Original Meaning
The Heading (45:0)
THE PSALM SHARES in its heading three terms with the preceding Psalms 42–43 and 44. All are introduced with a reference to “the director of music,”2 all are designated as part of the first Korahite collection3 (Pss. 42–49), and all are called maśkil.4 In addition, the heading to Psalm 45 exhibits several uncommon phrases. The first (ʿal šošannim) appears to be a reference to the tune to which the composition is to be sung.5 The word šošannim (appearing for the first time here but also occurring in the heading to Ps. 80) is the plural of the singular noun šušan (“lily, lotus blossom”), which appears in the heading to Ps. 60. The final new phrase is the combination of šir (“song”)6 and yedidot (“beloved [ones]; love”) and seems to describe the focus of the psalm’s content in praise of the royal wedding (thus the NIV’s “A wedding song”).
Bridging Contexts
PSALM 45 EXHIBITS such a narrowly restricted “setting in life”—the wedding ceremony of a human king of Israel or Judah—that it raises in a radical way the question of how this kind of psalm could continue to function fruitfully in the later Diaspora community among exiles who had little or no hope that the Davidic kingship would ever be resumed. How could a psalm that focused on a ceremony that had not been enacted for hundreds of years still speak meaningfully to those for whom a royal wedding could have been only a nostalgic memory of times long past? Surely such a culturally and temporally conditioned poem could only continue to have power if its words and images were reinterpreted in ways that linked with the needs and hopes of the contemporary society. What evidence is there that Psalm 45 (and other psalms in the canonical Psalter, for that matter) was subjected to such a reinterpretive reading?
J. Clinton McCann shows how such a rereading of older psalms took place.
These psalms can continue to be expressions of hope and confidence; however, the expressions of hope become two-edged when they occur immediately following Pss. 42–44; that is to say, the traditional hope embodied in the royal psalms, Zion songs and enthronement songs is modified and reoriented by the literary context. In order to survive the crisis of exile and dispersion, Israel had to profess that God was, in some sense, still its “refuge and strength” (Ps. 46:2), its “secure height” (Ps. 46:8, 11; 48:4), and “a great king over all the earth” (Ps. 47:3); however, such professions had to be understood differently when Israel spoke them no longer from the secure height of Zion but rather from a position of having been “cast off” (Pss. 43:2; 44:10) and “scattered . . . among the nations” (Ps. 44:12). The arrangement of the Korah psalms, in which Pss. 42–44 introduce Pss. 45–49, thus assisted the community to face the disorienting reality of exile and also to affirm that hope was still possible. The old words (Pss. 45–49) can still have meaning; but they must be heard in a new context—a context that includes an awareness of the reality of exile and dispersion (Pss. 42–44).32
What happens, then, in the new context of the Exile is that Yahweh’s kingship was understood as distinct from the experience of human kingship, which had been lost. God’s kingdom was not synonymous with the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. His kingdom continued as present and future hope even though the human kingdom had collapsed.
This new context necessitated a reinterpretation of the divine promises to David and his descendants. What was one to make of the covenant that affirmed an “eternal throne” for the Davidic dynasty when that dynasty was already deposed and swallowed up in exilic Diaspora? The response of exilic Israel/Judah was primarily to push those hopes into the future. In a move we now call messianism, the Diaspora community, taking hold on one of the titles associated with divine authorization of the kings, began to look for a Messiah, a future descendant of David, who would reestablish an earthly kingdom that would never fail.
These hopes for a future “Anointed One” affected the way the psalms of kingship were read and understood. References to ancient kings in a now defunct kingdom were resignified to speak of a future one who would come to accomplish what all those former rulers had been unable to do: to fulfill the expectations of God and lead his people rightly in the paths of Yahweh. His kingship, supported by God, would never fail. A recent monograph by Christoph Rösel33 argues persuasively that these future hopes for the “Messiah” stand behind the shaping of the early collection of Psalms 2–89.
In these psalms it seems clear that the hopes of the exiled people was for an ultimate reestablishment of the Davidic dynasty. This is cogently argued in the royal psalms that stand at the seams of this combined collection of the first three books (Pss. 2; 72; 89).34 These three psalms provide an interpretive shape to the combined collection that recalls the divine covenant with David (Ps. 2) with its continued benefits and responsibilities for his royal descendants (Ps. 72) and concludes with an anguished plea to Yahweh for the restoration of the monarchy that has collapsed in the Exile (Ps. 89). In the context of the Exile, then, these royal psalms were reinterpreted as expressions of a hopeful future in which God’s anointed king would once again rule over an eternal kingdom.
The messianic development of the Psalter does not stop here, however, but takes one additional step: the shifting of hopes for kingly rule to Yahweh himself. This final move associated with the final form of the Psalter is most evident as we move across the boundary separating the early collection of Books 1–3 and enter the later terrain of the last two books (Pss. 90–150). These two segments of the Psalter (Pss. 2–89 and 90–150) use contrasting techniques of editorial arrangement and give evidence of the earmarks of independent circulation.35 The latter two books were added to the first three as a sort of response to the plea for restoration of the kingdom in Psalm 89—a response that immediately points the way to the collection of Yahweh malak psalms at the heart of Book 4.36 The result is to direct the exilic reader away from hope for the reestablishment of the human Davidic kingship to the rule of Yahweh himself.
This apparent thematic shift is confirmed by a particularly interesting distribution of significant vocabulary relating to kingship. In the first three books, the Hebrew word melek (“king”) is used in four ways: (1) for kings or kingship in the most general and abstract sense; (2) for the kings of the foreign nations; (3) for the kings of Israel and Judah; and (4) finally for Yahweh himself as king. But when we study the last two books, we discover an interesting change. While melek is used as before to describe kingship in general, foreign kings, and Yahweh as king, its use in relation to the kings of Israel/Judah is entirely lacking! This can be no accident but must reflect a changing understanding of kingship among those who appended this final segment to the growing Psalter collection.
Alongside this striking change in the use of melek, two other terms applied in the first three books to the human kings of Israel/Judah—ʿebed (“servant”) and mešiaḥ (“anointed one, messiah”)—continue unabated into the last two books. The effect of these phenomena is to distance the Davidic kings from rulership associated with melek while emphasizing that Yahweh himself is the eternal melek of the faithful. At the same time the role of eschatological Messiah (mašiaḥ) and Servant (ʿebed) who ushers in the kingdom and reign of Yahweh is emphasized.37
What we see, then, is a two-stage reinterpretation of royal psalms such as Psalm 45 in the final form of the Psalter: a first stage reflected in Psalms 2–89, in which hopes for the reestablishment of the Davidic monarchy are pushed into an eschatological future, and a second stage reflected in the final form of the Psalter, in which the descendant of David is understood as the “anointed servant” who ushers in the direct rule of Yahweh himself.
Contemporary Significance
HOW ARE WE in the twenty-first century to interpret and apply this alien psalm celebrating the marriage of a Davidic king millennia ago in a kingdom that no longer exists? There are two ways this ancient psalm can still have impact on Christians today.
Historical insight. Historically, the monarchy was an important part of Israel’s experience of themselves and of God. The kings, and especially David, provided continuity and unity that gave expression in the real world to the divine promise to make Abraham a great nation and to give them a land. To gain insight into such an important and formative historical phenomenon is no mean feat and ought to be welcomed. Psalm 45, with its open window on the marriage of the king, gives us just such an opportunity of insight. Among the historical insights offered, I will select just three.
The intrusion of God. It is impressive just how much God is a part of this moment of public ceremony. Both king and princess, bridegroom and bride, are called to remember that God is the source and continuing support of their honored election. While history is clear that kings and queens often forgot God in their efforts to control and manipulate circumstances to their benefit or that of their offspring, at this moment of high ceremony God was called to mind as author and finisher of the monarchical faith.
Dynastic concern. Behind the pomp and circumstance of marriage joy, behind the language of religious fervor or romantic relationship, the concern with dynastic succession always lurks close by. The prominent place afforded this dynastic concern emphasizes the importance of children for the continuation of the royal line. This concern continues in a way the similar concern of the patriarchs and their barren wives for children to fulfill the divine promise of a multitude of descendants and a great nation. God’s promise to David of an eternal throne necessitated a continual sequence of male heirs to take their seat. For dynastic memory to be perpetuated “through all generations” (45:17) required future Davidic kings.
The expectation of integrity and justice. This poem for the marriage ceremony of the king contains expectations and exhortations for justice and equitable rule. We do not read here only a joyous celebration of romantic love. The marriage also presented an opportunity for the king and his bride to commit themselves to the important aspects of royal rule: justice, equity, truth, humility, righteousness as the foundation of the continuing dynasty, even more than splendor, majesty, excellence, and grace.
Historically, then, this passage can help us to evaluate similar moments of political celebration. Is God a vital part of what is done? Is he really the author and finisher of our public and political endeavors? How would an awareness of his presence and expectation change the way we do business? Insofar as our governments and political figures are not theocracies or servants of God (as Israel and the kings of Israel were considered), what might that say about our reliance on them? How might we honor them without mindless trust? How can we hold them accountable without unrealistic expectations? Where is the appropriate measuring stick of equity and justice for our leaders?
Eschatological anticipation. As we have seen, when the extended exile began to render the monarchical themes and hopes of Psalm 45 obscure and even obsolete, the Diaspora community found new meaning in the eschatological reinterpretation of the kingly imagery of this psalm and others. The ambiguous statement in 45:6, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever,” seems to equate the bridegroom king with God himself. It is true that this verse may be a later insertion, intended to balance the preceding celebration of the king’s majesty, splendor, and victorious might with a more humble acknowledgment that Yahweh alone represents the true and eternal king. It may reflect back to the affirmation in 44:4 that “you are my King and my God.” Nevertheless, the presence of this ambiguous statement in Psalm 45 allows the possibility that the king, who appears here to be called “God,” is in fact being understood as the anointed one who is to come—the Messiah, who will usher in God’s kingdom. If so, then the marriage ceremony may well already be understood as between Messiah and the people of God, as in the later understanding of this psalm.
Surely we are now free to understand that the hopes and expectations that Israel pinned on the monarchy and the Davidic kings were ultimately carried to completion and fulfillment in the work and person of Jesus, the Messiah. What the human kings were unable to accomplish because of their moral, ethical, or physical failings, Jesus picked up and righteously completed. Thus, it is appropriate to understand the hopes and expectations expressed here as having their fulfillment in Christ’s work. He is “the most excellent of men,” the one whom God has blessed forever (45:2). He rides “forth victoriously in behalf of truth, humility and righteousness” (45:4). God will perpetuate his memory “through all generations” (45:17).
While these are not rightly prophetic predictions of Jesus, they are true words directed toward his fulfillment of the kingly role envisioned in this ancient, historical psalm. Thus, we can celebrate along with our ancient Judahite brothers and sisters the glory, majesty, splendor, and victory of God’s king.
Original Meaning
The Introduction (45:1)
THE PSALM OPENS with the psalmist’s declared purpose to write verses “for” (or perhaps “about” or “concerning”) the king. His heart has been “stirred” by a “good word/thing”—perhaps an indication of a poet’s sense of being inspired to write pleasing poetry.7 He pictures a moment of recitation of the finished work before the king. The idea of poetic inspiration is carried on into the description of his “tongue” as “the pen of a skillful writer.” This phrase brings together the written and oral elements of poetry in the ancient world. While poems may have been composed with pen, they were created for public vocal performance. Perhaps the king is the poet’s patron, who has commissioned this poem for his wedding day.
Bridging Contexts
PSALM 45 EXHIBITS such a narrowly restricted “setting in life”—the wedding ceremony of a human king of Israel or Judah—that it raises in a radical way the question of how this kind of psalm could continue to function fruitfully in the later Diaspora community among exiles who had little or no hope that the Davidic kingship would ever be resumed. How could a psalm that focused on a ceremony that had not been enacted for hundreds of years still speak meaningfully to those for whom a royal wedding could have been only a nostalgic memory of times long past? Surely such a culturally and temporally conditioned poem could only continue to have power if its words and images were reinterpreted in ways that linked with the needs and hopes of the contemporary society. What evidence is there that Psalm 45 (and other psalms in the canonical Psalter, for that matter) was subjected to such a reinterpretive reading?
J. Clinton McCann shows how such a rereading of older psalms took place.
These psalms can continue to be expressions of hope and confidence; however, the expressions of hope become two-edged when they occur immediately following Pss. 42–44; that is to say, the traditional hope embodied in the royal psalms, Zion songs and enthronement songs is modified and reoriented by the literary context. In order to survive the crisis of exile and dispersion, Israel had to profess that God was, in some sense, still its “refuge and strength” (Ps. 46:2), its “secure height” (Ps. 46:8, 11; 48:4), and “a great king over all the earth” (Ps. 47:3); however, such professions had to be understood differently when Israel spoke them no longer from the secure height of Zion but rather from a position of having been “cast off” (Pss. 43:2; 44:10) and “scattered . . . among the nations” (Ps. 44:12). The arrangement of the Korah psalms, in which Pss. 42–44 introduce Pss. 45–49, thus assisted the community to face the disorienting reality of exile and also to affirm that hope was still possible. The old words (Pss. 45–49) can still have meaning; but they must be heard in a new context—a context that includes an awareness of the reality of exile and dispersion (Pss. 42–44).32
What happens, then, in the new context of the Exile is that Yahweh’s kingship was understood as distinct from the experience of human kingship, which had been lost. God’s kingdom was not synonymous with the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. His kingdom continued as present and future hope even though the human kingdom had collapsed.
This new context necessitated a reinterpretation of the divine promises to David and his descendants. What was one to make of the covenant that affirmed an “eternal throne” for the Davidic dynasty when that dynasty was already deposed and swallowed up in exilic Diaspora? The response of exilic Israel/Judah was primarily to push those hopes into the future. In a move we now call messianism, the Diaspora community, taking hold on one of the titles associated with divine authorization of the kings, began to look for a Messiah, a future descendant of David, who would reestablish an earthly kingdom that would never fail.
These hopes for a future “Anointed One” affected the way the psalms of kingship were read and understood. References to ancient kings in a now defunct kingdom were resignified to speak of a future one who would come to accomplish what all those former rulers had been unable to do: to fulfill the expectations of God and lead his people rightly in the paths of Yahweh. His kingship, supported by God, would never fail. A recent monograph by Christoph Rösel33 argues persuasively that these future hopes for the “Messiah” stand behind the shaping of the early collection of Psalms 2–89.
In these psalms it seems clear that the hopes of the exiled people was for an ultimate reestablishment of the Davidic dynasty. This is cogently argued in the royal psalms that stand at the seams of this combined collection of the first three books (Pss. 2; 72; 89).34 These three psalms provide an interpretive shape to the combined collection that recalls the divine covenant with David (Ps. 2) with its continued benefits and responsibilities for his royal descendants (Ps. 72) and concludes with an anguished plea to Yahweh for the restoration of the monarchy that has collapsed in the Exile (Ps. 89). In the context of the Exile, then, these royal psalms were reinterpreted as expressions of a hopeful future in which God’s anointed king would once again rule over an eternal kingdom.
The messianic development of the Psalter does not stop here, however, but takes one additional step: the shifting of hopes for kingly rule to Yahweh himself. This final move associated with the final form of the Psalter is most evident as we move across the boundary separating the early collection of Books 1–3 and enter the later terrain of the last two books (Pss. 90–150). These two segments of the Psalter (Pss. 2–89 and 90–150) use contrasting techniques of editorial arrangement and give evidence of the earmarks of independent circulation.35 The latter two books were added to the first three as a sort of response to the plea for restoration of the kingdom in Psalm 89—a response that immediately points the way to the collection of Yahweh malak psalms at the heart of Book 4.36 The result is to direct the exilic reader away from hope for the reestablishment of the human Davidic kingship to the rule of Yahweh himself.
This apparent thematic shift is confirmed by a particularly interesting distribution of significant vocabulary relating to kingship. In the first three books, the Hebrew word melek (“king”) is used in four ways: (1) for kings or kingship in the most general and abstract sense; (2) for the kings of the foreign nations; (3) for the kings of Israel and Judah; and (4) finally for Yahweh himself as king. But when we study the last two books, we discover an interesting change. While melek is used as before to describe kingship in general, foreign kings, and Yahweh as king, its use in relation to the kings of Israel/Judah is entirely lacking! This can be no accident but must reflect a changing understanding of kingship among those who appended this final segment to the growing Psalter collection.
Alongside this striking change in the use of melek, two other terms applied in the first three books to the human kings of Israel/Judah—ʿebed (“servant”) and mešiaḥ (“anointed one, messiah”)—continue unabated into the last two books. The effect of these phenomena is to distance the Davidic kings from rulership associated with melek while emphasizing that Yahweh himself is the eternal melek of the faithful. At the same time the role of eschatological Messiah (mašiaḥ) and Servant (ʿebed) who ushers in the kingdom and reign of Yahweh is emphasized.37
What we see, then, is a two-stage reinterpretation of royal psalms such as Psalm 45 in the final form of the Psalter: a first stage reflected in Psalms 2–89, in which hopes for the reestablishment of the Davidic monarchy are pushed into an eschatological future, and a second stage reflected in the final form of the Psalter, in which the descendant of David is understood as the “anointed servant” who ushers in the direct rule of Yahweh himself.
Contemporary Significance
HOW ARE WE in the twenty-first century to interpret and apply this alien psalm celebrating the marriage of a Davidic king millennia ago in a kingdom that no longer exists? There are two ways this ancient psalm can still have impact on Christians today.
Historical insight. Historically, the monarchy was an important part of Israel’s experience of themselves and of God. The kings, and especially David, provided continuity and unity that gave expression in the real world to the divine promise to make Abraham a great nation and to give them a land. To gain insight into such an important and formative historical phenomenon is no mean feat and ought to be welcomed. Psalm 45, with its open window on the marriage of the king, gives us just such an opportunity of insight. Among the historical insights offered, I will select just three.
The intrusion of God. It is impressive just how much God is a part of this moment of public ceremony. Both king and princess, bridegroom and bride, are called to remember that God is the source and continuing support of their honored election. While history is clear that kings and queens often forgot God in their efforts to control and manipulate circumstances to their benefit or that of their offspring, at this moment of high ceremony God was called to mind as author and finisher of the monarchical faith.
Dynastic concern. Behind the pomp and circumstance of marriage joy, behind the language of religious fervor or romantic relationship, the concern with dynastic succession always lurks close by. The prominent place afforded this dynastic concern emphasizes the importance of children for the continuation of the royal line. This concern continues in a way the similar concern of the patriarchs and their barren wives for children to fulfill the divine promise of a multitude of descendants and a great nation. God’s promise to David of an eternal throne necessitated a continual sequence of male heirs to take their seat. For dynastic memory to be perpetuated “through all generations” (45:17) required future Davidic kings.
The expectation of integrity and justice. This poem for the marriage ceremony of the king contains expectations and exhortations for justice and equitable rule. We do not read here only a joyous celebration of romantic love. The marriage also presented an opportunity for the king and his bride to commit themselves to the important aspects of royal rule: justice, equity, truth, humility, righteousness as the foundation of the continuing dynasty, even more than splendor, majesty, excellence, and grace.
Historically, then, this passage can help us to evaluate similar moments of political celebration. Is God a vital part of what is done? Is he really the author and finisher of our public and political endeavors? How would an awareness of his presence and expectation change the way we do business? Insofar as our governments and political figures are not theocracies or servants of God (as Israel and the kings of Israel were considered), what might that say about our reliance on them? How might we honor them without mindless trust? How can we hold them accountable without unrealistic expectations? Where is the appropriate measuring stick of equity and justice for our leaders?
Eschatological anticipation. As we have seen, when the extended exile began to render the monarchical themes and hopes of Psalm 45 obscure and even obsolete, the Diaspora community found new meaning in the eschatological reinterpretation of the kingly imagery of this psalm and others. The ambiguous statement in 45:6, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever,” seems to equate the bridegroom king with God himself. It is true that this verse may be a later insertion, intended to balance the preceding celebration of the king’s majesty, splendor, and victorious might with a more humble acknowledgment that Yahweh alone represents the true and eternal king. It may reflect back to the affirmation in 44:4 that “you are my King and my God.” Nevertheless, the presence of this ambiguous statement in Psalm 45 allows the possibility that the king, who appears here to be called “God,” is in fact being understood as the anointed one who is to come—the Messiah, who will usher in God’s kingdom. If so, then the marriage ceremony may well already be understood as between Messiah and the people of God, as in the later understanding of this psalm.
Surely we are now free to understand that the hopes and expectations that Israel pinned on the monarchy and the Davidic kings were ultimately carried to completion and fulfillment in the work and person of Jesus, the Messiah. What the human kings were unable to accomplish because of their moral, ethical, or physical failings, Jesus picked up and righteously completed. Thus, it is appropriate to understand the hopes and expectations expressed here as having their fulfillment in Christ’s work. He is “the most excellent of men,” the one whom God has blessed forever (45:2). He rides “forth victoriously in behalf of truth, humility and righteousness” (45:4). God will perpetuate his memory “through all generations” (45:17).
While these are not rightly prophetic predictions of Jesus, they are true words directed toward his fulfillment of the kingly role envisioned in this ancient, historical psalm. Thus, we can celebrate along with our ancient Judahite brothers and sisters the glory, majesty, splendor, and victory of God’s king.
Original Meaning
In Praise of the King (45:2–9)
THE PSALMIST’S INSPIRED “good word” begins with an extended section both praising the king and encouraging him to exercise his majestic power and splendor in the service of “truth, humility and righteousness” (45:4). The anticipated result of this display of kingly power is the defeat of his enemies (45:5) and the establishment of an eternal kingdom of justice and peace (45:6). The major portion of the description is bound at beginning and end by verses that proclaim the king’s excellence over other humans (45:2, 7). His elevated character is related to a special divine “anointing” (45:2, 7)8 and “blessing” (45:2).9 In a dry and dusty land such as Israel, the pouring of oil on the lips and fragrant oil on the head would be means of attending to the needs and pleasures of an honored guest.10 Here the king’s lips have “grace” poured out upon them—probably an artful reference to a gifted ability for graceful speech.11
The most excellent of men. The king is praised as “most excellent” of the bene ʾadam (“human beings”; lit., “sons of man”).12 The basis of his exceptional excellence is not character or deeds but “beauty” of physical appearance, as the Hebrew verb yph indicates.
Gird your sword upon your side. The call to militant action against the king’s enemies that begins here and continues to its resolution in 45:6 is at first glance directed to the king, who is expected to conquer. This is indeed the understanding of most commentators and may well be the correct one. One feature of these four verses, however, raises the question whether in fact God might be the one called to action here. In a literal reading of verse 6, it is explicitly God’s throne that is established and his kingdom over which a “scepter of justice” will rule. God is referred to in this verse with the same second-person singular pronouns “you” as appear in the preceding verses 3–5. The language in those verses is similar to that applied elsewhere to God in his militant role of protector of his people and of his covenant.
Thus, while it is clear in 45:2 that God blesses the king and in 45:7 that God sets the king above his companions, the situation is much less clear in the intervening verses. In a strange way, the militant language of royal majesty that would naturally be associated with the human king following verse 2 bleeds over into the kingly power of God to defeat the king’s enemies. This may well reflect the cultural confusion that often existed in Israel between the acts of the king and the acts of God. Or, alternatively, it may be a later, postexilic shifting of expectations for human rulers to the divine king, Yahweh, in light of the failure of the Davidic monarchy in the Exile. Such elements of ambiguity allow passages like this one to be exploited messianically. Note how 45:6–7 is referred to Jesus in a messianic sense in Hebrews 1:8–9.
Clothe yourself with splendor and majesty. In another link to Psalm 21, the same words used in 21:5 to describe the divinely bestowed gifts of “splendor” (hod) and “majesty” (hadar) given to the king are used in 45:3 to picture the garments in which the king is to clothe himself as he departs for battle with the enemy. In the former passage, God grants the king “victory” and bestows “splendor and majesty.” Here the king is to put on “splendor and majesty” and to “ride forth victoriously.”13
Truth, humility, and righteousness. The power and majesty of human kingship in Israel was to be harnessed to the purposes of Yahweh. These three goals of the king’s militant action against the enemy are not, perhaps, what one might immediately expect in reference to the king’s victory. They represent a distinctive shaping of Israel’s understanding of what is important—indeed essential—in life before Yahweh. “Truth” (debar ʾemet; lit., “word of truth”) has more the sense of “enduring reliability, firmness” than simple accuracy.14 The king’s lips have earlier been “anointed with grace” (45:2), and here he is expected to pursue “a word of truth.”
“Humility” (ʿanwah) is the true knowledge of one’s appropriate status before God. When Isaiah comes into the presence of God (Isa. 6:1–9), he prostrates himself as a sinner before holy Yahweh. When Jacob realizes he has been in the presence of God unawares, he consecrates an altar at Bethel (Gen. 28:16–17). This sort of recognition of one’s humble stature before God (cf. Ps. 8) is not abject groveling but is akin to the requisite attitude of “fear of the LORD” that describes Israel’s understanding of a proper relationship to God. This is not “terror” but a recognition of one’s dependence on the gracious mercy of Yahweh. Similarly, humility means recognizing Yahweh’s infinitely exalted majesty above all human pretensions to pomp and status. This is an important counterpoint to the previous descriptions of the king’s power, splendor, and majesty (45:3).15
“Righteousness” (ṣedeq), like the previous two terms, describes an important relationship to the exercise of kingship in Israel. A legal term, ṣedeq describes the status of having fulfilled all expectations in a particular matter under scrutiny.
These three characteristics—“enduring reliability” (ʾemet), “acceptance of one’s true status before God” (ʿanwah), and “complete performance of one’s obligations” (ṣedeq)—are important counterbalances to the ancient view of kings and kingship as capricious, prideful, and autocratic in the exercise of power.
Display . . . pierce . . . fall. The psalmist expresses three hopeful wishes for the success of the king’s campaign against his enemies. He desires the king’s “right hand” to “display awesome deeds.”16 Also, he hopes the king’s “sharpened arrows” will find their way into the hearts of his enemies.17 Finally, “nations” will fall under his feet.18 It is the psalmist’s expectation that these “awesome deeds” will result in the establishment of God’s eternal “kingdom.”
Your throne, O God. The introduction of the word “God” (ʾelohim) into the psalm at this point is rather unexpected. In the string of second-person singular pronominal references beginning at 45:2 and continuing to this point, the human king would seem to be in view. The direct address of God forces us to reflect back on the previous verses and consider whether the militant language in 45:3–5 in fact refers to God’s actions in behalf of the king. Alternatively, it has be suggested that ʾelohim is here an epithet intended to describe the king’s status as divinely authorized ruler.19
You love righteousness. It is clearly the king in 45:7 who loves righteousness and hates wickedness. The rather awkward juxtaposition of “God, your God” is characteristic of the Elohistic Psalter, where the frequent absence of the divine name Yahweh leads to some awkward redundancies (presumably the first ʾelohim replaces what at one time was yhwh).
With its references to anointing—in this case, with the “oil of joy”20—and the exaltation of the king above his “companions,” verse 7 serves as a fitting balance to verse 2, where similar concerns began this section. Here the exaltation of the king is linked to his attitude toward righteousness and wickedness: He loves the one and hates the other. Righteousness (ṣedeq) and wickedness (rešaʿ ) describe contrasting courses of action. Unlike “good” (ṭob) and “evil” (raʿ ), which refer to abstract concepts, ṣedeq and rešaʿ are legal terms that describe proper and improper conduct in a particular case.21
Robes . . . palaces . . . music. Verses 8–9 highlight the rich garments, opulent surroundings, festive music, and prestigious company gathered for the wedding ceremony of the king. Myrrh, aloes, and cassia are all aromatic preparations from resin, wood, and dried flowers respectively. Ivory palaces (i.e., adorned with carved ivory panels)22 provide a rich setting while stringed instruments (cf. 150:4) play background music.
Daughters of kings. The daughters of kings often played an important political role in the ancient Near East by cementing relationships between nations through marriage. Solomon was known for such arrangements and even married Pharaoh’s daughter as part of an alliance with Egypt (1 Kings 3:1; 9:16). The traditional translation “royal bride/queen” (šegel) is perhaps more elevated than the root of this word indicates. The verb šgl has strong implications of sexual intercourse and was considered so obscene to the Masoretes—who transmitted the text of the Old Testament and provided the system of vowels to fix its meaning—that they regularly substituted the less offensive škb (“lie with”) as a marginal note (cf. BHS at Deut. 28:30; Isa. 13:16). As a result, Holladay suggests the alternate translation “favorite of [the] harem.”23
Gold of Ophir. The royal bride is adorned with opulence. Gold of Ophir was a rare commodity (Isa. 13:12), imported into Israel by ships that sailed from Ezion Geber, a port at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqabah (1 Kings 9:26–28; 22:48), to a destination variously conjectured to be India, Africa, the Arabian peninsula, or even South America.24 Gold of Ophir came to be the standard for gold of purity and quality. Most likely the bride’s gold ornamentation consisted of rings, bracelets, arm bands, necklaces, earrings, and a crown.
Bridging Contexts
PSALM 45 EXHIBITS such a narrowly restricted “setting in life”—the wedding ceremony of a human king of Israel or Judah—that it raises in a radical way the question of how this kind of psalm could continue to function fruitfully in the later Diaspora community among exiles who had little or no hope that the Davidic kingship would ever be resumed. How could a psalm that focused on a ceremony that had not been enacted for hundreds of years still speak meaningfully to those for whom a royal wedding could have been only a nostalgic memory of times long past? Surely such a culturally and temporally conditioned poem could only continue to have power if its words and images were reinterpreted in ways that linked with the needs and hopes of the contemporary society. What evidence is there that Psalm 45 (and other psalms in the canonical Psalter, for that matter) was subjected to such a reinterpretive reading?
J. Clinton McCann shows how such a rereading of older psalms took place.
These psalms can continue to be expressions of hope and confidence; however, the expressions of hope become two-edged when they occur immediately following Pss. 42–44; that is to say, the traditional hope embodied in the royal psalms, Zion songs and enthronement songs is modified and reoriented by the literary context. In order to survive the crisis of exile and dispersion, Israel had to profess that God was, in some sense, still its “refuge and strength” (Ps. 46:2), its “secure height” (Ps. 46:8, 11; 48:4), and “a great king over all the earth” (Ps. 47:3); however, such professions had to be understood differently when Israel spoke them no longer from the secure height of Zion but rather from a position of having been “cast off” (Pss. 43:2; 44:10) and “scattered . . . among the nations” (Ps. 44:12). The arrangement of the Korah psalms, in which Pss. 42–44 introduce Pss. 45–49, thus assisted the community to face the disorienting reality of exile and also to affirm that hope was still possible. The old words (Pss. 45–49) can still have meaning; but they must be heard in a new context—a context that includes an awareness of the reality of exile and dispersion (Pss. 42–44).32
What happens, then, in the new context of the Exile is that Yahweh’s kingship was understood as distinct from the experience of human kingship, which had been lost. God’s kingdom was not synonymous with the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. His kingdom continued as present and future hope even though the human kingdom had collapsed.
This new context necessitated a reinterpretation of the divine promises to David and his descendants. What was one to make of the covenant that affirmed an “eternal throne” for the Davidic dynasty when that dynasty was already deposed and swallowed up in exilic Diaspora? The response of exilic Israel/Judah was primarily to push those hopes into the future. In a move we now call messianism, the Diaspora community, taking hold on one of the titles associated with divine authorization of the kings, began to look for a Messiah, a future descendant of David, who would reestablish an earthly kingdom that would never fail.
These hopes for a future “Anointed One” affected the way the psalms of kingship were read and understood. References to ancient kings in a now defunct kingdom were resignified to speak of a future one who would come to accomplish what all those former rulers had been unable to do: to fulfill the expectations of God and lead his people rightly in the paths of Yahweh. His kingship, supported by God, would never fail. A recent monograph by Christoph Rösel33 argues persuasively that these future hopes for the “Messiah” stand behind the shaping of the early collection of Psalms 2–89.
In these psalms it seems clear that the hopes of the exiled people was for an ultimate reestablishment of the Davidic dynasty. This is cogently argued in the royal psalms that stand at the seams of this combined collection of the first three books (Pss. 2; 72; 89).34 These three psalms provide an interpretive shape to the combined collection that recalls the divine covenant with David (Ps. 2) with its continued benefits and responsibilities for his royal descendants (Ps. 72) and concludes with an anguished plea to Yahweh for the restoration of the monarchy that has collapsed in the Exile (Ps. 89). In the context of the Exile, then, these royal psalms were reinterpreted as expressions of a hopeful future in which God’s anointed king would once again rule over an eternal kingdom.
The messianic development of the Psalter does not stop here, however, but takes one additional step: the shifting of hopes for kingly rule to Yahweh himself. This final move associated with the final form of the Psalter is most evident as we move across the boundary separating the early collection of Books 1–3 and enter the later terrain of the last two books (Pss. 90–150). These two segments of the Psalter (Pss. 2–89 and 90–150) use contrasting techniques of editorial arrangement and give evidence of the earmarks of independent circulation.35 The latter two books were added to the first three as a sort of response to the plea for restoration of the kingdom in Psalm 89—a response that immediately points the way to the collection of Yahweh malak psalms at the heart of Book 4.36 The result is to direct the exilic reader away from hope for the reestablishment of the human Davidic kingship to the rule of Yahweh himself.
This apparent thematic shift is confirmed by a particularly interesting distribution of significant vocabulary relating to kingship. In the first three books, the Hebrew word melek (“king”) is used in four ways: (1) for kings or kingship in the most general and abstract sense; (2) for the kings of the foreign nations; (3) for the kings of Israel and Judah; and (4) finally for Yahweh himself as king. But when we study the last two books, we discover an interesting change. While melek is used as before to describe kingship in general, foreign kings, and Yahweh as king, its use in relation to the kings of Israel/Judah is entirely lacking! This can be no accident but must reflect a changing understanding of kingship among those who appended this final segment to the growing Psalter collection.
Alongside this striking change in the use of melek, two other terms applied in the first three books to the human kings of Israel/Judah—ʿebed (“servant”) and mešiaḥ (“anointed one, messiah”)—continue unabated into the last two books. The effect of these phenomena is to distance the Davidic kings from rulership associated with melek while emphasizing that Yahweh himself is the eternal melek of the faithful. At the same time the role of eschatological Messiah (mašiaḥ) and Servant (ʿebed) who ushers in the kingdom and reign of Yahweh is emphasized.37
What we see, then, is a two-stage reinterpretation of royal psalms such as Psalm 45 in the final form of the Psalter: a first stage reflected in Psalms 2–89, in which hopes for the reestablishment of the Davidic monarchy are pushed into an eschatological future, and a second stage reflected in the final form of the Psalter, in which the descendant of David is understood as the “anointed servant” who ushers in the direct rule of Yahweh himself.
Contemporary Significance
HOW ARE WE in the twenty-first century to interpret and apply this alien psalm celebrating the marriage of a Davidic king millennia ago in a kingdom that no longer exists? There are two ways this ancient psalm can still have impact on Christians today.
Historical insight. Historically, the monarchy was an important part of Israel’s experience of themselves and of God. The kings, and especially David, provided continuity and unity that gave expression in the real world to the divine promise to make Abraham a great nation and to give them a land. To gain insight into such an important and formative historical phenomenon is no mean feat and ought to be welcomed. Psalm 45, with its open window on the marriage of the king, gives us just such an opportunity of insight. Among the historical insights offered, I will select just three.
The intrusion of God. It is impressive just how much God is a part of this moment of public ceremony. Both king and princess, bridegroom and bride, are called to remember that God is the source and continuing support of their honored election. While history is clear that kings and queens often forgot God in their efforts to control and manipulate circumstances to their benefit or that of their offspring, at this moment of high ceremony God was called to mind as author and finisher of the monarchical faith.
Dynastic concern. Behind the pomp and circumstance of marriage joy, behind the language of religious fervor or romantic relationship, the concern with dynastic succession always lurks close by. The prominent place afforded this dynastic concern emphasizes the importance of children for the continuation of the royal line. This concern continues in a way the similar concern of the patriarchs and their barren wives for children to fulfill the divine promise of a multitude of descendants and a great nation. God’s promise to David of an eternal throne necessitated a continual sequence of male heirs to take their seat. For dynastic memory to be perpetuated “through all generations” (45:17) required future Davidic kings.
The expectation of integrity and justice. This poem for the marriage ceremony of the king contains expectations and exhortations for justice and equitable rule. We do not read here only a joyous celebration of romantic love. The marriage also presented an opportunity for the king and his bride to commit themselves to the important aspects of royal rule: justice, equity, truth, humility, righteousness as the foundation of the continuing dynasty, even more than splendor, majesty, excellence, and grace.
Historically, then, this passage can help us to evaluate similar moments of political celebration. Is God a vital part of what is done? Is he really the author and finisher of our public and political endeavors? How would an awareness of his presence and expectation change the way we do business? Insofar as our governments and political figures are not theocracies or servants of God (as Israel and the kings of Israel were considered), what might that say about our reliance on them? How might we honor them without mindless trust? How can we hold them accountable without unrealistic expectations? Where is the appropriate measuring stick of equity and justice for our leaders?
Eschatological anticipation. As we have seen, when the extended exile began to render the monarchical themes and hopes of Psalm 45 obscure and even obsolete, the Diaspora community found new meaning in the eschatological reinterpretation of the kingly imagery of this psalm and others. The ambiguous statement in 45:6, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever,” seems to equate the bridegroom king with God himself. It is true that this verse may be a later insertion, intended to balance the preceding celebration of the king’s majesty, splendor, and victorious might with a more humble acknowledgment that Yahweh alone represents the true and eternal king. It may reflect back to the affirmation in 44:4 that “you are my King and my God.” Nevertheless, the presence of this ambiguous statement in Psalm 45 allows the possibility that the king, who appears here to be called “God,” is in fact being understood as the anointed one who is to come—the Messiah, who will usher in God’s kingdom. If so, then the marriage ceremony may well already be understood as between Messiah and the people of God, as in the later understanding of this psalm.
Surely we are now free to understand that the hopes and expectations that Israel pinned on the monarchy and the Davidic kings were ultimately carried to completion and fulfillment in the work and person of Jesus, the Messiah. What the human kings were unable to accomplish because of their moral, ethical, or physical failings, Jesus picked up and righteously completed. Thus, it is appropriate to understand the hopes and expectations expressed here as having their fulfillment in Christ’s work. He is “the most excellent of men,” the one whom God has blessed forever (45:2). He rides “forth victoriously in behalf of truth, humility and righteousness” (45:4). God will perpetuate his memory “through all generations” (45:17).
While these are not rightly prophetic predictions of Jesus, they are true words directed toward his fulfillment of the kingly role envisioned in this ancient, historical psalm. Thus, we can celebrate along with our ancient Judahite brothers and sisters the glory, majesty, splendor, and victory of God’s king.
Original Meaning
In Praise of the Bride (45:10–15)
THE DIRECT ADDRESS of the psalm now shifts to the bride, who is depicted as a “daughter” forsaking her people and the house of her father to assume her role as wife to the king. Again, if this is a marriage to a foreign princess, then the image is an accurate one of the daughter who lived at far remove from family and national culture as part of a political marriage.
The impending marital relationship depicted in a few words is instructive. The king “craves”25 the bride’s “beauty,” while the bride is counseled to “worship” (ḥwh) the king because he is her “lord.” This rather one-sided relationship is consistent with what is known of the ancient Near East during this period and would be even less remarkable if Holladay’s suggestion that šegel means “favorite of the harem.”26
Further encouragement is offered the future bride, in that her new status will command respect from visiting dignitaries, bringing gifts.27 She will move in the upper echelons of society and will receive the flattering attentions of the wealthy.
The rich and glorious attire of the bride (here called bat melek [“daughter of the king”]; NIV “princess”) is recounted. Clothed in rich brocades interwoven with gold and in embroidered cloth,28 the bride “is led [ybl] to the king,” a verb that most often describes bringing something as a gift, sacrifice, tribute, or even booty.29 The bride’s companions are similarly “led” (ybl) to the palace of the king—probably to remain as the new wife’s attendants. This heightens the sense of a political arrangement rather than a marriage of equals or even a love match.
Bridging Contexts
PSALM 45 EXHIBITS such a narrowly restricted “setting in life”—the wedding ceremony of a human king of Israel or Judah—that it raises in a radical way the question of how this kind of psalm could continue to function fruitfully in the later Diaspora community among exiles who had little or no hope that the Davidic kingship would ever be resumed. How could a psalm that focused on a ceremony that had not been enacted for hundreds of years still speak meaningfully to those for whom a royal wedding could have been only a nostalgic memory of times long past? Surely such a culturally and temporally conditioned poem could only continue to have power if its words and images were reinterpreted in ways that linked with the needs and hopes of the contemporary society. What evidence is there that Psalm 45 (and other psalms in the canonical Psalter, for that matter) was subjected to such a reinterpretive reading?
J. Clinton McCann shows how such a rereading of older psalms took place.
These psalms can continue to be expressions of hope and confidence; however, the expressions of hope become two-edged when they occur immediately following Pss. 42–44; that is to say, the traditional hope embodied in the royal psalms, Zion songs and enthronement songs is modified and reoriented by the literary context. In order to survive the crisis of exile and dispersion, Israel had to profess that God was, in some sense, still its “refuge and strength” (Ps. 46:2), its “secure height” (Ps. 46:8, 11; 48:4), and “a great king over all the earth” (Ps. 47:3); however, such professions had to be understood differently when Israel spoke them no longer from the secure height of Zion but rather from a position of having been “cast off” (Pss. 43:2; 44:10) and “scattered . . . among the nations” (Ps. 44:12). The arrangement of the Korah psalms, in which Pss. 42–44 introduce Pss. 45–49, thus assisted the community to face the disorienting reality of exile and also to affirm that hope was still possible. The old words (Pss. 45–49) can still have meaning; but they must be heard in a new context—a context that includes an awareness of the reality of exile and dispersion (Pss. 42–44).32
What happens, then, in the new context of the Exile is that Yahweh’s kingship was understood as distinct from the experience of human kingship, which had been lost. God’s kingdom was not synonymous with the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. His kingdom continued as present and future hope even though the human kingdom had collapsed.
This new context necessitated a reinterpretation of the divine promises to David and his descendants. What was one to make of the covenant that affirmed an “eternal throne” for the Davidic dynasty when that dynasty was already deposed and swallowed up in exilic Diaspora? The response of exilic Israel/Judah was primarily to push those hopes into the future. In a move we now call messianism, the Diaspora community, taking hold on one of the titles associated with divine authorization of the kings, began to look for a Messiah, a future descendant of David, who would reestablish an earthly kingdom that would never fail.
These hopes for a future “Anointed One” affected the way the psalms of kingship were read and understood. References to ancient kings in a now defunct kingdom were resignified to speak of a future one who would come to accomplish what all those former rulers had been unable to do: to fulfill the expectations of God and lead his people rightly in the paths of Yahweh. His kingship, supported by God, would never fail. A recent monograph by Christoph Rösel33 argues persuasively that these future hopes for the “Messiah” stand behind the shaping of the early collection of Psalms 2–89.
In these psalms it seems clear that the hopes of the exiled people was for an ultimate reestablishment of the Davidic dynasty. This is cogently argued in the royal psalms that stand at the seams of this combined collection of the first three books (Pss. 2; 72; 89).34 These three psalms provide an interpretive shape to the combined collection that recalls the divine covenant with David (Ps. 2) with its continued benefits and responsibilities for his royal descendants (Ps. 72) and concludes with an anguished plea to Yahweh for the restoration of the monarchy that has collapsed in the Exile (Ps. 89). In the context of the Exile, then, these royal psalms were reinterpreted as expressions of a hopeful future in which God’s anointed king would once again rule over an eternal kingdom.
The messianic development of the Psalter does not stop here, however, but takes one additional step: the shifting of hopes for kingly rule to Yahweh himself. This final move associated with the final form of the Psalter is most evident as we move across the boundary separating the early collection of Books 1–3 and enter the later terrain of the last two books (Pss. 90–150). These two segments of the Psalter (Pss. 2–89 and 90–150) use contrasting techniques of editorial arrangement and give evidence of the earmarks of independent circulation.35 The latter two books were added to the first three as a sort of response to the plea for restoration of the kingdom in Psalm 89—a response that immediately points the way to the collection of Yahweh malak psalms at the heart of Book 4.36 The result is to direct the exilic reader away from hope for the reestablishment of the human Davidic kingship to the rule of Yahweh himself.
This apparent thematic shift is confirmed by a particularly interesting distribution of significant vocabulary relating to kingship. In the first three books, the Hebrew word melek (“king”) is used in four ways: (1) for kings or kingship in the most general and abstract sense; (2) for the kings of the foreign nations; (3) for the kings of Israel and Judah; and (4) finally for Yahweh himself as king. But when we study the last two books, we discover an interesting change. While melek is used as before to describe kingship in general, foreign kings, and Yahweh as king, its use in relation to the kings of Israel/Judah is entirely lacking! This can be no accident but must reflect a changing understanding of kingship among those who appended this final segment to the growing Psalter collection.
Alongside this striking change in the use of melek, two other terms applied in the first three books to the human kings of Israel/Judah—ʿebed (“servant”) and mešiaḥ (“anointed one, messiah”)—continue unabated into the last two books. The effect of these phenomena is to distance the Davidic kings from rulership associated with melek while emphasizing that Yahweh himself is the eternal melek of the faithful. At the same time the role of eschatological Messiah (mašiaḥ) and Servant (ʿebed) who ushers in the kingdom and reign of Yahweh is emphasized.37
What we see, then, is a two-stage reinterpretation of royal psalms such as Psalm 45 in the final form of the Psalter: a first stage reflected in Psalms 2–89, in which hopes for the reestablishment of the Davidic monarchy are pushed into an eschatological future, and a second stage reflected in the final form of the Psalter, in which the descendant of David is understood as the “anointed servant” who ushers in the direct rule of Yahweh himself.
Contemporary Significance
HOW ARE WE in the twenty-first century to interpret and apply this alien psalm celebrating the marriage of a Davidic king millennia ago in a kingdom that no longer exists? There are two ways this ancient psalm can still have impact on Christians today.
Historical insight. Historically, the monarchy was an important part of Israel’s experience of themselves and of God. The kings, and especially David, provided continuity and unity that gave expression in the real world to the divine promise to make Abraham a great nation and to give them a land. To gain insight into such an important and formative historical phenomenon is no mean feat and ought to be welcomed. Psalm 45, with its open window on the marriage of the king, gives us just such an opportunity of insight. Among the historical insights offered, I will select just three.
The intrusion of God. It is impressive just how much God is a part of this moment of public ceremony. Both king and princess, bridegroom and bride, are called to remember that God is the source and continuing support of their honored election. While history is clear that kings and queens often forgot God in their efforts to control and manipulate circumstances to their benefit or that of their offspring, at this moment of high ceremony God was called to mind as author and finisher of the monarchical faith.
Dynastic concern. Behind the pomp and circumstance of marriage joy, behind the language of religious fervor or romantic relationship, the concern with dynastic succession always lurks close by. The prominent place afforded this dynastic concern emphasizes the importance of children for the continuation of the royal line. This concern continues in a way the similar concern of the patriarchs and their barren wives for children to fulfill the divine promise of a multitude of descendants and a great nation. God’s promise to David of an eternal throne necessitated a continual sequence of male heirs to take their seat. For dynastic memory to be perpetuated “through all generations” (45:17) required future Davidic kings.
The expectation of integrity and justice. This poem for the marriage ceremony of the king contains expectations and exhortations for justice and equitable rule. We do not read here only a joyous celebration of romantic love. The marriage also presented an opportunity for the king and his bride to commit themselves to the important aspects of royal rule: justice, equity, truth, humility, righteousness as the foundation of the continuing dynasty, even more than splendor, majesty, excellence, and grace.
Historically, then, this passage can help us to evaluate similar moments of political celebration. Is God a vital part of what is done? Is he really the author and finisher of our public and political endeavors? How would an awareness of his presence and expectation change the way we do business? Insofar as our governments and political figures are not theocracies or servants of God (as Israel and the kings of Israel were considered), what might that say about our reliance on them? How might we honor them without mindless trust? How can we hold them accountable without unrealistic expectations? Where is the appropriate measuring stick of equity and justice for our leaders?
Eschatological anticipation. As we have seen, when the extended exile began to render the monarchical themes and hopes of Psalm 45 obscure and even obsolete, the Diaspora community found new meaning in the eschatological reinterpretation of the kingly imagery of this psalm and others. The ambiguous statement in 45:6, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever,” seems to equate the bridegroom king with God himself. It is true that this verse may be a later insertion, intended to balance the preceding celebration of the king’s majesty, splendor, and victorious might with a more humble acknowledgment that Yahweh alone represents the true and eternal king. It may reflect back to the affirmation in 44:4 that “you are my King and my God.” Nevertheless, the presence of this ambiguous statement in Psalm 45 allows the possibility that the king, who appears here to be called “God,” is in fact being understood as the anointed one who is to come—the Messiah, who will usher in God’s kingdom. If so, then the marriage ceremony may well already be understood as between Messiah and the people of God, as in the later understanding of this psalm.
Surely we are now free to understand that the hopes and expectations that Israel pinned on the monarchy and the Davidic kings were ultimately carried to completion and fulfillment in the work and person of Jesus, the Messiah. What the human kings were unable to accomplish because of their moral, ethical, or physical failings, Jesus picked up and righteously completed. Thus, it is appropriate to understand the hopes and expectations expressed here as having their fulfillment in Christ’s work. He is “the most excellent of men,” the one whom God has blessed forever (45:2). He rides “forth victoriously in behalf of truth, humility and righteousness” (45:4). God will perpetuate his memory “through all generations” (45:17).
While these are not rightly prophetic predictions of Jesus, they are true words directed toward his fulfillment of the kingly role envisioned in this ancient, historical psalm. Thus, we can celebrate along with our ancient Judahite brothers and sisters the glory, majesty, splendor, and victory of God’s king.
Original Meaning
The King’s Future (45:16–17)
THE POEM CONCLUDES as the bride and her entourage enter the king’s palace. Besides the possibility of political alliance with another nation, the marriage also represents the potential for dynastic succession through the production of sons (45:16), who will “take the place” of the king’s fathers. This description of dynastic succession seems to presume a long line of royal antecedents preceding the present king. This undermines confidence in identifying David as recipient of this psalm and points to some later monarch of the northern or southern kingdom. The king’s sons will be given various duties during the life of the king in order to prepare them to rule after their father.30 The term used here for “prince” (śar) does not exclusively refer to nobility but indicates an official position as representative of the king.
Perpetuate your memory. In the final verse, the possible confusion of God and king, mentioned in connection with 45:6, returns. On the surface it seems easy to assume that the psalmist is promising to keep the king’s memory alive in subsequent generations through the vivid descriptions of this song. In this scenario the king is the one who will receive the praise of the nations “for ever and ever.” The issue is not as simple as it may appear, however. An investigation of the use of the Hiphil of the verb zkr (i.e., “call to remembrance”) along with the noun šem (“name,” a word is present in the Heb. but not reflected in the NIV) tells us five other occurrences refer to the name of Yahweh (Ex. 20:24; Ps. 20:7; Isa. 12:4; 26:13; Amos 6:10), while several other refer to the other human or divine beings (Ex. 23:13; Josh. 23:7; 2 Sam. 18:18; Isa. 49:1).
Add to this the fact that in the psalms the image of “the peoples” (ʿammim [“peoples”], not “nations” as in the NIV) “praising” someone is always a reference to praising Yahweh. Thus, the reason for questioning who is in view in this verse is apparent: king or God? On the one hand, this phrase may display the close relationship that existed in the minds of king and people between kingship and divine rulership. In Egypt and Mesopotamia, kings were known to assume divinity for themselves and were often worshiped31 as gods by the people. While this was clearly never the case in Israel, the dividing line between king and God was often obscured, particularly in the exalted imagery of the psalms.
On the other hand, this concluding verbiage may reveal a postexilic exploitation of the ambiguities of the text to reinterpret this royal wedding song as a reference to the coming messianic Son of God, who is also seen as blurring the line between divine and human kingship. I will return to this issue in the Bridging Contexts section.
Bridging Contexts
PSALM 45 EXHIBITS such a narrowly restricted “setting in life”—the wedding ceremony of a human king of Israel or Judah—that it raises in a radical way the question of how this kind of psalm could continue to function fruitfully in the later Diaspora community among exiles who had little or no hope that the Davidic kingship would ever be resumed. How could a psalm that focused on a ceremony that had not been enacted for hundreds of years still speak meaningfully to those for whom a royal wedding could have been only a nostalgic memory of times long past? Surely such a culturally and temporally conditioned poem could only continue to have power if its words and images were reinterpreted in ways that linked with the needs and hopes of the contemporary society. What evidence is there that Psalm 45 (and other psalms in the canonical Psalter, for that matter) was subjected to such a reinterpretive reading?
J. Clinton McCann shows how such a rereading of older psalms took place.
These psalms can continue to be expressions of hope and confidence; however, the expressions of hope become two-edged when they occur immediately following Pss. 42–44; that is to say, the traditional hope embodied in the royal psalms, Zion songs and enthronement songs is modified and reoriented by the literary context. In order to survive the crisis of exile and dispersion, Israel had to profess that God was, in some sense, still its “refuge and strength” (Ps. 46:2), its “secure height” (Ps. 46:8, 11; 48:4), and “a great king over all the earth” (Ps. 47:3); however, such professions had to be understood differently when Israel spoke them no longer from the secure height of Zion but rather from a position of having been “cast off” (Pss. 43:2; 44:10) and “scattered . . . among the nations” (Ps. 44:12). The arrangement of the Korah psalms, in which Pss. 42–44 introduce Pss. 45–49, thus assisted the community to face the disorienting reality of exile and also to affirm that hope was still possible. The old words (Pss. 45–49) can still have meaning; but they must be heard in a new context—a context that includes an awareness of the reality of exile and dispersion (Pss. 42–44).32
What happens, then, in the new context of the Exile is that Yahweh’s kingship was understood as distinct from the experience of human kingship, which had been lost. God’s kingdom was not synonymous with the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. His kingdom continued as present and future hope even though the human kingdom had collapsed.
This new context necessitated a reinterpretation of the divine promises to David and his descendants. What was one to make of the covenant that affirmed an “eternal throne” for the Davidic dynasty when that dynasty was already deposed and swallowed up in exilic Diaspora? The response of exilic Israel/Judah was primarily to push those hopes into the future. In a move we now call messianism, the Diaspora community, taking hold on one of the titles associated with divine authorization of the kings, began to look for a Messiah, a future descendant of David, who would reestablish an earthly kingdom that would never fail.
These hopes for a future “Anointed One” affected the way the psalms of kingship were read and understood. References to ancient kings in a now defunct kingdom were resignified to speak of a future one who would come to accomplish what all those former rulers had been unable to do: to fulfill the expectations of God and lead his people rightly in the paths of Yahweh. His kingship, supported by God, would never fail. A recent monograph by Christoph Rösel33 argues persuasively that these future hopes for the “Messiah” stand behind the shaping of the early collection of Psalms 2–89.
In these psalms it seems clear that the hopes of the exiled people was for an ultimate reestablishment of the Davidic dynasty. This is cogently argued in the royal psalms that stand at the seams of this combined collection of the first three books (Pss. 2; 72; 89).34 These three psalms provide an interpretive shape to the combined collection that recalls the divine covenant with David (Ps. 2) with its continued benefits and responsibilities for his royal descendants (Ps. 72) and concludes with an anguished plea to Yahweh for the restoration of the monarchy that has collapsed in the Exile (Ps. 89). In the context of the Exile, then, these royal psalms were reinterpreted as expressions of a hopeful future in which God’s anointed king would once again rule over an eternal kingdom.
The messianic development of the Psalter does not stop here, however, but takes one additional step: the shifting of hopes for kingly rule to Yahweh himself. This final move associated with the final form of the Psalter is most evident as we move across the boundary separating the early collection of Books 1–3 and enter the later terrain of the last two books (Pss. 90–150). These two segments of the Psalter (Pss. 2–89 and 90–150) use contrasting techniques of editorial arrangement and give evidence of the earmarks of independent circulation.35 The latter two books were added to the first three as a sort of response to the plea for restoration of the kingdom in Psalm 89—a response that immediately points the way to the collection of Yahweh malak psalms at the heart of Book 4.36 The result is to direct the exilic reader away from hope for the reestablishment of the human Davidic kingship to the rule of Yahweh himself.
This apparent thematic shift is confirmed by a particularly interesting distribution of significant vocabulary relating to kingship. In the first three books, the Hebrew word melek (“king”) is used in four ways: (1) for kings or kingship in the most general and abstract sense; (2) for the kings of the foreign nations; (3) for the kings of Israel and Judah; and (4) finally for Yahweh himself as king. But when we study the last two books, we discover an interesting change. While melek is used as before to describe kingship in general, foreign kings, and Yahweh as king, its use in relation to the kings of Israel/Judah is entirely lacking! This can be no accident but must reflect a changing understanding of kingship among those who appended this final segment to the growing Psalter collection.
Alongside this striking change in the use of melek, two other terms applied in the first three books to the human kings of Israel/Judah—ʿebed (“servant”) and mešiaḥ (“anointed one, messiah”)—continue unabated into the last two books. The effect of these phenomena is to distance the Davidic kings from rulership associated with melek while emphasizing that Yahweh himself is the eternal melek of the faithful. At the same time the role of eschatological Messiah (mašiaḥ) and Servant (ʿebed) who ushers in the kingdom and reign of Yahweh is emphasized.37
What we see, then, is a two-stage reinterpretation of royal psalms such as Psalm 45 in the final form of the Psalter: a first stage reflected in Psalms 2–89, in which hopes for the reestablishment of the Davidic monarchy are pushed into an eschatological future, and a second stage reflected in the final form of the Psalter, in which the descendant of David is understood as the “anointed servant” who ushers in the direct rule of Yahweh himself.
Contemporary Significance
HOW ARE WE in the twenty-first century to interpret and apply this alien psalm celebrating the marriage of a Davidic king millennia ago in a kingdom that no longer exists? There are two ways this ancient psalm can still have impact on Christians today.
Historical insight. Historically, the monarchy was an important part of Israel’s experience of themselves and of God. The kings, and especially David, provided continuity and unity that gave expression in the real world to the divine promise to make Abraham a great nation and to give them a land. To gain insight into such an important and formative historical phenomenon is no mean feat and ought to be welcomed. Psalm 45, with its open window on the marriage of the king, gives us just such an opportunity of insight. Among the historical insights offered, I will select just three.
The intrusion of God. It is impressive just how much God is a part of this moment of public ceremony. Both king and princess, bridegroom and bride, are called to remember that God is the source and continuing support of their honored election. While history is clear that kings and queens often forgot God in their efforts to control and manipulate circumstances to their benefit or that of their offspring, at this moment of high ceremony God was called to mind as author and finisher of the monarchical faith.
Dynastic concern. Behind the pomp and circumstance of marriage joy, behind the language of religious fervor or romantic relationship, the concern with dynastic succession always lurks close by. The prominent place afforded this dynastic concern emphasizes the importance of children for the continuation of the royal line. This concern continues in a way the similar concern of the patriarchs and their barren wives for children to fulfill the divine promise of a multitude of descendants and a great nation. God’s promise to David of an eternal throne necessitated a continual sequence of male heirs to take their seat. For dynastic memory to be perpetuated “through all generations” (45:17) required future Davidic kings.
The expectation of integrity and justice. This poem for the marriage ceremony of the king contains expectations and exhortations for justice and equitable rule. We do not read here only a joyous celebration of romantic love. The marriage also presented an opportunity for the king and his bride to commit themselves to the important aspects of royal rule: justice, equity, truth, humility, righteousness as the foundation of the continuing dynasty, even more than splendor, majesty, excellence, and grace.
Historically, then, this passage can help us to evaluate similar moments of political celebration. Is God a vital part of what is done? Is he really the author and finisher of our public and political endeavors? How would an awareness of his presence and expectation change the way we do business? Insofar as our governments and political figures are not theocracies or servants of God (as Israel and the kings of Israel were considered), what might that say about our reliance on them? How might we honor them without mindless trust? How can we hold them accountable without unrealistic expectations? Where is the appropriate measuring stick of equity and justice for our leaders?
Eschatological anticipation. As we have seen, when the extended exile began to render the monarchical themes and hopes of Psalm 45 obscure and even obsolete, the Diaspora community found new meaning in the eschatological reinterpretation of the kingly imagery of this psalm and others. The ambiguous statement in 45:6, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever,” seems to equate the bridegroom king with God himself. It is true that this verse may be a later insertion, intended to balance the preceding celebration of the king’s majesty, splendor, and victorious might with a more humble acknowledgment that Yahweh alone represents the true and eternal king. It may reflect back to the affirmation in 44:4 that “you are my King and my God.” Nevertheless, the presence of this ambiguous statement in Psalm 45 allows the possibility that the king, who appears here to be called “God,” is in fact being understood as the anointed one who is to come—the Messiah, who will usher in God’s kingdom. If so, then the marriage ceremony may well already be understood as between Messiah and the people of God, as in the later understanding of this psalm.
Surely we are now free to understand that the hopes and expectations that Israel pinned on the monarchy and the Davidic kings were ultimately carried to completion and fulfillment in the work and person of Jesus, the Messiah. What the human kings were unable to accomplish because of their moral, ethical, or physical failings, Jesus picked up and righteously completed. Thus, it is appropriate to understand the hopes and expectations expressed here as having their fulfillment in Christ’s work. He is “the most excellent of men,” the one whom God has blessed forever (45:2). He rides “forth victoriously in behalf of truth, humility and righteousness” (45:4). God will perpetuate his memory “through all generations” (45:17).
While these are not rightly prophetic predictions of Jesus, they are true words directed toward his fulfillment of the kingly role envisioned in this ancient, historical psalm. Thus, we can celebrate along with our ancient Judahite brothers and sisters the glory, majesty, splendor, and victory of God’s king.