Call to Worship January 18, 2026
Psalm 45
“The Old Testament does ascribe deity to the coming messianic figure, a matter too often downplayed. In Isaiah 9:6 he is called ‘mighty God.’ He is not only the shoot from Jesse but the ‘root of Jesse’ (Isa. 11:1, 10). Often overlooked, I think, is Isaiah 50:10, where ‘obeying the voice of his [Yahweh’s] servant’ is on a level with ‘fearing Yahweh,’ and hence suggestive of the deity of the Servant. Without long discussion, David seems to call the Messiah ‘my Lord’ in Psalm 110:1. Then there is that mysterious grammatical switch in Zechariah 12:10, where Yahweh is speaking, ‘And they shall look on me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn over him’ (emphasis mine). There is some sort of identity between the ‘me’ and the ‘him.’ Or there is the ‘one like a son of man’ in Daniel 7, who is clearly a human but also a divine figure, since ‘all peoples, nations, and languages’ are to ‘serve’ Him (v. 14). The Aramaic verb for ‘serve’ (pelaḥ) is used nine times in the book of Daniel and always of ‘serving’ or paying reverence to deity or a purported deity. So the NIV translates it as ‘worship.’6 These are a few indicators that in Old Testament theology the coming messianic king was indeed a divine figure, and, if that is so, should we be quite so nonplussed should a psalmist share the same view? The problem may be with us: it is totally unexpected; we just don’t think anyone would say this…
The writer has already told us that he is simply bubbling over with his theme (v. 1); he is clearly ‘taken’ with the king. Should we then be too amazed if he bursts the bounds of ‘propriety’ in verse 6 as he perhaps takes into view the ultimate King to come? The real problem may be: why are we not so fascinated with this king?
The psalm, however, is not totally about the king— the queen stands beside him (v. 9b). Hard to avoid, then, thinking that the psalm involves a real royal wedding. So in the second segment we meet a queen to advise and admire (vv. 10–15), where our psalmist speaks of her duty (vv. 10–11), her recognition (v. 12), and her splendor (vv. 13–15).
He begins with his advice and that about her duty:
Listen, O daughter, and see and turn your ear [to me],
and forget your people and your father’s house
and let the king desire your beauty,
for he is your sovereign
and you must show obeisance to him (vv. 10–11).
Of course, that’s enough for even a moderate modern feminist to swallow her chewing gum! And that is what is so refreshing about the Bible—it never kowtows to the settled shibboleths of current fashionable opinion. But such folks may well go running from Psalm 45 screaming, ‘Patriarchal!’ and alleging that the queen is told to become a doormat for male domination. That’s over-reaction. But the queen is told she has a new loyalty and so she should ‘forget the things that are behind’ (cf. v. 10b) and submit herself to the king (v. 11), ‘for he is your sovereign.’ But she hardly looks miserable as she stands next to the king decked out in the finest gold jewels (v. 9b).
And who is that just a bit off to the side? It’s a ‘daughter of Tyre’—with a gift no less (v. 12)! Princesses and representatives from other peoples have arrived to offer recognition to the queen, simply because she belongs to Israel’s king. But the bulk of the psalmist’s description focuses on the sheer splendor of it all (vv. 13–15), especially here of the queen. ‘How totally glorious’ (v. 13a) she is, dazzling in robes and clothes laced with gold (v. 13b), processing in kaleidoscopic splendor with her ladies-in-waiting and joyfully entering the king’s palace (vv. 14–15). Jaws doubtless drop at the sumptuous scene. Our writer is simply ‘taken’ with it all…
So don’t turn up your nose when you hear our psalmist waxing ecstatic over the splendor of the king (vv. 2, 8–9) and queen (vv. 13–15). The king is at least one of David’s royal line (cf. 2 Sam. 7:12–16) from which the Messiah eventually comes. So in one sense the writer’s enthusiasm over this royal wedding is really enthusiasm over the coming of the kingdom of God, and, by implication, over the final descendant of that line, Jesus our Lord. And Paul tells us that if our heads are screwed on straight, we can’t help but become ecstatic over ‘the surpassing worth’ of knowing Jesus our Lord (Phil. 3:8)—something more precious than the gold of Ophir…
One more thing. Perhaps we stretch language too far, but the last of verse 17 ought to be pondered: ‘therefore peoples will praise you forever and ever.’ McCann says, ‘Ordinarily, praise is reserved for God .…’ Might this be a hint that the writer was not confining his king-description to a merely human king? Is he perhaps telling us that verse 6 was not a slip of the pen?”[1]
[1] Dale Ralph Davis, My Exceeding Joy: An Exposition of Psalms 38–51 (Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2023), 91–96.