Biblion Bible Commentary
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A Song for the King's Wedding
Psalms 45:1-17
1 For the Chief Musician. Set to “The Lilies.” A contemplation by the sons of Korah. A wedding song. My heart overflows with a noble theme. I recite my verses for the king. My tongue is like the pen of a skillful writer. · WEB
A royal wedding song addresses the bridegroom as God, and the letter to the Hebrews takes it at its word.
My heart overflows with a noble theme. I recite my verses for the king. My tongue is like the pen of a skillful writer Psalms 45:1.
A wedding song, written for a royal marriage, and the poet says so. He is excited, he knows he is writing well, and he is not pretending to be anything other than a court poet at a celebration.
You are the most excellent of the sons of men. Grace has anointed your lips Psalms 45:2. The praise of the bridegroom begins conventionally enough, and the next verses arm him: a sword on the thigh, arrows, nations falling. It is the standard vocabulary of royal flattery in that world.
Except that the direction is unusual. In your majesty ride on victoriously on behalf of truth, humility, and righteousness Psalms 45:4. Humility is not on any other king's list of causes worth fighting for.
Your throne, God, is forever and ever. A scepter of equity is the scepter of your kingdom Psalms 45:6.
The verse a wedding song has no business containing. The bridegroom is addressed as God, and his throne is called eternal. Attempts to read the Hebrew another way are possible and strained; the letter to the Hebrews quotes it as it stands, in the argument that the Son is greater than the angels: of the Son he says, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever" Hebrews 1:8.
You have loved righteousness, and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows Psalms 45:7.
And immediately the same figure has a God of his own. The two verses together are the difficulty and the doctrine: he is addressed as God and he worships God, and the letter to the Hebrews quotes both without treating the pair as a problem.
Listen, daughter, consider, and turn your ear. Forget your own people, and also your father's house Psalms 45:10.
The bride is a foreign princess, and what is asked of her is total. She is to leave a nation behind. The instruction is hard and it is the standard condition of this marriage in the rest of Scripture, where the church is the bride and the leaving is the same Ephesians 5:31–32.
The princess inside is all glorious. Her clothing is interwoven with gold Psalms 45:13.
The English translations divide over whether the glory is inward or whether she is glorious within the palace, and the Hebrew supports either. Nothing turns on it here.
I will make your name to be remembered in all generations Psalms 45:17. The court poet promises the king immortality of a kind poets can supply, and the psalm has outlived every dynasty it might have been written for.
held with reason What this mark means