Wednesday, July 22, 2026

Psalm 45 as the ode for Solomon

Psalm 45 (MT) might be the Catholic core psalm. Biblical scholars love it too, usually assigning it to Athaliah's wedding upon a base of Ahab-and-Jezebel. Lately however one Yazdan Safaee suggests it is better placed with the Persians - pdf at the link.

The language turns out to be Late Biblical Hebrew, with parallels in 3 Isaiah and Esther. It may even be Templar, paralleling the Hebrew parts of Ezra. As ideology goes the king's throne is God's throne, and for him is the glory which Psalm 104 would reserve to its (sun) God. Even the most promonarchic texts of the Deuteronomist History wouldn't dare that.

Rather, this khwarrah permeates where the Chronicler (in LBH) adjusts its own base in Reigns. We know the Chronicler owned a psalter, parts of which he mainlined into the narrative. Psalm 45, as Safaee would have it, is for Solomon - like the Canticles. The messianist would say: for the new Solomon to come.

Safaee now must explain how this Psalm ended up with the songs of Qoraḥ 42-9, Elohistic redaction. For Safaee, this editor wanted to cap Psalm 44 - a song of exile - with a promise for the better future.

The verses 45:11-16 remain outstanding. I don't know if Safaee explains that as well as he could. I might suggest a "fan fiction" where the gentiles of Lebanon are marrying into Solomon's house. As, perhaps, an irony, this revives Hugo Grotius: who argued for the Psalm as the wedding song of Solomon to an Egyptian princess. Such had been accepted into the Geneva Bible also.

If we are looking at Chronicler fanfic, very little room remains for Ahab or Athaliah theorists (or, indeed, for Grotius). Such would have to argue that this Psalm somehow avoided notice until after 2 Isaiah. Unless... they can find witnesses to this Psalm before the LBH corpus. But given Psalm 104, which is considered late (and Egyptian), that is going to be difficult.

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