Psalm 45:9

The first verse opens with one of the fullest headings in the Psalms, and each part of it says something about the song. “To the chief Musician” marks it for public worship, to be sung under the direction of the temple choirmaster. “Upon Shoshannim” means “upon lilies”, which is most likely the name of the tune or the style of the music, or perhaps of an instrument, and it suits a song of beauty and joy. “For the sons of Korah” names the guild of Levites who wrote or sang it, the same family that gave us Psalm 42 and Psalm 84. Their ancestor Korah rebelled in the wilderness (Numbers 16), and yet his descendants served in the temple as musicians and gatekeepers.

“Maschil” marks a psalm that teaches, so this song is meant to give understanding as well as praise. “A Song of loves”, shir yedidot in Hebrew, is a song of affection, and the psalm itself shows what kind, because it celebrates a royal wedding. A king’s marriage in Israel was an event for the whole nation, since it secured the succession and often sealed an alliance with another kingdom. The psalm leaves the king and his bride unnamed. Some think of Solomon’s marriage to Pharaoh’s daughter, and others of a later king of David’s line.

“My heart is inditing a good matter.” The verb râchash means to gush or bubble up, as a spring does, so the poet is telling us that this song rises from within him and has to come out. “My heart” (libbi) is the inner person, where thought, feeling and will all live. What fills it is a “good matter”. The word ṭôwb is good in the widest sense, covering what is beautiful, excellent and right, and dâbâr means a word and also a matter or thing. Together they give us a noble theme, and the next clause names it: “I speak of the things which I have made touching the king.” The “things which I have made” (ma’asay, “my works”) are the lines of the poem itself. The whole song is about the king and is offered to him.

“My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.” The word mâhîyr means quick and skilful, and çâphar is the verb for counting and recounting whose participle names the scribe. A practised scribe writes swiftly and accurately, and the psalmist’s tongue moves like that scribe’s pen, turning what fills his heart into well-made words at once.

Here a full heart and a trained skill work together. Scripture says that those who spoke for God were moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Peter 1:21), and this verse shows the Spirit taking up a writer’s gifts and using them. Jesus teaches that the mouth speaks out of the abundance of the heart (Luke 6:45), and that is what happens in this verse, where a heart full of the king produces praise of the king. Paul asks the same of the church, that we speak to one another in psalms and hymns (Ephesians 5:19) and let the word of Christ dwell in us richly (Colossians 3:16).

The psalm was sung for a king of David’s line on his wedding day, and it speaks of the Messiah, in whom all of it comes true. The king of Israel was the LORD’s anointed, appointed to rule God’s people with justice, and a royal wedding song praised him in the highest terms. This song, though, says things that only one King can bear in full. He is blessed “for ever” in verse 2, his throne is “for ever and ever” and he is addressed as God in verse 6, and he is anointed above all his fellows in verse 7.

The New Testament settles the matter. The letter to the Hebrews quotes verses 6 and 7 and says that God speaks them to the Son (Hebrews 1:8–9). So the earthly king was a type, a living picture drawn ahead of time, and Jesus Christ is the King whom the picture shows. The Psalms look ahead to him in the same way in Psalm 2 and Psalm 110, and the prophets promise the same King (Isaiah 9:6–7), the righteous Branch of David (Jeremiah 23:5–6). The wedding belongs to the picture too, since the psalm goes on to the queen and her new loyalty to her husband (Psalm 45:9–12), and the New Testament speaks of the church as the bride of Christ.

“Thou art fairer than the children of men.” The verb yâphâh means to be bright and so to be beautiful, and the form used here is an intensive one, so that the sense is “you are the most beautiful of all”. “Children of men” joins bên, son, and ʼâdâm, man, and means human beings as a whole. The beauty in view takes in the whole person, his dignity and character along with his appearance, and it sets him above every other man.

“Grace is poured into thy lips.” The noun chên is graciousness, favour and charm, and yâtsaq means to pour out. The verb is passive, so the grace on the king’s lips has been poured there by another, and that other is God. His speech is a gift, abundant and winning, wise and kind. Israel had seen something of this in Solomon, to whom God gave a wise and understanding heart (1 Kings 3:12), and the words of such a king recall the voice of wisdom in Proverbs 8.

“Therefore God hath blessed thee for ever.” The verb bârak comes from a root meaning to kneel, and it is used both for man blessing God in worship and for God blessing man with good. Here God, ʼĕlôhîym, has blessed the king, and the blessing lasts “for ever”, ʻôwlâm, a word for time that runs out of sight into the past and the future. The “therefore” ties this blessing to what has just been said. The king’s excellence and his gracious speech are the reason God’s favour rests on him permanently.

Every part of the verse is true of Jesus in its plainest sense. He is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), and his beauty is his perfect holiness. When he taught in the synagogue, all who heard him wondered at the gracious words that came from his mouth (Luke 4:22), and John says he was “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). God has blessed him for ever by raising him, exalting him and giving him the name at which every knee shall bow (Philippians 2:9–11).

After his beauty and his speech, the song turns to the king as a warrior. The same king who speaks with grace is strong enough to defend his people and put down those who oppose his rule.

Verse 6 is the height of the song. The throne is the seat of the king’s authority, and the psalmist says that it lasts “for ever and ever”. Two words are joined to say so. ʻÔwlâm is time out of mind, and ʿad is a noun meaning perpetuity. Together they speak of a reign that will always stand. Every king of Israel died, and his throne passed to another. This throne stays with the one who sits on it.

“The sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre.” The sceptre is the rod a king holds as the sign of his rule, and “right” is mîyshôwr, a level place or a plain, and so straightness. His government is straight in every part, fair and just in each decision. The verse joins the two things we most want in a ruler and rarely find together, a reign that lasts and a reign that is good.

Daniel saw the same kingdom. The God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall stand for ever (Daniel 2:44), and the Son of man is given an everlasting dominion (Daniel 7:13–14). The angel Gabriel told Mary that her son would have the throne of his father David, “and of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:32–33). God will judge the world in righteousness by him (Acts 17:31), and the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, who shall reign for ever and ever (Revelation 11:15).

“Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness.” The verse sets two words against each other. Righteousness is tsedeq, what is right and just before God, and wickedness is reshaʻ, wrongdoing against God’s law that leaves a person guilty. The king’s heart goes out to the one and turns from the other. His justice is something he loves, and evil is something he hates, so his rule is of a piece with his character.

“Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee.” Here again a “therefore” joins the king’s character to God’s gift. The verb mâshach means to rub or smear with oil, to anoint. Kings, priests and prophets in Israel were anointed when they were set apart for their work, and from this verb comes the title Messiah (mashiyach), the Anointed One. It is God who anoints him, and the doubled “God, thy God” shows how close the bond is between the king and the God who chose him. Verse 6 calls the king God, and verse 7 speaks of his God, and both are true of the Son who was with the Father and was sent by him.

The oil is “the oil of gladness”, shemen sason. Oil belonged to feasts and weddings and was laid aside in times of grief, so that Isaiah can promise mourners “the oil of joy for mourning” (Isaiah 61:3). This anointing brings joy with it, and the king receives it “above thy fellows”, in a measure that sets him over his companions and over every other ruler.

Jesus loved righteousness and hated wickedness through a whole life in which he was tempted as we are and remained without sin (Hebrews 4:15). His anointing was with the Holy Spirit. Isaiah foretold it, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me” (Isaiah 61:1). The Spirit came down on him at his baptism (Matthew 3:16–17), God anointed him with the Holy Ghost and with power (Acts 10:38), and the Father gives the Spirit to him in full measure (John 3:34). His gladness is the joy of the Son in his Father and in the work he was given, and he shares it with his own, “that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full” (John 15:11).

The song now lets us come near the king on his wedding day. “All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia.” His garments (beged, clothing or covering) are so full of perfume that the poet names the spices one by one. Myrrh (môr) is a fragrant, bitter resin that drips from a tree and was used in perfume, medicine and burial. Aloes (ʼăhâlîym) is a sweet-smelling wood. Cassia (qᵉtsîyʻâh) is a peeled bark like cinnamon. All three came from distant lands and were very costly, and the Song of Solomon names such spices in its praise of the beloved (Song of Solomon 4:14).

These scents also belonged to the holy things. Myrrh and cassia are both named among the ingredients of the holy anointing oil (Exodus 30:23–24), so the king’s fragrance goes with the anointing of verse 7 and marks him as set apart by God.

“Out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad.” The word hêykâl means a large public building, a palace or a temple. Ivory was rare and was inlaid in walls and furniture, so an ivory palace is the height of royal splendour. The small word behind “whereby”, mên, has the root sense of a part and so of a string, and the same word names stringed instruments in Psalm 150:4. The verb sâmach means to rejoice and be glad. The king who was anointed with gladness is surrounded with it on his wedding day.

Myrrh follows Jesus through his life. The wise men brought it to him as a gift for a king (Matthew 2:11), and Nicodemus brought myrrh and aloes for his burial (John 19:39). His garments picture his perfect righteousness, and the ivory palaces his heavenly home. He gave himself for us as an offering to God “for a sweetsmelling savour” (Ephesians 5:2), and through those who belong to him God spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ in every place (2 Corinthians 2:14–16).

Verse 9 brings the bride into view. “Kings’ daughters were among thy honourable women.” A daughter is bath, and “honourable” is yâqâr, which means precious, costly and rare. Women of royal birth stand among the honoured ladies of the court, and their presence shows how far the king’s name reaches and how other royal houses defer to him.

“Upon thy right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir.” The right hand (yâmîyn) is the place of highest honour beside a king, as when the LORD says to David’s Lord, “Sit thou at my right hand” (Psalm 110:1). The queen stands there as the king’s consort and shares in his dignity. Her gold is kethem, a word for fine gold, and it comes from ʼÔwphîyr, Ophir, the land whose gold was the most prized of all and from which Solomon’s ships brought gold to him (1 Kings 9:28).

The queen is a picture of the church. Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, to present it to himself glorious, holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:25–27). Her gold is the righteousness he gives her by grace. Her place at his right hand is a share in the honour of the one who sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high (Hebrews 1:3). The kings’ daughters picture the nations drawn to Christ and his people. Isaiah says that God rejoices over his people as a bridegroom over his bride (Isaiah 62:5). John hears of the marriage of the Lamb, for which his wife has made herself ready in fine linen, clean and white (Revelation 19:7–8), and he sees the holy city coming down “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21:2).

This passage gives us a long look at Christ. Each verse adds to it: his beauty, his gracious words, his sword and arrows, his throne, his gladness, his fragrance, and his bride beside him. The psalmist’s heart overflowed because it was full of the king, and praise still comes that way, from a heart that has been looking at him.

The song also holds together things that we tend to separate. The King who rides out to conquer is meek, and the one whose arrows pierce the heart is the one whose lips are full of grace. Those who come to him find the conqueror gentle. His throne is for ever and his sceptre is straight, so when rulers fail and justice is bent, there is a kingdom that will stand and a Judge who will do right.

He is a glad King. God anointed him with the oil of gladness, and he means his joy to be in his people. And he gives his bride a place at his own right hand, dressed in gold she could never have bought. That is how God has treated the church, and it is the measure of how much he loves her.