The King in His Glory (1)

Opening Prayer: Psalm 45.2
You are fairer than the sons of men;
Grace is poured upon Your lips;
Therefore God has blessed You forever.

Sing Psalm 45.2
(Manoah: When All Your Mercies, O My God)
You of all men are the fairest, Lord, and Your lips are flush with grace;
Thus God has blessed You evermore before His holy face.

Read Psalm 45 (don’t forget the superscription!); meditate on verses 1, 2

Preparation
1. What kind of psalm is this?

2. How would you describe the mood of this psalm?

Meditation
Psalm 45 is quite obviously about the king, his queen, and the glories of their court. This is probably an early psalm in the corpus of the sons of Korah, since it carries no hint of the troubles sensed in Psalm 44. The purpose is to celebrate and extol the greatness of the king and his realm, and to provide a means for that glory to be remembered and celebrated for all generations and throughout the world.

While Solomon is the immediate subject of Psalm 45, ultimately, this psalm is about Jesus, as the writer of Hebrews explained (Heb. 1.8, 9). This is another psalm to be contemplated deeply and repeatedly, as we see in the superscription. To aid us in that, the psalmists set Psalm 45 to a song called “The Lilies” – perhaps a folk or pop song of the day. Singing is a great aid in contemplation because it engages not just our mind but our affections and bodies as well. In The Ailbe Psalter, we have set it to the lovely “Manoah” hymn melody, composed in 1851 by Gioacchino A. Rossini.

This is “A Song of Love.” In the Hebrew language this is called a genitive construction. It can suggest various interpretations, such as “a song from love”, or “a song to convey love”, or even “a song to encourage love”. While each of these fits well, I think the last is the best way of thinking about the purpose the sons of Korah had in mind, especially in view of verse 17. The psalmists want to encourage love for the King, that all who read and sing and use this psalm should grow to love this glorious King as they did. What they sing with their tongues, they want others to receive from their pens and sing as well (v. 1).

We sense the depth and sincerity of that love in verses 1 and 2. Their hearts “overflow” with love for their King, who is “fairer” than all the sons of men. They see in him – as we see in Jesus – the embodiment of the grace and blessings of God (v. 2). What’s not to love here?

And what’s not to love about Jesus? Like the sons of Korah, we are called to display the beauty, strength, grace, and blessing of our King, and to urge the people in our Personal Mission Field to consider and turn to Jesus, that they might join us in loving Him above all else.

Treasure Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162
There is no better way to speak of our love for the King than to use Scripture to perfect it.

“My heart is overflowing” with love for You (Ps. 45.1).
“My tongue shall speak of Your righteousness and of Your praise all the day long” (Ps. 35.28).
“My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing to You, and my soul, which You have redeemed. My tongue also shall talk of Your righteousness all the day long…” (Ps. 71.23, 24).
“My tongue shall speak of Your word, for all Your commandments are righteousness” (Ps. 119.172).

Speaking our love for the King brings abundant blessing to our lives:
“A man will be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth…” (Prov. 12.14).
“A man’s stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth; from the produce of his lips he shall be filled” (Prov. 18.20).

God sees our love for the King as beautiful:
“Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous! For praise from the upright is beautiful” (Ps. 33.1).
“Praise the LORD! For it is good to sing praises to our God; for it is pleasant, and praise is beautiful” (Ps. 147.1).

For our belief in, and love for, the King we are abundantly blessed with life-sustaining water. And this water that flows through us will be a blessing to others:
“But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (Jn. 4.14; 7.38).

“And what’s not to love about Jesus?”

Reflection
1. What is your favorite song for singing of your love for Jesus? Why?

2. How can singing help us to gain more from the discipline of contemplation?

3. Why do you suppose the sons of Korah borrowed a familiar melody for their psalm?

He came to us with the word of grace on his lips, with the kiss of grace.… If he had come as a strict judge, without this grace bedewing his lips, who would have had any hope of salvation? Would anyone have been unafraid of what was owing to a sinner? But he came bringing grace, and so far from demanding what was owed to God, he paid a debt he did not owe. Augustine (354-430), Expositions of the Psalms 45.7

Closing Prayer: Psalm 45.1
Use a significant part of your prayer time to recount the many praises of our Lord, and to declare your love and devotion to Him.

Psalm 45.1
(Manoah: When All Your Mercies, O My God)
O my heart, let now a pleasing theme overflow to praise the Lord;
my song I pledge to You, my King, and dedicate my words.

T. M. and Susie Moore

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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter (Williston: Waxed Tablet Publications, 2006), available by clicking here.