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Taking a Closer Look at Psalm 45
This article is part of the A Closer Look at the Bible series.
Psalm 45
To the choirmaster: according to Lilies. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah; a love song.
My heart overflows with a pleasing theme;
I address my verses to the king;
my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe.You are the most handsome of the sons of men;
grace is poured upon your lips;
therefore God has blessed you forever.
Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one,
in your splendor and majesty!In your majesty ride out victoriously
for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness;
let your right hand teach you awesome deeds!Your arrows are sharp
in the heart of the king’s enemies;
the peoples fall under you.Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.
The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness;
you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.Therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness beyond your companions;
your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia.From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad;
daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor;
at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.
—Psalm 45:1–9
Songs of the Son
Daniel Stevens
Songs of the Son examines 9 psalms highlighted in Hebrews to reveal the preincarnate glory of Christ in the Old Testament.
Why Is This Here?
The main question that I want you to ask as we look at this psalm, or to have in your mind at least, is Why is this psalm here? Suddenly, as you’re reading through the Psalter, there’s something that doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the psalms jumps out at you. This is the only psalm that’s called a love psalm in its introduction, and it seems to be a song for the wedding of a king. While that fits with biblical themes, why is this here? Why is this in the songbook that the people of God are given to sing age after age, generation after generation?
Hopefully, after looking into it some, we’ll be able to see. The psalm begins with a bit of a run-up. The son of Korah, who wrote this, has a bit of time before getting into his theme to show us how important it is. It’s a pleasing theme. He’s addressing his verses to the king, so it’s a royal theme. His tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe—he’s trained and he is on the verge of giving this to us. We expect something grand, and then verse 2 meets us with a statement of how handsome this king is. That's great, but it doesn’t immediately tell us much and it leaves us again asking, Why is this here? He is handsome, he is gracious in speech, he is blessed by God, and he is mighty in battle.
He goes out and we find that the strength of this king isn’t only something for his own use or isn’t only something for enriching himself, but rather it’s for the cause of truth, meekness, and righteousness. We have the example of a righteous king who is good, who is blessed by God in every way, who is mighty, who fights to conquer God’s enemies, and who establishes righteousness in the land.
His arrows are sharp. They defeat the enemies of the king. Peoples fall in submission of him. And so we have here the picture of an ideal king. This is who you want if you are ancient Israel. And because of that, we start thinking of David or, possibly, as we go on, of David’s son, Solomon—these grand kings who are blessed by God and who are victorious as they establish righteousness in the land.
Many scholars and interpreters of this psalm, in particular, do see Solomon here. But as soon as this picture comes in our mind by verse 5, it’s changed again. Verse 6 meets us with yet another surprising declaration: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.”
This king, who is going forth and who we find in the psalm and is getting ready to get married, is also called God, with an eternal throne. If David and Solomon have been in the picture, they need to move out of the way. “The scepter of your kingdom is the scepter of uprightness.” He is one who establishes absolute righteousness in his land. Who could this be? What’s happening here?
Many interpreters have seen this as a kind of exaggerated language, as something that is using terms that aren’t really proper for this human king (Solomon) as a way of showing how important he is, but I don’t want to let us go there.
That seems not just exaggerated language but inappropriate language. The king here is called God, and we know we haven’t changed scenes entirely, because as it goes on, we find the daughters of the king among his ladies of honor, the queen in gold of Ophir. And as the psalm moves on through verses 10 to 17, we see an address to the bride. This is a wedding scene.
New Testament Connection
So, who is this? Is this a human king? Is this God? Is verse 6 simply an interruption in the main story of a human king getting married, or is it something more? We should look to the New Testament to see how this psalm gets used, and I want us to look to Hebrews 1:8. Here, we’re in the author’s grand contrast between Jesus and the angels, between the Son and the angels.
We find here in verse 8 and 9:
But of the son, he says, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,
the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.
You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”
What I want us to see here is that Hebrews cites verse 6 of Psalm 45, the verse that might seem inappropriate, the verse that might seem like it is an aside or not really addressed to this king. This is the verse of the psalm that the author singles out. And it’s in contrast to show how Jesus is superior to the angels. That is to say is that in Psalm 45:6, “Your throne, O God is forever and ever,” when it uses this language, it means it. It’s not an exaggeration, it’s not hyperbole, but rather it’s one of the ways that this king is greater than the angels.
So, who is this king? Who is the king who is righteous, who is mighty, who is blessed, who is God, and who relates to God? Notice verse 9 of the citation (verse 7 of the psalm): “God, your God has anointed you.” One who is God and who relates to God.
Here we have the picture of the whole New Testament, that Jesus, the Son of God who becomes a man, is both God by right and nature. He is God the Son, and he becomes the Davidic king through being born in the line of David. He is the king who both is a man and is God. And so we find Psalm 45 isn’t some mystical way of talking about Solomon, but it’s been about Jesus the whole time.
It’s been pointing to him as the one King who is supremely powerful, supremely righteous, and who is God with an eternal throne, who’s rule will never go away, and he will establish this righteousness forever. Having seen that, what happens when we move back to Psalm 45?
First, we now can understand why this psalm is here. This isn’t an interruption in the Psalter. This is praise to the Son of God, the King of God’s people who is blessed by God in his incarnation and who is grand and above us. But also, it tells us our place in the story in a way we might not expect.
The Bride of Christ
Now we’re going to look at the rest of Psalm 45. If you noticed, Psalm 45:9 introduces the queen. Verses 10 and onwards address her:
Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear:
forget your people and your father’s house,
and the king will desire your beauty.
Since he is your lord, bow to him.
The people of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts,
the richest of the people.All glorious is the princess in her chamber, with robes interwoven with gold.
In many-colored robes she is led to the king,
with her virgin companions following behind her.
With joy and gladness they are led along
as they enter the palace of the king.In place of your fathers shall be your sons;
you will make them princes in all the earth.
I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations;
therefore nations will praise you forever and ever.—Psalm 45:10–17
If Jesus is the king pictured in this psalm, who is the queen? Who is the one to whom he is getting married? The New Testament throughout provides us with the answer to that.
It’s the church, the bride of Christ. We find ourselves in this psalm in two ways. One, we’re the subjects of the King, who share in his victory, and two, in verses 10–17, we collectively, as the church, are the bride of this King. We are those who are welcomed into his beauty, to his glory, and to his power.
Notice the focus of the clothing given to the queen. The robes interwoven with gold, the many colored robes in which she’s led to the king. This is used elsewhere in the New Testament as an image of the righteousness of Christ that’s given to his people. The focus on clothing isn’t insignificant; it’s to show that we are wrapped up in splendor. We’re given the righteousness of the king. And we see also the power of the King being exercised through his people, to an extent. “He is your Lord, bow to him, and then [other people] will seek your favor with gifts.”
Again, the image throughout the entire Bible is that we will reign with him one day, that we will share in his rule, authority, and power. It’s also a call not to look back but to look forward to the glorious future with the King. Those last two verses, “in the place of fathers shall be sons,” tell us not to look back to the things that we had before being joined to Christ, to not look even to the things that we would’ve thought of as valuable or honorable in the world, but rather to look forward to the posterity that comes through being with Christ—what he will give us forever.
We find, through looking at Psalm 45 through the lens of the New Testament in Hebrews and the way that it’s cited, that this potentially confusing, surprising song is a declaration to us of the glories of our King, of the righteousness he is bringing, of the beauty, righteousness, and the glory forever he’s bringing to his people, as we are joined with him as the church and as his bride.
Daniel Stevens is the author of Songs of the Son: Reading the Psalms with the Author of Hebrews.
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