The traditional view of this Psalm doesn’t sit right with me. But nothing I argue here will really go against how I use this Psalm in the Bride of Christ post on my Prophecy Blog.
The traditional view has the person being addressed in the Psalm change a few times. The first verse isn’t the Psalm proper at all but just the author's preface, that I agree with. Then the traditional view says verses 2-9 are addressing “The King” and 10-15 his Bride, and then 16-17 are addressing The King again. Of course the King’s Bride is presumably first introduced in verse 9. I don't see these changes in who’s being addressed as being all that justifiable.
Nothing in the sections presumed to address the King actually calls them King. In fact verse 5 is referring to the King as separate when it says they defeated the King’s enemies. Verse 1 says this Psalm concerns the King in some fashion, but doesn’t clearly say how.
Verses 13-15 say.
“The king's daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework: the virgins her companions that follow her shall be brought unto thee. With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought: they shall enter into the king's palace.“
Again, the King and the subject are separate, the King’s daughter is being brought to the King first then given to the subject. These verses tell me that the King like in my view of the Song of Solomon is serving as the father of the Bride, not as the Groom.
I think it’s much more coherent to interpret the subject of the Psalm as being the same person all throughout. And that this person is being given the King’s daughter.
Now it’s possible in that view the Subject could still be David, but that in this context the King is God or Saul. But that will become less likely later.
The word translated “Queen” in verse 9 in reference to the subject’s bride is not a feminine form of Melech or Sar like a lot of other words translated Queen in The Bible. The word is Shegal, which is translated “wives” when Daniel 5 uses its plural form though it’s not a usual word for wife either. The verb it’s derived from is Shagal, a word usually translated “lie” or “ravished”, and in all contexts seems clearly about sex.
Nothing all that controversial so far. Till we look at verse 10 which clearly called the subject a daughter. Verse 11 is the primary basis for saying this is a woman the King is marrying, but I think that is jumping to conclusions. Verse 10 is also the basis for seeing the woman here as a foreigner, but I feel that terminology could simply be her not being of the same Tribe. The word for “people” is Am not Goyim. Genesis 48 foretells Manasseh will be his own Am.
Verses 6 and 7 are quoted in Hebrews chapter 1, verses 8 and 9 as being about Jesus (Paul says “the Son” not “a son”).
First of all I can again reference my Song of Solomon studies as precedent for a female personage being a type of Christ. And many think the Wisdom of Proverbs is Jesus, which is clearly referred to with Feminine pronouns, and the Hebrew and Greek words for Wisdom are all grammatically feminine.
Secondly this isn’t the only place where a New Testament quotation is being kind of creative with the Old Testament context. I think it’s also possible Paul was paraphrasing and that this doesn’t justify the Septuagint translation as much as one might at first think.
On the subject of translating these verses, the words for Throne in both Hebrew and Greek are words for Seat or Chair not solely limited to Royal Thrones the way that English word usually is.
Alternate translations of Psalm 45:6 include "your divine throne endures for ever and ever"[Rhodes 78] and "the eternal and everlasting God has enthroned you"[Dahood 269]. Verse 7 could also read “Elohim thy God has anointed thee” or “Elohim has anointed thy God”. The Hebrew Bible calling a human an El in the right context isn’t as weird as you at first think, just look at Exodus 7:1.
The word for God used in verse 6 is Elohim. But in verse 7 the word for God with the Thy/Your suffix attached is not Elohim though the Strongs categorizes it like it is. It does have a Heh however, which makes it possible to view as Grammatically Feminine. Actually it’s possible to even interpret Elohim as partly grammatically feminine, but that is a much bigger rabbit hole.
The subject possibly being or representing Jesus isn’t actually the most controversial implication of making the subject a woman all throughout it. The biggest issue is the implication that this daughter is being given, either in marriage or in some sexual fashion, the King’s daughter. Meaning I have just argued this Psalm is about a Lesbian couple.
Now at face value you can say the last two verses are clearly making this about a Heterosexual couple since they have children. But the application of this to Jesus and His Bride does not view these children as literal offspring of Biological reproduction, but as the “remnant of her Seed” of Revelation 12:17, or more controversially in my view The Man-Child. There is also the Suffering Servant’s Seed in Isaiah 53.
What is special about Psalm 45 however is it doesn’t even say Seed, so it is the most linguistically justifiable to apply to children by Adoption, or any other means by which a Lesbian couple could have kids.
The word for Earth in verse 16 also just means land, and refers to specific lands many times. It doesn’t always mean the whole Planet Earth. That is how I interpret it when applying this Psalm to Jesus, but as far as this original woman who married into the royal family, they may have been given a specific region, maybe a whole Tribe’s allotment at most.
Now what I’m about to mention is just an interesting coincidence.
I started seeing this possible Lesbian implication to Psalm 45 before I noticed this is one of the Psalms that is to the Tune Shoshannim as it’s transliterated in the KJV.
What does Shoshannim mean? Well first of all the im suffix makes it plural. And Shoshan/Shushan is the Hebrew word for Lily. Meaning Shoshannim means Lilies. But what does Lily/Shushan translate to in Japanese? Yuri!!!
Meaning this Psalm was “to the Tune of the Yuries”.
The last verse is a bit of an issue if the original subject of the Psalm is some random woman otherwise forgotten by history. So let’s see if we can identify her with someone else mentioned in Scripture.
The Gold from Ophir tells me this isn’t a proper Davidic Psalm but from the time of Solomon at the soonest. The word for “Daughter” can also refer to a granddaughter or more distant female descendant, basically any woman of the Royal family could be the King’s Daughter in question. I note that here though it may not be relevant.
1st Kings 4:7-19 lists officers Solomon placed over the Tribes of Israel, it’s most well known for how two of them are said to have married daughters of Solomon. One of those two, Ahimaaz in verse 15, is also unique in being the only one of these 12 not called the Son of someone. The English translation uses a male pronoun, but that could be a product of the limitations of English. In fact there are other places where this same Hebrew prefix Hu is translated more gender neutrally, and Genesis 29:12 uses it of Rebecca.
The other references in the Hebrew Bible to people with the name Ahimaaz mostly seem to clearly be males (though it’s not impossible that for some reason Ahinoam wife of Saul was referred to as the daughter of her mother), but it wouldn't be the only name used by both Sexes. The name ends with the letter Tzadiq, the Hebrew word for Earth/Land is Eretz which also ends with a Tzadiq and is considered grammatically feminine according to the Strongs.
The meaning of Ahimaaz being interpreted to have “brother” in it doesn’t mean anything in regard to their gender, David had two wives whose names mean father of something, Abigail and Avital. Ach, the part taken to mean brother, is used at the start of a few feminine words and names, like the name of Ahinoam.
So perhaps Psalm 45 is about the marriage of Ahimaaz to Basemath?
This might be a good time to note my personal hunch that Basemath was probably the daughter of one of Solomon’s Edomite wives, given that name’s association with wives of Esau.
Ahimaaz was placed over Naphtali, Genesis 49 calls Naphtali a Hind, Ayalah in the Hebrew, a specifically feminine word for a deer like animal. So maybe a woman being in charge of Naphtali fits that prophetically.
The land allotted to Naphtali is where most of Jesus ministry was. Isaiah 9 defines Galilee as Zebulun and Napthali, though the traditional site of Nazareth is closer to Zebulun, Capernaum which seems to be the main base of operations in the Synoptic Gospels was firmly in Naphtali. Tiberias, a capital of NT era Galilee, was also in Naphtali.
I proposed a theory on my now semi defunct revised chronology blog that the Amazons of Greek mythology might have come from Dan. Dan was the full sibling of Naphtali. The goddess of the Amazons was sometimes viewed as being Artemis, who was often associated with female Deer. And I could conceivably connect the name of Artemis to Ahimaaz, or the etymology of the word Amazon itself to Ahimaaz. And the husband of a daughter of Salmoneus was also relevant to that post. Perhaps the distorted Greek memory changed Ahimaaz to a brother of Salmoneus because of the name’s meaning having brother in it?
Update November 2018: It's also possible Ahimaaz could be a Trans woman or a Trans man, I'd consider a Trans woman more likely.
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