Psalm 45 – Congratulations

TEXT (Hebrew text at end)

1. For the leader. On Shoshanim.1 Of the Korahites. A maskil.1 A love song.

2. My heart is stirred with a goodly word; I address the fruits of my labor to a king; my tongue is the pen of a ready scribe.

3. You are the most elegant of mankind; grace has been poured into your lips; rightly has God blessed you eternally.

4. Gird your sword on thigh, O mighty one: your splendor and your glory.

5. Your glory: prevail, mounted on a word of truth and righteous humility, and may your right hand teach you awesome deeds,

6. your sharpened arrows, as peoples fall beneath you, in the heart of the king’s enemies.

7. Your throne is from the all-eternal God; a scepter of justice is the scepter of your kingdom.

8. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; rightly God, your God, has joyously anointed you with oil, above your peers.

9. Myrrh and aloes, cassia: all your garments; from ivory palaces lutes make you glad.

10. Daughters of kings are among your cherished ones; the consort stands at your right hand, in gold of Ophir.

11. Listen, daughter, and note, and incline your ear: forget your people and your father’s house,

12. and may the king desire your elegance; for he is your lord, bow to him.

13. O daughter of Tyre, with gifts they seek your favor, the affluent of the people.

14. A king’s daughter enters with all her wealth, her dress interwoven with gold

15. embroidery – so she is led to the king; virgins in her train, her companions, are brought to you.

16. They are led with joy and gladness; they enter the palace of the king.

17. In your father’s stead will be your sons; you will appoint them princes throughout the land.

18. I commemorate your name for all generations, and rightly peoples will praise you for all eternity.

Note

1. Meaning uncertain

COMMENTARY

A Profane Lyric

Any interpretation of Psalm 45 is ipso facto more tentative than that of other psalms for the simple reason that it is quite unlike all others.

How did a wedding poem, evidently intended for recitation to the king (verse 2), gain its place in Psalms? The explanation might lie not in the text, but in generations well beyond it. We see from post-biblical Jewish and Christian sources that the “nuptials” of Psalm 45 was reapplied allegorically to a messiah figure. The Jewish allegory (as seen in the Talmud and the Aramaic Bible translation) applied the psalm to the anticipated arrival of the messiah. Hebrews 1:8f cites Psalm 45:6–7 verbatim, with the prologue, “of the Son [Jesus], he says.” It is possible that this messianic approach dates back to the Second Temple period and explains the acceptance of the psalm into the canon.

However, one can only speculate on the reasons for inclusion of one poem or another in the Book of Psalms. In that regard it behooves us to consider those elements of the psalm that might have led to its acceptance, independent of allegorical interpretation.

A Psalm of the Soul

If the psalms are poetry of the soul, as I posited it the introduction to these essays, how does that description apply to Psalm 45? I suggest that two emphases underscore basic societal values reflected elsewhere in the Bible, one patently and one subtly.

The patent emphasis is on righteousness, one of the three categories of praise of the king: military prowess, splendor, and righteousness. The last is striking in both of the verses in which it appears―“prevail, mounted on a word of truth and righteous humility” (verse 5) and “you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness” (verse 8). Indeed the use of “love” with “righteousness” here in a wedding poem certainly spotlights that quality. The moral underpinnings of the king’s rule are thus emphasized, as befits the biblical understanding of God’s chosen ruler.

In terms of righteousness, does the poet here describe the monarch or admonish him? The question is moot, but the second value-based emphasis (in-marriage, as I shall immediately discuss) is clearly a matter of admonishment, and that might lead one to conclude that even in the case of the first emphasis, righteousness, the poet is dwelling less on description of what the king is than on prescription of what the king should be.

The second emphasis is certainly surprising. The foreign bride is told, “Forget your people and your father’s house”! This seems a harsh, even a cruel, demand, which can be understood only in light of Israel’s history.

Of Solomon’s one thousand wives and concubines, mostly foreign women (including Phoenicians, a designation that would include the psalm’s “daughter of Tyre”), it is said that, “in his old age, his wives turned Solomon’s heart after other gods, and he was not wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD…” (I Kings 11:4). Infamously, at a later time, King Ahab’s Phoenician wife, Jezebel, partnered with him in leading Israel to idolatry, even encouraging him to slaughter God’s prophets (I Kings 16:29–33, 18:4).

In the words of Bar Yosef, the poet “has learned from the historical experience of this people with foreign wives how easy it is for a foreign woman not only to disturb court life but also the religious life of the nation as a whole.”

That one verse (11) about foreign influence is supplemented by two very subtle points. The four references to God are used only in connection with the king, not with the bride. So, too, the blessing of continued rule (verse 17) is addressed to the king (“you” is male singular there), not the queen. These reflect, I suggest, suspicion in regard to the foreigner.

The poet (presumably a friend of the king, a poet laureate of sorts, or a commissioned consummate poet) is concerned for the future of his country and manages to voice his case as praise. Weiser properly praises the author’s “delicate tact” in interweaving sentiments and objective concerns.

A Wedding Song

One can still appreciate the poem on its first surface level, a wedding poem in honor of the king and his princess bride.

The speaker grants himself great prominence. He (the first person singular, “I”) is in fact the framework of the poem, indicating a poet of some skill (at least in his own eyes). The terms of praise for the king are equally exaggerated―in fact using terms more often reserved for God (“splendor and glory” in verse 4; “awesome deeds” in verse 5, “loved righteousness and hated wickedness” in verse 8). “Eternity” is emphasized three times (verses 3, 7, 18), with one additional use of “for all generations” (verse 18). The word “king” appears over and over (eight uses of the root, m-l-ch). Repeated use of such terms as beauty, happiness, and splendor all appropriately add to the festive tone, and all of this supplements the direct, lush descriptions of the clothes and the court and the details of military prowess. The resultant poem serves as a most appropriate wedding tribute (and as camouflage, to a degree, for the points I noted in the previous section).

For Whom Was This Written?

Although many commentators devote much effort toward identifying the king for whom this poem was composed, the range of suggestions, spanning 900 years, testifies to an unanswerable question. That said, I add a few considerations.

Two phrases in the Masoretic text are fascinating. One is the dedication to “a king” rather than “the king.” This is not a very decisive point, as the change is only that of a vowel, the vowels being set down many centuries later than the consonantal text. In fact, many translators simply assume that it should be “the” king. I connect this, however, to the last verse—the poet’s promise to commemorate the king’s “name” (meaning reputation) forever without ever mentioning the name! The absence of a specific reference, it seems to me, is intentional.

All of this anonymity of subject could reflect the tendency in Psalms to articulate poems so that they could be cross-generational (time-specific personalities, events, details of suffering, and so on are seldom noted), but I believe that there are further indications that this psalm was written in the first instance to be generic, not in order to gain entrance into liturgy or canon, but because the essence of the message is cross-generational.

I note that the title, here properly translated “A Love Song,” in the Hebrew is “Song of Yedidot.” For generations (at least since the time of the scholar Tur Sinai), some commentators have connected this to Solomon, whose other name was Yedidyah (II Samuel 12:25, meaning “beloved of God”), and many of them then conclude that the psalm was written for Solomon. I suggest the opposite, namely, that Psalm 45 was written in reaction to Solomon’s reputation, the poet hinting at this through his use of Yedidot. I Kings 11 already cites Solomon’s blemished reputation for having strayed under the influence of foreign wives. The author of Psalm 45 used that knowledge to create a (virtual or real – it is impossible to know) generic royal wedding song, with the undertone of warning as to what the king should not do. (There may even be a similar protest reflected in the poem’s emphasis on righteousness, for Solomon’s massive labor tax was very unpopular, as seen in I Kings 12:1–11, and some could have seen him as “unrighteous” or unjust. Further, if this line of thought is correct, the military references would be somewhat ironic, for Solomon lived in age of peace, benefiting from all his father’s victories, and was not a warrior king.)

If this poem does make its point by using Solomon’s flawed reputation, it would not be unique, for the Song of Songs did the same. (See the comments on the Solomon image in my book The Song of Songs: A Woman in Love [Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing, 2009], pp. 151–155.)

This line of thought, however, remains theoretical. We cannot know for certain whether the poem was written for someone specific, and if so, for whom. In any case. the poet’s subtle references to values are there to be appreciated, whether it was written for one king or another, real or virtual.

　

　

The author of these essays is Rabbi Benjamin Segal, former president of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem　and author of The Song of Songs: A Woman in Love (Jerusalem: Gefen, 2009). This material is copyright by the author, and may not be reproduced. If you are interested in using the texts for study groups, please be in direct contact with the author, at psalmblog@gmail.com.

HEBREW TEXT

(א) לַמְנַצֵּחַ עַל שֹׁשַׁנִּים לִבְנֵי קֹרַח מַשְׂכִּיל שִׁיר יְדִידֹת:

(ב) רָחַשׁ לִבִּי דָּבָר טוֹב אֹמֵר אָנִי מַעֲשַׂי לְמֶלֶךְ לְשׁוֹנִי עֵט סוֹפֵר מָהִיר:

(ג) יָפְיָפִיתָ מִבְּנֵי אָדָם הוּצַק חֵן בְּשִׂפְתוֹתֶיךָ עַל כֵּן בֵּרַכְךָ אֱלֹהִים לְעוֹלָם:

(ד) חֲגוֹר חַרְבְּךָ עַל יָרֵךְ גִּבּוֹר הוֹדְךָ וַהֲדָרֶךָ:

(ה) וַהֲדָרְךָ צְלַח רְכַב עַל דְּבַר אֱמֶת וְעַנְוָה צֶדֶק וְתוֹרְךָ נוֹרָאוֹת יְמִינֶךָ:

(ו) חִצֶּיךָ שְׁנוּנִים עַמִּים תַּחְתֶּיךָ יִפְּלוּ בְּלֵב אוֹיְבֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ:

(ז) כִּסְאֲךָ אֱלֹהִים עוֹלָם וָעֶד שֵׁבֶט מִישֹׁר שֵׁבֶט מַלְכוּתֶךָ:

(ח) אָהַבְתָּ צֶּדֶק וַתִּשְׂנָא רֶשַׁע עַל כֵּן מְשָׁחֲךָ אֱלֹהִים אֱלֹהֶיךָ שֶׁמֶן שָׂשׂוֹן מֵחֲבֵרֶךָ:

(ט) מֹר וַאֲהָלוֹת קְצִיעוֹת כָּל בִּגְדֹתֶיךָ מִן הֵיכְלֵי שֵׁן מִנִּי שִׂמְּחוּךָ:

(י) בְּנוֹת מְלָכִים בִּיקְּרוֹתֶיךָ נִצְּבָה שֵׁגַל לִימִינְךָ בְּכֶתֶם אוֹפִיר:

(יא) שִׁמְעִי בַת וּרְאִי וְהַטִּי אָזְנֵךְ וְשִׁכְחִי עַמֵּךְ וּבֵית אָבִיךְ:

(יב) וְיִתְאָו הַמֶּלֶךְ יָפְיֵךְ כִּי הוּא אֲדֹנַיִךְ וְהִשְׁתַּחֲוִי לוֹ:

(יג) וּבַת צֹר בְּמִנְחָה פָּנַיִךְ יְחַלּוּ עֲשִׁירֵי עָם:

(יד) כָּל כְּבוּדָּה בַת מֶלֶךְ פְּנִימָה מִמִּשְׁבְּצוֹת זָהָב לְבוּשָׁהּ:

(טו) לִרְקָמוֹת תּוּבַל לַמֶּלֶךְ בְּתוּלוֹת אַחֲרֶיהָ רֵעוֹתֶיהָ מוּבָאוֹת לָךְ:

(טז) תּוּבַלְנָה בִּשְׂמָחֹת וָגִיל תְּבֹאֶינָה בְּהֵיכַל מֶלֶךְ:

(יז) תַּחַת אֲבֹתֶיךָ יִהְיוּ בָנֶיךָ תְּשִׁיתֵמוֹ לְשָׂרִים בְּכָל הָאָרֶץ:

(יח) אַזְכִּירָה שִׁמְךָ בְּכָל דֹּר וָדֹר עַל כֵּן עַמִּים יְהוֹדוּךָ לְעֹלָם וָעֶד: