Messiah, who is both priest and king. Then God's enemies will be destroyed and God's people rewarded. The rest of the NT likewise speaks of God putting his enemies under Jesus' feet (1 Cor. 15:25-28; Eph. 1:22; Heb. 10:13).

-taken from Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament by G.K Beale and D.A. Carson, section on Matthew 22.

There are good reasons to believe that Jesus, the son of David, saw himself as the Lord destined to be at God's right hand. first, we note the Aramaism, Maranatha, "Our Lord, come," in the invocation Paul quotes to the Corinthians (1 Cor 16:22). Most probably this is an echo of a liturgy from the earliest, Aramaic-speaking church, addressing Jesus as "Lord." The early recognition of Jesus as "Lord" most probably derived from Jesus himself, based on his interpretation of Psalm 110:1.

Second, Peter's speech in Acts 2 cites Psalm 110 as the Scripture that Jesus fulfilled when he was resurrected and exalted (Acts 2:33-36). In turn, the historicity of the Acts references is supported by the frequent, early and broad-based allusions to Jesus as the "Lord" who is at the "right hand" of God throughout the letters of the New Testament (Rom 8:34; Eph 1:20; Col 3:1; Heb 1:3; 13; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2; 1 Pet 3:22). It is a solid probability that the widespread use of this psalm arose from Jesus' own interpretation of it.

Further, it is likely that Jesus connected in his mind the Son of man ruling the nations in the presence of the Ancient of Days (Dan 7:13-14) with the Lord at God's right hand whose enemies are a footstool for his feet (Ps 110:1). The similarity of Son of man and Lord in the two passages is striking. Most probably, Jesus established the concept of the Son of man with the disciples first.

-taken from Jesus and the Rise of Early Christianity: A History of New Testament Times by Paul Bennet, p. 168.

A careful examination of Psalm 110:1, and Jesus' application of it (in conjunction with Daniel 7:13) to himself, reveals how remarkable Jesus' claim [in Mat. 26:64] was and why it seemed to the Sanhedrin to be blasphemous. It was one thing to enter God's presence and yet another to sit in it. But to sit at God's right side was another matter altogether. In the religious and cultural milieu of Jesus' day, to claim to sit at God's right hand was tantamount to claiming equality with god.

...Jesus, then, was claiming the right to go directly into God's "throne room" and sit at his side. The temerity of such a claim for any mere human would be astonishing to the Jews of Jesus' day. The priests of the Sanhedrin, to whom Jesus made this claim, could not, as a rule, even go into the inner sanctum of the temple, known as the Holy of Holies. Many of them probably had never been inside it. The Holy of Holies could be entered only on a specific day in a specific way by one specific person. Failure to follow the instructions exactly resulted in death. On the Day of Atonement, the high priest entered the Holy oh Holies, carrying the blood of a bull as offering for personal purification and the blood of a ram as offering for atonement for the people. This was followed by a change of garments and ritual washings (Lev. 16). In other words, one entered into God's presence in the temple cautiously.

If entrance requirements to the earthly Holy of Holies were so strict, we can imagine what the Sanhedrin priests would have thought about Jesus claiming to have the right to enter God's heavenly presence. After all, the earthly temple was, according to Josephus, viewed as a model of the heavenly one. Worse still, though, Jesus was claiming that he was going to enter permanently into the heavenly Holies of Holies and sit down. Jesus might as well have claimed that he owned the place! Indeed, that is what his statement amounted to. As Darrell Bock has put it, Jesus' claim "would be worse, in the leadership's view, than claiming the right to be able to walk into the Holy of Holies in the temple and live there!"

...when Jesus alluded to Daniel 7:13 and Psalm 110:1 in his response to Caiaphas's question...Jesus was claiming to be a heavenly, divine figure who would be seated at God's right hand, exercising divine rule forever over all people everywhere.

What Jesus does in fusing Psalm 110:1 with Daniel 7:13 is unique and results in a claim that goes far beyond anything said about the Son of Man in Enoch.

-taken from Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ by Robert M. Bowman Jr. and J. Ed Komoszewski, p. 243-45, 252

Notice carefully Singer's words: "No Jew who had even a superficial knowledge of the Jewish scriptures would have ever found Jesus' argument [about Psalm 110:1] compelling, let alone a conversation stopper." To the contrary, it is because Jesus knew that his hearers were so familiar with the Scriptures that he raised this compelling argument. Of course, they had no answer. You see, some of the earliest Rabbinic interpretation of Psalm 110 understood the psalm to be speaking of the Messiah, and if David in fact wrote the psalm, then Yeshua's question is well taken: If the Messiah is merely David's son - and it was universally agreed that the Messiah was the son of David - how can David call him his lord?

"But that's the whole problem," you object. "The Christian translations claim that the Messiah is Lord - meaning God himself - whereas the Hebrew Bible says no such thing." This, in fact, is another of Rabbi Singer's points, and he argues that the second "Lord" in the text "never refers to God anywhere in the Bible. It is only used for the profane, never the sacred."

But where did Jesus say "Lord" was referring to God? He simply stated that the text indicated David called the Messiah his lord...

Unfortunately, Singer has gotten his information completely wrong, failing to read correctly the Christian translation he cites and completely ignoring well-known Jewish translation customs. Simply stated, a tradition developed among the Jewish people that the Hebrew name for God, vlwh, was too sacred to pronounce. Thus, whenever a Jew would read this name in the Bible, he would not say Yahweh (which is the most likely original pronunciation; the more common Jehovah is not correct). Rather, he would say, 'adonai, meaning "Lord." Thus, the opening verse of Psalm 110 would have been recited out loud as "'adonay (or 'adonai) said to 'adoni" ('adoni meaning "my lord" OR "my Lord").

When Jesus quoted this verse to the Pharisees [in Mat. 22:41-46], this would have been the way he said it, referring to Yahweh as 'adonai. There were no tricks here, no sleight of hand, no cover-up, no deception, no mistranslation. Just a straightforward recitation of the Hebrew text.

How then does Singer claim that the New Testament and later Christian translations of Psalm 110 are guilty of intentional mistranslation? It is simply because (1) he has not handled the Christian translations fairly, and (2) he has not realized how the very first Jewish translation of the Tanakh into Greek rendered Psalm 110:1.

Virtually all modern Christian translations follow a similar translation pattern, rendering the opening Hebrew word yhwh as "LORD" and then rendering the second Hebrew word 'adoni as "my Lord" or "my lord." As we have seen the custom of translating the Hebrew yhwh as "LORD" goes back to Jewish practice, not Christian practice. And Just as Jewish readers distinguished between 'adonai and 'adon (meaning Yahweh, as opposed to any lord or the Lord), so also Christian translations into English distinguished between LORD (Hebrew, yhwh) and Lord (Hebrew, 'adon).

Amazingly, Singer claims that the NASB...fails to distinguish between the two words, inviting the readers to "look at the first word 'Lord' in the verse. Now look at the second word 'Lord' (they are only three words apart). Did you notice any difference between them? You didn't because the Christian translator CAREFULLY MASKED what it ACTUALLY says in the text of the original Hebrew." Thus, he claims, "the two English words in the NASB translation are carefully made to appear identical, in the original Hebrew text they are entirely different." Absolutely not! These two words are not the same, as you would immediately see even at first glance: The first is ALL uppercase letters...the second is lowercase after the initial capital L.

Rabbi Singer, however, takes serious issue with the fact that many Christian versions translate the second 'adon ('adoni, representing the noun followed by the first-person pronominal suffix) as "my Lord" instead of "my lord," arguing that every single time 'adoni is found in the Tanakh, it is speaking of a human being, not God (who would always be referred to as 'adonni rather than 'adoni) He states: "...There are many words reserved for God in the Bible, adonee, however, is not one of them.

There are at least three problems with this argument:

First, he is INCORRECT in stating that "my Lord" is reserved "for the profane, never the sacred." Just look in Joshua 5:14, where Joshua addresses the angel of the Lord as "my lord" ('adoni). Yet this divine messenger is so holy that Joshua is commanded to remove the shoes from his feet because he is standing on holy ground, just as Moses was commanded when the angel of the Lord - representing Yahweh himself - appeared to him (Exod. 3:1-6). This is hardly a "profane" rather than "sacred" usage! Similar examples can be found in Judges 6:13 and Zechariah 1:9, among other places...

...Second, Singer's WHOLE ARGUMENT HINGES ON THE MASORETIC VOCALIZATION, which did not reach its final form until the Middle Ages. As every student of Hebrew knows, BIBLICAL HEBREW WAS WRITTEN WITH CONSONANTS AND "VOWEL LETTERS" ONLY; the VOWEL SIGNS were added hundreds of years later. Yet both 'adonai (used only for Yahweh) and 'adoni (used for men and angels, as we just noted) are SPELLED IDENTICALLY IN HEBREW, consisting of the four consonants '-d-n-y. How then can Rabbi Singer make such a dogmatic statement about the differences between these two forms in the Bible? His argument stands only if we accept the absolute authority of the Masoretic vocalization, which in some cases follows the original Hebrew by almost two thousand years [footnote] 277.

Third, it is not really important whether we translate with "my Lord" or "my lord", since Yeshua's whole argument was simply that David called the Messiah "lord", meaning that the Messiah had to be more than David's son.

"But," you say, "I understand that the New Testament is written in Greek. Are you telling me that the writers of the New Testament followed Jewish practice and spelled the two words differently? That was not the custom in Greek, and therefore readers of the Gospels would be misled into thinking that the two 'Lords' were the same person, both referring to God."

That's a good observation. But once again, this is not a "Christian" problem but rather a "Jewish" problem dating back to the Septuagint, which was completed more than two hundred years before the writing of the New Testament. The New Testament only follows the practice of the Jewish Septuagint. It is the Greek Septuagint that first rendered yhwh with the Greek word kyrios [footnote] 278, "Lord" or "lord." Thus, Psalm 110:1 is rendered by the Septuagint as, "The kyrios said to my kyrios," and the writers of the New Testament - themselves almost all Jews - merely quoted the Jewish translation of their day into Greek. It's that simple!

[Footnote] 277: Genesis 18 provides the classic example of interpretive issues arising because of the varying Masoretic vocalizations for the two words 'adonai (with the short vowel patah, which could mean "my lords") and 'adoni (with the long vowel qametz, which refers to Yahweh), both of which are spelled with the identical consonants (see vol. 2, 3.1). Interestingly, 'adonai (with qametz) in Judg. 6:15 is rendered with "my lord" in the LXX (kyrie mou) as opposed to simply Lord (kyrie, as it is usually rendered with reference to Yahweh), a rendering possibly reinforced by Judg. 6:13, with 'adoni. This, then, could point to a change in the Masoretic vocalization of 'adoni.

[Footnote] 278: To repeat, there is no such ambiguity in the English translations, since the English custom for more than five hundred years has been to render yhwh with LORD (all uppercase) and 'adon with lord or Lord.

...if those who were interrogated [meaning the Pharisees and other Jewish teachers in Mat. 22] had been able to reply that David does not speak of the future Messiah, but puts into the mouth of the people words concerning himself, or...concerning the Davidic king in a general way, then the question would lack the background of cogency as an argument. Since, however, the prophetico - Messianic character of the Psalm was acknowledged at that time (even as the later synagogue, in spite of the dilemma into which this Psalm brought it in opposition to the church, has never been able entirely to avoid this confession), the conclusion to be drawn from this Psalm must have been felt by the Pharisees themselves, that the Messiah, because the Son of David and Lord at the same time, was of human and at the same time superhuman nature: that it was therefore in accordance with Scripture if this Jesus, who represented Himself to be the predicted Christ [Messiah], should as such profess to be the Son of God and of divine nature.

In support of this Messianic interpretation we can also point to the comments on Daniel 7:13 attributed to the influential medieval Jewish leader, Rabbi Sa'adiah Gaon. Explaining the words "And behold, [coming] with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man," he stated, "This is Messiah our righteousness," contrasting this description with the Messianic prophecy found in Zechariah 9:9, where it is written that the Messiah will come meek and lowly, riding on a donkey. He interpreted the clouds of heaven to mean the host of heavenly angels, noting that this is the glorious splendor that the Creator will grant to the Messiah. And how does Gaon explain the end of verse 13, where it is stated that they will bring the Messiah to the Ancient of Days (a title for the Lord)? He simply quotes the opening line of Psalm 110, "The utterance of the LORD to my lord, 'Sit at My right hand'" (translated literally). He got that exactly right!

-taken from Michael L. Brown's, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, vol. 3, Messianic Prophecy, section 4.29. Emphasis mine.

Like Psalms 2 and 72, this psalm goes well beyond the achievements of any merely human heir of David and thus looks forward to the Messiah; in fact, unlike those two psalms, it is almost entirely future in its orientation...When the people of God would sing this in faith, they would celebrate God's promises to David, yearn for the day in which the Gentiles receive the light (the coming of the Messiah), and seek to be faithful to their calling until that great day...Christians sing this psalm to celebrate that Jesus has taken his Davidic kingship by his resurrection...and that God is busy now subduing the Gentiles into the empire of Jesus.

-taken from the English Standard Version Study Bible by Crossway publishing.

Ps. 110 There can be no doubt that this psalm looks forward to Christ. Jesus Himself cites it to show that David knew that its ultimate fulfillment would come with One who is greater than he (Mark 12:35-37 and parallels). Even before Christ's coming, a prophetic-messianic interpretation of the psalm was well known among Jewish interpreters.

...Focusing on two divine oracles, the first (v. 1) shows the close, but subordinate, relationship that the human king bears to the divine king. The New Testament writers cite this oracle to demonstrate Jesus' post-resurrection glory and to point to the struggle between God and the spiritual powers of evil (Acts 2:34; 1 Cor. 15:25; Eph. 1:20; Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:13; 1 Pet. 3:22).

The second oracle appointed the king as priest, but as a special type of priest. As opposed to the hereditary Aaronic priesthood, this priesthood is descended from Melchizedek (Gen. 14:18-23), whose mysterious origins are related to Jesus Christ, the great High Priest (Heb. 5:6; 7:17; 8:1; 10:12-14).

Lord. This title is often used for God but can also be addressed to a king or other respected person. The New Testament makes it clear that King David refers to his Son as his "Lord" (Mark 12:35-37). The promised Messiah descended from David but is greater than David. See "Jesus' Heavenly Reign" at Acts 7:55.

- taken from the English Standard Version of the The Reformation Study Bible by Ligonier Ministries

1. The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at My right hand. Mystically these are the words of the flesh subjected by the spirit ruling over it. For the spirit is made a son of God and lord of all by faith. And he who formerly was a slave of sin now sits in peace of conscience. He sits as king over the members of sin. He sits as judge over the vices of the flesh, punishing them in the subjected flesh. For he sits with Christ at the right hand, that is, in spiritual things, as the apostle says (Eph. 2:6):"He made us sit with Christ in heavenly places."

...To those who desire to live piously and suffer persecution (2 Tim 3:12), this is the rod of strength for the purpose of ruling. For those who are unwilling are already conquered, and the Word of God is to them a reed of weakness, it is folly, impotence, and vanity. But through the Lord it will come about among the enemies that His people are "princess".

-Martin Luther, Luther's Works vol. 11, on Psalm 110.