Example of St. Paul quoting from Psalms

I've written before how if one is diligent and follows footnotes one can see how Jesus and the Apostles quote from scripture. I looked for a really easy and obvious example by St. Paul to show you and here it is.

1 Corinthians 15:23-26

But each one in proper order: Christ the first fruits; then, at his coming, those who belong to Christ; then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to his God and Father, when he has destroyed every sovereignty and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

Paul took line 25, bold in italics, from Psalm 110:1, which was a very well known passage.

Psalms 110:1

The Lord says to you, my lord: "Take your throne at my right hand, while I make your enemies your footstool."

Even though this is a simple and obvious example, there is a wealth of insight to obtain from it. The psalm is one of King David's, and it refers to both how David was appointed by God to be both King and priest, having victory over his enemies, and also to the Messiah, because "The Lord" refers to God and "my lord" refers to someone greater than King David. So with his prophetic gift from God King David sang his praise of God about his gift of authority to David but also frames it as being just a foreshadowing of what would be greater to come, which is the Messiah triumphing over all.

The expression of making enemies "one's footstool" comes from the pagan practice of victorious kings putting their feet on the prostate bodies of their enemies. So it is an expression, much like slang today, that was very well understood for hundreds of years, from the time of David to the time of St. Paul's writing. (Oh no! Quick, tell the atheists! Here is another example of where "the Bible copies from the pagans!")

St. Paul's divinely inspired brilliance allowed him to make the linkage between King David's psalm and the ultimate triumph of Jesus Christ over all "enemies," which are not the literal enemies that David faced, but the greatest enemy of humanity, which is sin and death. Thus St. Paul envisions at the end of times Jesus Christ placing his feet upon death itself, in triumph over it on behalf of all the faithful.