Today we turn to Psalm 45. We’re continuing our series of expositions through the Psalms. And the psalmist here tells us, in verse 1, his theme is a very pleasing one. And so we might title this message “The Greatest Theme,” or “A Pleasing Theme,” or “The Most Pleasing Theme,” or something like that. That’s what he calls it. You’ll notice in the superscript, this is a maskil of the sons of Korah. It’s a love song.
I’ll begin reading with verse one:
My heart overflows with a pleasing theme; I address my verses to the king; my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe. You are the most handsome of the sons of men; grace is poured upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever. Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one, in your splendor and majesty! In your majesty ride out victoriously for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness; let your right hand teach you awesome deeds! Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies; the peoples fall under you. Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness; you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions; your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia. From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad; daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor; at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir. Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear: forget your people and your father’s house, and the king will desire your beauty. Since he is your lord, bow to him. The people of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts, the richest of the people. All glorious is the princess in her chamber, with robes interwoven with gold. In many-colored robes she is led to the king, with her virgin companions following behind her. With joy and gladness they are led along as they enter the palace of the king. In place of your fathers shall be your sons; you will make them princes in all the earth. I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations; therefore nations will praise you forever and ever.
And then the postscript: to the director of music or to the choirmaster.
Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, we are so grateful for your Word. We are so thankful for this time that we have had working our way through this most beloved book, Psalms. We have been refreshed as we have been reminded over and again how it points us to our Savior. And now we come again today, many of us with happy memories of the week, with the holiday, many with concerns and anxieties about other things. We pray that whatever the circumstances behind us as we come today, we ask that you will refresh us, the hearts of your people. With your Word, we pray that we will go away from here this morning encouraged with thoughts of our Lord Jesus Christ, who loved us, who gave himself for us. We pray in his name, amen.
As we begin this psalm, it might be helpful to recall something of the picture that we have of what we call corporate worship in ancient Israel. From the Law of Moses, of course, the corporate worship was very minimal. What was there was a quiet, wordless drama. Sacrifices were offered. The priests had nothing to say. The worshipers had nothing to say, except for one line they were given at one point in the offering of the sacrifices. They are to say, “My father was a wandering Aramean.” So largely it was a quiet, wordless drama.
And then David comes along, and all of Moses is kept intact, but David comes along and now he adapts the public corporate worship of ancient Israel in a way that adds a musical dimension to it. And there are musical instruments, there’s singing, there are choirs, there’s congregational singing, and we see echoes of that, of course, often throughout the Psalter.
There are the psalms of individual grateful praise when a thank offering would be given, and now they gather together and they sing a psalm of praise, a psalm of grateful praise. There were entrance liturgies that we have seen that were sung either by a priest or a choir or the congregation or some mixture of the above: “Who is worthy to… who shall ascend the hill of the Most High.” There are ascent psalms, these songs that were sung as they come together to the temple to worship. There are community lament psalms, there are individual lament psalms, and also there are some enthronement psalms where at the coronation of each next king the people of Israel would gather at the temple and sing these psalms concerning the king.
So when we read the psalms, we are to envision Israel gathered together at the temple around their king, singing these psalms. And I think it’s helpful also to remember what we’ve seen so many times over, and that is the royal orientation of the Psalter. And by that, what we mean specifically is that largely the Psalms are both by and about the king. By the king—often half of them by David himself, many of them by others—but they are about the king and he is the central figure throughout the Psalter.
The Theme
Psalm 45 now is that in a particular kind of way because of two things. Number one, we have in Psalm 45 explicit praise directed to the king himself. That’s verse one: “I address my verses to the king.” And then also, because this is a very special occasion, the superscript tells us that this is a love song. A love song. Now it very quickly becomes obvious through the song that this is a song that was to be sung at a royal wedding. So here we have the psalmist writing a song for the king who is coming to his wedding day, and for the ceremony at the temple, this psalm was part of the ceremony.
Now the first occasion of this psalm has been widely discussed. There has been a lot of discussion as to who was the king in view in this psalm, and as you can imagine, there’s not been a solid answer to that. I don’t think there’s one that we can derive at. Some have suggested David. It can’t be David. He was not king when he married Michal. He was not king over all Israel when he was married to Maacah. He was married again to Bathsheba. She was not of royal descent from another country, as this queen seems to be in this psalm. So it wasn’t David that this was written for. It evidently was not Solomon’s wedding that this was written for, because the king here is described as a successful warrior. Solomon was a king of peace. He was not a warrior. And more importantly than that, his marriages were not approved of God at all. So we don’t know exactly who. I think we’ll be better situated to address that question again a little later on in the message. And we’ll get to that in due course.
In the superscript, we are told that the psalm was written by the sons of Korah. We saw that last time in Psalm 44 as well. And in fact, Psalm 42 through 49, these are all psalms of Korah from the sons of Korah. You remember the Korahites were a musical guild in ancient Israel. They were appointed by David to an important ministry in the temple: directing the music there, guarding the temple. They were also a kind of prophetic office because they would, as we have here in Psalm 45, deliver God’s Word to the people. And so, as I’ve said so many times before, we have then God’s Word given to us for us then to sing back to Him, and that’s the function of Psalm 45 from the Sons of Korah.
And by way of an overview of the psalm, just briefly: verse one, we have the theme, sort of the prelude to the psalm. Since the theme is stated, the theme is his king. “I address my verses to the king.” So we are cued right up front who is the theme of the psalm. And then verses two and following, we have praises directed both to the king, the bridegroom, and to his bride. In verses 2 through 9, we have praise of the bridegroom, the king himself, and then verses 10 through 15, we have praises of his bride, but that entails more praise to the king as well, as we’ll see as we go through it. And then finally, so we have verse 1, the theme; verses 2 to 16, we have praises to the bridegroom and to the bride; and then verse 17 concludes the psalm, dedicating it to the honor of the king: “I’ll cause your name to be remembered in all generations.”
All right, let’s work our way through it. Verse one, we have the prelude or the theme of the psalm. And here the psalmist exposes his own heart for us as he writes and composes the psalm. “My heart overflows with a pleasing theme. I address my verses to the king. My tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe.” My heart overflows. It stirs. It’s moved. The ideas are bubbling up. My heart is bursting with the theme that I have to write about. So this theme just has to be sung. My heart is just throbbing for this theme, and I have to write it in such a way that all the people of God can sing it. Again in verse one, he tells us the theme is the king. The end of verse one: “My tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe,” or a well-educated scribe. In other words, he has some well-considered, well-articulated thoughts that he wants to bring. This isn’t just off the cuff. He’s been thinking on this. He’s been considering it well, and this theme is just welling up in his heart, and it’s bubbling over, and he just has to compose this psalm for the people of God to sing about his king.
Praise of the Royal Bridegroom
Well then, verses 2 and following, we have the praises. First of all, verses 2 to 9, we have praise of the royal bridegroom himself. In verse 2, he tells us that this king stands out above all others. “You are the most handsome of the sons of men. Grace is poured upon your lips. Therefore, God has blessed you forever.” The word handsome there: beautiful, or fair. I think the King James translates this, “You are the fairest of the children of men,” which I think is the basis of the hymn that we still sing, “Fairest Lord Jesus.”
You are the fairest, you’re the most beautiful, the most handsome of all the children of men. And what he says then is that you are the most handsome. This king has it all. He’s in a league by himself. He’s the best-looking, he’s well-spoken, he’s kind, he’s articulate, he’s strong, he’s majestic. He’s valiant. This king has it all. He’s the admiration of all of the ladies in the kingdom. And now this brave bride gets to have him. And so this king then is presented in verse two already as not just a mere, an empty figurehead—someone who happens to hold the office. He happened to be born the son of a king, and so now he gets the office but doesn’t really fit it. That sounds a little contemporary, doesn’t it? This is not some figurehead who holds the office who has to have some advisers telling him every decision to make and to keep him from walking into the bushes. This is a king who holds the dignity of the office. He embodies everything that the office says he should embody.
And so, verses 3 to 5, the psalmist encourages or exhorts the king: “Gird your sword on high, O mighty one, in your splendor and majesty. In your majesty ride out victoriously for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness. Let your hand teach you awesome deeds.” In other words, your cause is the cause of righteousness. And in this cause, you go forth confidently and gain the victory and gain the glory in the victory. Verse 5: “Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies. Peoples will fall under you.” Well, that of course is the theme of the whole Bible: that God’s anointed will triumph over all of his enemies. More on that to come.
Then verses 6 through 9, we have more praise to the king. His majesty and his splendor. Verse six, just exuberant terms: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore, God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. Your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia. From ivory palaces, stringed instruments make you glad. Daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor.” So this king is exalted and majestic above all others. He dwells in majesty, he has treasures that are befitting royalty. This king stands out above all others.
At the end of verse nine, we have something of a transition. He’s going to continue his praises to the king, but the focus shifts just a bit now. It shifts to his bride. The end of verse nine introduces the bride and the honor that she will have: “At your right hand,” that is at the king’s right hand, “stands the queen in gold of Ophir.” So she stands at his right hand. That’s the position of authority. So she’s with him, not only because it’s a wedding day, but she shares in the administration of the kingdom. She has an exalted dignity herself. She is at his right hand.
Praises to the Bride
Verses 10 to 15 now expand on that, and we have more praises to the bride. Verses 10 and following, he instructs the bride to honor the king and gain gifts for it. Verse 10: “Hear, O daughter, and consider and incline your ear. Forget your people and your father’s house, and the king will desire your beauty.” So she’s a Gentile bride. She’s a king’s daughter. So evidently some alliance of some kind has been made, and she’s been brought now for this great wedding day. And he exhorts her: leave your family, leave your idolatries, leave that old world behind you. Give yourself to your king and let him enjoy your beauty. Verse 11, the end of the verse: “Since he is your Lord, bow to him.” That is the dignity that she has, standing at his right hand and sharing in the administration of the kingdom. The dignity that she has is derived from him. And so she is to bow before him and acknowledge him as the king.
Verses 13 and following, we have praise now for the splendor of the bride. And here she’s led in procession to the king where the marriage is consummated. You can see something of the pageantry of the wedding ceremony here. “All glorious is the princess in her chamber with robes interwoven with gold. In many colored robes, she is led to the king, with her virgin companions following behind her. With joy and gladness, they are led along as they enter the palace of the king.” So now the marriage comes to the climax of the ceremony. She’s brought to the king, and they are brought together.
Verse 16 carries the thought even further. Royal princes will rule the earth. “In place of your fathers shall be your sons. You will make them princes,” not just over Israel, but over all the earth. So the sons she will bear him will carry on the administration of the rule of the king. The future of the kingdom is in some sense bound up with her sons.
And then verse 17, he concludes the psalm with a dedication, dedicating the psalm to the endless and universal praise of this king. “I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations. Therefore, nations will praise you forever and ever.”
Reflections on the Psalm
All right, now some reflections on this psalm. It’s rather obvious that this psalm was written for the wedding of one of the Davidic kings in the ancient days of ancient Israel. We have the splendors of the groom and the bride both described for us. We have the instruction given for each of them. Verse 14 and following describe the wedding procession. Verse 16, we have the prospect of the sons carrying on the king’s rule.
So it brings us back to the historical question, that is, who of David’s sons is in view in the original writing of this psalm? For which son of David did this son of Korah write this psalm to be sung at his wedding? And I’ll say it again, there’s no way, I don’t think, to ever discern exactly who that was. It was presumably sung at successive royal weddings. So each next wedding, this psalm was sung again to the king and to his bride. But to discern which king that was, I think, is an impossible task.
And it’s at that point I think we have to recall again what we’ve seen so many times throughout the expositions of the Psalms and also in the earlier studies on the Messianic Psalms: to recall that the king in the Psalms is always prospective and foreshadowing the greater king who will come. God had made a promise to David that his son would rule on the throne forever. He would have universal reign. And that promise is always kept in mind.
And one reason we know that the king in the Psalms is prospective of the greater king to come is that the king presented in the Psalms is so often presented in his absolute ideal. He’s the greatest. He’s the best. He’s the most successful. All of the enemies will fall before him. He’ll never be wounded. He’ll never fail. He’s righteous, he’s compassionate, and yet he’s just. And we have this king presented in his absolute ideal. It’s like that wonderful illustration that Bruce Waltke gave that I’ve mentioned to you before, that it’s like we have these wonderful royal robes that have been put together for the king. And each Davidic son picks up those robes and puts them on, and the robes are too big, and their shoulders are too narrow, and the robes just fall off of them. And the next king takes up the robe and it falls off of him and his shoulders are too narrow. And each next king takes up these wonderful royal robes that are described and none of them actually fit. Not until it comes to the Lord Jesus Christ do we have one who can fill the robes exactly.
Well, the prophet poet here sees all that, and so he describes the king here in just those ideal terms. Look again at verses two and four. He’s an ideal ruler. Grace is poured upon his lips. He’s honest, he’s meek, he’s righteous. And yet, verses three to five, he’s completely successful in the utter defeat of all of his enemies. Verse five, he rules internationally. The peoples, plural, fall beneath him. Verse six, he loves righteousness and hates wickedness. And verse four, yet he’s meek. Verse six, he secures a reign that is never ending. And verses eight and nine, he dwells securely in absolute majesty. Ivory palaces and stringed instruments make him glad.
Well, since the 18th century in America—I’ve mentioned this before in these kinds of contexts—we haven’t wanted a king. We have no sovereign here. We haven’t wanted a king in America for a long time. But this is a king that’s presented here that we could only wish for. Only a wicked kind of person wouldn’t want a king like this. And of course the reality is none of David’s kings in ancient Israel measured up to the description of the king in this or in many of these kinds of psalms. You allow for poetic excess and all of that, but particularly in Psalm 45, no psalm praises the king in such extravagant terms as we have here.
And if you haven’t caught on in verses 1 to 5, at least by verses 6 and following, you begin to see that the psalmist here is looking beyond this immediate king and his wedding to a greater king. Verse six: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore, God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” What we have here unmistakably is the theme that we’ve seen so often in the Psalms and in other messianic prophecies that we’ve been studying in the evening services: the theme of the divine Messiah. We’ve seen it in Isaiah, we’ve seen it in Micah, we’ve seen it over and again that the Messiah who will come will be both the Son of David and the Son of God. He is David’s son and he is David’s Lord.
And if you have any question about that here in Psalm 45 verses 6 and 7, you can find this picked up in the book of Hebrews chapter 1. You remember that marvelous section? Pastor Greg introduced it for us this morning. Verses 1 to 3 of Hebrews chapter 1. He sets out from the get-go in Hebrews to extol the greatness and the majesty of the deity of Christ. And at one point he’s comparing them to the angels. At another point he’s comparing them to the prophets. And in verses 6 and 7, he cites as Old Testament proof of the deity of Messiah, Psalm 45, verses 6 and 7. This is Hebrews 1, verses 8 and 9: “But of the Son, he says, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness, therefore God, Your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.'”
So he is David’s son, but he is David’s Lord. This is the Son of God incarnate. And what we have here in verses 6 and 7 then, in very germ kind of form, is a theology of the deity of the Messiah, but we also have something fascinating here. It resolves this enigma of verse 7: “Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you.” He’s God himself, and yet God anoints him. What do we do with that? I don’t know how they must have read that ahead of time, before the fact. But at least at this point in history, after the incarnation, we see implicit Trinitarian theology. There’s the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Father has sent the Son. We have incarnation theology. We have the theology of the two natures of Messiah. He is both David’s Son and he’s David’s Lord. And he’s acknowledged as each. And so therefore, God, your God has anointed you.
Now again, I don’t know how this could have been understood before the fact. I’m sure it was some kind of a riddle for them, but it was recognized as messianic. In fact, one of the ancient Targums—these are translations, interpretations of the Old Testament that were handed down for generations—and one of them, when it comes to verse two, “You are the most handsome of the sons of men,” the Targum reads, “Thy beauty, O King Messiah, is greater than that of the children of men.”
So here we have the divine Messiah promised. And so the divine Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of God, comes and his wedding is in view. And that, of course, is in keeping with the imagery we have elsewhere in the scriptures, particularly, of course, most famously in Ephesians chapter 5, where Christ is the groom and his church is the bride. In fact, it seems to me you take that as your signal, and then you take Psalm 45, and you put those two together, and I think you probably have some interpretive clues for the Song of Solomon as well, that that has some prospective features as well, looking toward God as the groom and his people as his bride.
Now, with all of that in mind then, I think we gain this: something of an interpretive issue here that I think is worth pointing out. We get a glimpse here of just how the Psalms foreshadow Jesus. We’ve said that the Psalms speak of Christ. The king in view represents the great king in view. And here we see it in a particularly pointed kind of way. And if we can say it reverently in these terms, this psalmist is talking out of both sides of his mouth. He’s looking both directions. This is clearly written for a king on his wedding day. And this psalmist clearly adores his king. But what makes his heart throb is not just that king, but that greater king that that king represents because of God’s promise to David. And so he’s looking both directions. With one eye, he sees what’s going on here. And with another eye, he sees what all of that foreshadows in God’s promises. Verse seven, he sees this anointed one par excellence. He’s anointed beyond his companions. This is not just another son of David.
Once we see that—that he’s seeing in this king on his wedding day a prospect and a foreshadowing of the great king who will come—we get it then. We understand why his heart, verse one, is throbbing like it does. “My heart overflows with this pleasing theme.” Once we see that, we feel, we share the emotion of the son of Korah. Our hearts are stirred every time we talk about this theme. It’s the most pleasing theme in all of the Bible. This is the theme of Jesus and his saving work who has come and in his life and in his death and his resurrection has established the kingdom of God and brought it in its inaugurated form. He has ascended to heaven and reigns there now and we wait his glorious return. All of this that we have today in the kingdom of God established in the extent of the kingdom today as the king one by one rescues men and women out of their darkness, out of the kingdom of Satan and brings them into his own kingdom. All of that is just phase one. Phase two, when he returns, that kingdom will be brought to his glorious consummation. And the psalmist here evidently sees all of that, and so his heart is stirred.
Every time we come to this theme, our hearts are stirred as well. The whole object of our joy, the whole object of our hope is exactly this theme. In terms of verse 8, or verse 10, it’s for our attraction to this king that we have left our former friends in the world and our idolatries behind us. Verse two, when he comes, we will see firsthand that his beauty is in fact unsurpassed, the fairest of them all. For those who had eyes to see it, Jesus was beautiful in his incarnation. At least for us looking back with eyes to see it, he was beautiful in his passion and in his death, gloriously beautiful in his resurrection and his ascension, and one day, gloriously beautiful in his return. And when he returns, the world will see at last the unsurpassed beauty of a good king.
That’s what he tells us in verse two: grace will be poured upon his lips. And yet, verses three to five, when he comes, he’ll gird his sword in splendor and majesty. He’ll ride out victoriously for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness, and the peoples will fall under him. As I mentioned, that’s the whole theme of the Bible, isn’t it? God’s king, God’s anointed, appointed king who will come and put all of God’s enemies in subjection under him, and establish God’s rule in all the earth. We’ve seen that recently in Isaiah chapter 11: there comes forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and he will strike the earth with a rod of his mouth. We find it in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, when Paul tells us that the Christ will come and he’ll destroy the lawless one with the breath of his mouth. It’s picked up again in Revelation chapter 19 in that glorious depiction of the return of Christ when he comes in his glory and there’s that sword coming out from his mouth. Which is to say it won’t be much of a fight. He speaks and his enemies are crushed.
Well, that’s verses three to five. Verse four, he’ll be altogether victorious for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness. That is, truth and uprightness will be established in the earth at last. Verse five, all the enemies of this king, the world over, will fall under him. That’s Revelation chapter 19. All of his enemies fall under him. I can’t wait for that. I get sick of this world canceling Christ as though they can. And I can’t wait to see that day when they bow before him and show him the reverence that he deserves. Verse 6, when he does, his throne will be forever and ever. That’s Revelation 20 and following. Never again will the world question his kingship. Verse six, the scepter of his kingdom will be the scepter of uprightness. And I love verse seven: the world will see that he loves righteousness and hates wickedness.
Then verses nine and following. This Israelite king, the son of David, will have a Gentile bride. How about that? Verse nine, she’ll stand at his right hand and she’ll share in the administration of his kingdom. These are large themes running through the whole Bible. And yet, verse 11, she’ll bow to him and acknowledge him as Lord. Verse 14, she’ll be presented to him in all of her borrowed glories. Can we call it that? Verse 15, it’ll be the happiest day of her entire life. Verse 16, her sons will share in this king’s rule in all the earth. And then verse 17, his name will be remembered in all generations. Not just Israel, but the nations will praise him. And not just people in this nation and that nation and the other, but the nations, as the nations, will unite in singing this king’s praise. And so successful will be his rule in his ideal kingship that he will be praised universally in all the nations, it says, forever and ever.
No wonder the psalmist’s heart is astir as he writes this psalm. We share the same emotion as we see it. And in fact, the psalmist has written this psalm for us to sing with him. He tells us that. That’s the postscript. He writes his song, addresses his verses to the king, dedicates it to the king, verse 17, and then he hands it off to the director of music and he says, let’s all sing this theme together of our great king. And ever since we have first learned to sing this theme, it’s been our favorite one. Amen.