His Encouragement #77

Good morning, and welcome to His Encouragement Thursday! I don’t know about you, but Thursdays are my struggle day of the week. By Thursday, I have already been working hard at school and at home, and I just wish it would hurry up and be Friday already. LOL! I definitely need a little extra Jesus time on Thursdays.

Trisha, my blogger friend at Joy of Reading, and I decided on calling this post “His Encouragement” because our real source of peace, strength, and security can only come from Jesus Christ. He, and He alone, is our constant! We pray and hope that these Thursday posts become a real encouragement to you and help you end your week strong in God’s love and purpose for you. God bless!

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Today’s Thursday Encouragement comes from:

Psalm 45:6-7 (ESV)

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;

Psalm 45:7-8 (The Complete Jewish Bible)

Your throne, O judge, [will exist] forever and ever; the scepter of equity is the scepter of your kingdom. You loved righteousness and you hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, anointed you with oil of joy from among your peers.

Psalm 45 was part of my Bible studies this past Tuesday. It jumped out at me. I got this intense sense that God wanted me to use it for today’s post.

So, I sat down and annotated the Psalm. Here are my notes:

 

I will admit that as it is written in the ESV, Psalm 45 didn’t make sense to me. I was very confused, especially when I got to verses 6-7. You see, in the ESV Psalm 45 is labeled “Your Throne, O God, is Forever.” With a title like that I assumed that the Psalm would be about God and His throne. But verses 1-5 are about a very human leader. There is one line in particular that equates this leader to being “the most handsome of the sons of men” (line 2). This “handsome man” cannot be a reference to God. I questioned who this unnamed leader could be then. Is it a reference to David? To Solomon? Does is go all the way back to Moses? Is it a reference to the future Messiah? In addition to trying to figure out who this Psalm is talking about, I also couldn’t figure out what any of this has to do with God’s throne when it’s talking about an earthly leader. I was starting to get a little frustrated, yet I kept on. I figured God would show me in His time.

But then in verse 6, like a knee-jerk reaction, the Psalm states, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.” I thought, “OK, abrupt placement, but now we’re going to talk about God.” But then in verse 7 it says, “Therefore God, your God, has anointed you.” WHAT?! How is this possible? God doesn’t have a God. God is God. The ONE and ONLY God. Who is doing the anointing? I don’t understand!

At this point, I went to The Complete Jewish Bible at chabad.org. I find this to be an invaluable resource. The commentary by Rashi helps me comprehend Jewish culture, customs, history, and context within each book of Tanakh so much better. I highly recommend this resource if you have not already checked it out.

Anyway, according to Jewish translation AND commentary by Rashi, Psalm 45 is a love song to those who love and study Torah. The Torah scholar is the prince and judge (see the CJB verse above in green for mention of a judge) discussed throughout the Psalm, and is the one who will be blessed and anointed by God, [our] God (line 7). Psalm 45 is an exhortation on what will happen IF the daughter of God, i.e., the Nation of Israel, loves and obeys Torah (line 10). On a grander scale, we who love and follow God’s Word will be the judges. We will be the princes, princesses, kings, and queens leading other nations to God by being an example to them. But the only way we can ever get this anointing from God is if we do away with the idols we were raised up with — those worldly things we hold onto so desperately — and honor God (line 10). When we do this, God, the King mentioned in line 11 of the Psalm, will desire us and we will be beautiful to Him. When we, as God’s people, love and follow His Word, we will naturally train up a new generation of God-fearing, righteous “princes” (line 16), and God’s Name, His throne, will be praised forever and ever. This all makes so much more sense now!

I love how God works. Here I am working to try to understand this Psalm, and it turns out it is a Psalm about God finding beauty in those who love and study His Word. God is cool! I also appreciate that in this day and age, God has provided ways to ensure my interpretation of His Word is right. Getting His Word wrong is something we definitely don’t want to do. As is written in Hosea 4:6, “[God’s] people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”

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NOW, IT’S YOUR TURN!

WHAT BIBLICAL VERSE IS ENCOURAGING YOU TODAY?

Check out more Thursday Encouragement from my fellow blogger friends:

Trisha @ Joy of Reading

Jacquelyn @ A Heavenly Home

Jessica @ A Baker’s Perspective

Becca @ The Becca Files

Gina @ Stories by Gina

Rebecca @ Rev. Rebecca Writes