Is the Davidic King
God?
As the writer to the Hebrews
continues to argue for the superiority of the Son o er the angels, he writes:
But about the Son he
says,
“Your throne, O God,
will last for ever and ever;
a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.
You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has set you above your
companions
by anointing you with the oil of joy.” (Heb. 1:8-9)
The words are quoted
from Psalm 45:6-7. To understand the passage both in its original context in
Psalm 45 and in Hebrews 1, we must reflect on at least four details.
(1) The flow of the
passage. The superscription asserts Psalm 45 to be a wedding song, which, as we
shall see, makes eminent sense. The first verse is the writer’s reflection on
what he is doing as he pens the psalm (not unlike other psalm introductions:
see 37:1-3; 49:1-4): “My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my
verses for the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer” (45:1). This
introduction casts the writer as a courtier of some sort, and the one who is
getting married is the king. The next verses affirm the king’s majesty and moral
stature (45:2-5). Not a few of the lines sound a tad hyperbolic if applied to
most of the Davidic kings we know from the Old Testament: “You are the most
excellent of men . . . In your majesty ride forth victoriously in the cause of
truth, humility and justice; let your right hand achieve awesome deeds” (45:2,
4). The following verses (45:6-9) include the lines quoted in Hebrews 1. The
courtier addresses the king as he might address God: “Your throne, O God, will
last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your
kingdom. You love righteousness and hate wickedness” (45:6-7). A similar
thought is found in Psalm 89:14: “Righteousness and justice are the foundation
of your throne”—but there the person addressed is God himself. At least it is
clear in Psalm 45 that the mandate of the king is to rule with the integrity
and righteousness that God displays in his rule. But make no mistake: the
courtier is still addressing the Davidic king. IT is not as if he was suddenly turned
to God and so is no longer speaking to the human king. That is made clear in
verse 7: because this human king rules in righteousness, “therefore God, your God,
has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy” (45:7).
Clearly, then, there
is a God, designated “your God,” above the king who is addressed as God, who
has been anointed. The ensuing verses addresses the bride (45:10-12) and describe the
wedding procession (45:13-15). The closing verses are again addressed to the
king (45:16-17).
(2) This pair of
closing verses demands special attention. The fruit of this marriage is
progeny: that is why it is supposed to be in a royal wedding that seeks heirs
for the throne: “Your sons will take the place of your fathers; you will make
them princes throughout the land” (45:16). This demonstrates that the king
whose wedding this is must be an ordinary Davidide before the coming of Jesus.
No one takes the place of Jesus; no one succeeds him on the throne. So in the
first instance, the psalm cannot legitimately be allegorized into the wedding
between Christ and his people or the like. This wedding anticipates heirs who
are successors, displacing their fathers. That means it is an ordinary
Davidic king who is addressed as God.
(3) In Psalm 45 the
courtier, presumably one of the sons of Korah, addresses the Davidic king; in
Hebrews 1, it is God himself who addresses the king, who is clearly Jesus.
Granted the strength of the Davidic typology, it is not surprising that a passage
focusing on a Davidic figure can equally be applied to the ultimate Davidic
figure. On further reflection, the shift from the courtier addressing the
Davidic figure to God himself addressing the Davidic figure is not all that
hard to understand either. The common assumption is that Scripture is, finally,
God’s communication. If God sanctions this form of address to a Davidic king on
the lips of a courtier, then precisely because this is God’s communication, the
courtier’s categories are God’s categories: God himself addresses the
Davidic king as God.
(4) We must not
overlook the fact that the quotation in Hebrews 1 is introduced by the words, “But
about the Son he [God] says” (1:8). That reminds the reader that the
appointment of any Davidide to the throne is equivalent to making him the son
of God, in language stemming from 2 Samuel 7:14 and Psalm 2, the focal
verses quoted in Hebrews 1:5. And as in 2 Samuel 7, so also in Psalm 45: the
immediate reference is necessarily a Davidic king other than
Jesus—and yet these texts are nestled within a Davidic trajectory that can be
fulfilled only in Jesus. (D.A. Carson, Jesus the Son of God: A Christological
Title Overlooked, Sometimes Misunderstood, and Currently Disputed
[Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2012], 53-56, emphasis in bold added)