O Antiphons: O Key of David
This
Sunday is the First Sunday of Advent, and the “O Antiphon” we consider this
week is the Lord’s Messianic title, “O Key of David.”
The antiphon for Vespers is:
The Alleluia for Mass modifies it as, “O Key of David, opening the gates of God’s eternal Kingdom: come and free the prisoners of darkness!”
Isaiah’s prophecy here is interesting in several respects. In Isaiah 22:15-25 the Lord instructs Isaiah to go to Shebna, the royal steward (i.e., the chancellor, second in authority in the kingdom) of King Hezekiah and tell Shebna that he will be removed and Eliakim will take his place. The name “Eliakim” literally means, “God will set up,” which can mean “God will establish” or as St. Cyril of Alexandria (376-444 AD) understood it, “the resurrection of God.”
The Lord says, “I will place on his [Eliakim’s] shoulder the key of the House of David; he shall open, and none
shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open” (Is 22:22). To place on the
shoulders is to bear the weight of responsibility of government, as we also see
in Isaiah, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government
will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called ‘Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace’” (Is 9:6; cf., Is 22:21,
Eliakim will be “father” also).
So what is the “Key of the House of David”? Recall that God had promised everlasting kingship to David’s lineage (2 Sam 7:12-16), which Isaiah applies to the “child” who is born (Is 9:7). The glorified Christ affirms, “I am the root and the offspring of David” (Rev 22:16).
As to the “key,” the Hebrew word translated “key” comes from the Hebrew verb to “open” or “loose.” In the New Testament, the Greek word translated “key” comes from the Greek verb to “close” or “shut” (e.g., Mt 23:13, “‘Woe to you ... because you shut the Kingdom of Heaven against men’”). Isaiah 22:22 uses both those meanings: the “key” is the authority to open and close/shut, to loose and close/bind.
Thus when the O Antiphon calls upon Christ by the title of “O Key of David,” it asserts that Christ, Himself, is the Key, the governing authority to open and shut, bind and loose, of David’s everlasting Kingdom. The NT tells us Jesus Christ “has the key of David, who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one opens” (Rev 3:7). So having the “key” is not merely as a doorkeeper or porter; it is as one having full authority and power. We see this in the antiphon at Vespers which also says, “O Royal Power of Israel” – an older translation reads, “O Scepter of Israel” (cf., Num 24:17) – “controlling at your will the gate of heaven.” Christ’s authority and power of the “Keys” and “Scepter” is His power is over the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, the royal dominion of God. After his resurrection he said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Mt 28:18). He is judge of the living and the dead (Ac 10:42; 2 Tim 4:1; 1 Pet 4:5).
Keys that Fall
Now when the Lord, through Isaiah, was replacing King Hezekiah’s steward Shebna with Eliakim, he also prophesied that Eliakim would fall in the future (Is 22:25). Jesus also speaks of a “key” that had failed: “Woe to you lawyers! for you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering” (Lk 11:52; cf. Mt 23:13) – that is, entering the Kingdom of God, the image being that of a door to the Kingdom of God.
We are also given the image of Satan being allowed the “key” to open hell for a short time (Rev 9:1), only to later have a heavenly angel be given the “key” to shut Satan in hell for a very long time (Rev 20:1).
But Jesus Has and Is the Key of David
But remember, it is Jesus who has and is the “Key of David” (Rev 3:7) and he said, “I have the keys of Death and Hades” – he personifies Death and Hades, both of whom he overcame by the blood of his cross, his dying, his descent into Hell (cf., 1 Pet 3:19 f.; 4:6), and his resurrection (Rev 1:18). So “Christ has the power to open the doors of the world of the dead and to summon the dead to resurrection” (TDNT, III, pp. 746-747). And doesn’t Jesus say he is the “door” and to enter by him is to be saved? (Jn 10:7, 9.) Christ’s Key of David means he “opens and no one shall shut, [he] shuts and no one opens” (Rev 3:7).
He says, “Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut (Rev 3:8). Yet while he sets before us an open door on his side, it is he who waits for our response as to whether we will open our own doors: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev 3:20).
Christ’s Power of the Keys in His Church
And then when Christ appoints his own steward (his chancellor), he proclaims that even the gates of Hell cannot prevail over his Kingdom – his Church (Mt 16:18). Isaiah had already said of Christ’s Kingdom that “there will be no end” (Is 9:7), and St. Paul tells us the reason: God’s plan was “to unite all thing in him [Christ], things in heaven and thing on earth” (Eph 1:10), and through Christ and the blood of his cross, all things in heaven and earth are reconciled to God (Col 1:15-20). God is eternal, as is Christ, so his Kingdom, his Church, which is united to God in Christ, is also eternal, everlasting, and will have no end.
But who is Christ’s steward, his chancellor? To whom does Christ give his Key of David? Peter, the Rock upon which Christ was to build his Church. Jesus said, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Mt 16:18-19.) And while Peter is Christ’s steward, His chancellor and vicar, and the Rock upon which the Church is built, Jesus also gave the power to “bind and loose” to those Jesus appointed as his Apostles (Mt 18:18; Jn 20:23). (See Catechism of the Catholic Church Nos. 552-553, 869-870, 881, 935-937, 981-983, 1444-1445.)
So the Key of David refers to authority to open and shut, bind and loose, and refers to royal power as a scepter would indicate. From the New Testament we see (above) that God has allowed Satan to have a small measure of a “key” to hell for a very short time, but Christ has given his vicar, Peter (and his successors, the Pope), and the Apostles (and their successors, the Bishops) the “key” without end.
“Key” as “Glory”
But there is one more image connected to the Key of David found in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint (“LXX”) – the Bible used by Jesus and his disciples in the First Century and quoted by the New Testament. In the LXX for Isaiah 22:22, it reads, “And I will give him the glory of David; and he shall rule and there shall be none to speak against him; and I will give him the key of the house of David upon his shoulder; and he shall open and there shall be none to shut; and he shall shut, and there shall be none to open.” The italics indicate a phrase added in the LXX which is not in the Hebrew version of the Bible (it is also omitted in some modern translations of the LXX, and is omitted in the Dead Sea Scrolls of Isaiah). The parallel of the two phrases indicates “glory” as a parallel for “key,” “rule” as a parallel for “shoulders” (as described above), and “none to speak against him” as a parallel for none to shut what he opens or none to open what he shuts.
So the “key of David” is also the “glory of David.” We may expect this “glory” to mean David’s honor or reputation among men, and while that was the sense of the word in classical Greek, the LXX uniquely and significantly changes its meaning. In the LXX, the primary meaning of “glory” is objective (not subjective human honor) and always in reference to God’s divine nature, the reality of God, the divine radiance, and the shekinah glory (e.g., at the giving of the Law, in the tabernacle, and in the temple). (TDNT, II, pp. 242-247.)
There is another Biblical parallel here. When the Lord instructed Moses to appoint Joshua his successor, he instructed Moses to lay hands on Joshua to commission Joshua with some of Moses’ “authority” (per the RSV Hebrew), or to “put your glory upon him” (per the Greek LXX) (Num 27:18-20, 22-23). With that sense of “glory,” the Aramaic Targum indicates that some of the radiance or glory that shone on the face of Moses was transferred to Joshua by Moses’ laying on of hands, so that “while the face of Moses was as the face of the sun, that of Joshua was as the face of the moon” (quoted in TDNT, II, p. 246).
As mentioned above, we also know that God promised everlasting kingship to the house of David (2 Sam 7:12-16), and many prophetic texts point to the Messiah as David’s son or a king like David (e.g., Psalm 2, 110 [cf., Mt 22:41-45] which were fulfilled in Christ [Ac 2:32-36]).
We might then understand the “glory of David” here in Isaiah's prophecy to be God’s own glory given to David in his royal anointing and promised to his descendant, the Messiah, in the similar manner that Joshua received a share in the glory of God given to Moses. And yet, the Messiah who came, Christ Jesus, was God in his divine nature so had the fullness of God's glory, not a mere share. Thus St. John testifies: “We have beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father” (Jn 1:14). St. Peter testifies: “We were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,' we heard this voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.” (I.e., the transfiguration. 2 Pet 1:16-18.) And the book of Hebrews testifies that Christ, the Son of God, “reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature” (Heb 1:3).
Secondly, the Messiah, Christ, has the authority not only to grant the “key” (or “power of the keys”), but also to grant a share in this “glory” to his vicar (Peter and his successors) and his Apostles (and their successors) by the laying on of hands, i.e., through apostolic succession in the Church.
And so we pray: O Key of David, O Royal Power of Israel, O Glory of David – we who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death (Lk 1:79), but by your gift are members of your Kingdom, your Body, your Church – come again, grant us a greater gift of your Spirit, open the door, come to us, dwell with us, and set us free!