How is it then (New Jerusalem Bible “Then how is it”) represents a Greek construction which means “By what right?” or “On what grounds?”

Inspired by the Spirit, as the Revised Standard Version footnote indicates, is literally “in the Spirit” or “by means of the Spirit.” The reference is clearly to the “Spirit of God” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). Both An American Translation and New American Bible have “under the Spirit’s influence.” Moffatt (“How is it then that David is inspired…?”) and New English Bible (“by inspiration”) also arrive at a proper interpretation of the text, since “inspired” and “by inspiration” are equivalent in meaning to “inspired by God’s Spirit.”

David … calls him Lord: the quotation from Psalm 110 (to be given in the following verse) is offered as proof that David himself addressed the promised Messiah as Lord. The problem of the authorship of the psalm, raised by modern biblical scholarship, would not have been an issue for the Jews of the first century, who assigned all the psalms to David.

The verse may need to be restructured. Good News Translation offers a good example, but another is “How do you explain the fact then that David, at a time when he was inspired by God’s Spirit, called him Lord? David said….”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .