Psalms 45:10

Psa 45:10 Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house;

Ver. 10. Hearken, O daughter, and consider; incline thine ear] The prophet’s, or rather Christ’s, counsel to the Church, and each member thereof, wholly to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, Tit 3:12; to leave all, and to cleave to Christ. This, because it is soon said, but not so soon done, he presseth in many words all to one purpose, Hearken, see, incline thine ear. Self-denial is a most difficult duty, and yet so necessary, that if it be not done we shall be undone.

Forget also thine own people, &c.] All evil opinions must be unlearned, and all evil practices abandoned, and all our love transferred and transfused upon Christ; or we cannot be a fit spouse for him. Christ’s spouse must {as Deu 21:11-13} shave her head, pare her nails, and bewail her father and mother, that is, her natural inbred evils and corruptions.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa_45:10-11

Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear.

; forget also thine own people, and thy fathers house.

The Bridegrooms call to the bride

Christ and His Church are the subject of this noble psalm.

I. The call to higher holiness, to higher attainments in faith, love and purity. And the figure employed suggests what is needed--the entire renunciation of the world which lieth in the wicked one, as in marriage the bride is well content to leave her old home, and all its intimacies, for the higher love that awaits her. See the call of Abraham, and what is written of the tribe of Levi. Who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him, etc.; and our Lords words, He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is, etc.

II. The enforcement of this exhortation. So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty. That beauty is a spiritual one--the beauty of holiness, the spiritual lovelines of a soul on which the King has begun to stamp the impress of His own beauty. Many will mournfully say that no such beauty is theirs. But remember that word of the Lord, I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus. I have surely heard; it means that it is as sweetest music in my ears. The lowly self-estimate, the deep humility of heart which such sorrow reveals is part of the very beauty which made the Lord answer to the bride who had just said, Look not upon me, for I am black, Behold, thou art all fair, my love; there is not a spot in thee. For the mantle of Christs perfect righteousness is cast over every believer, and in that they are all fair.

III. The further enforcement and exhortation. For He is thy Lord, and worship thou Him. We are never to forget His Divine dignity and the unutterable disparity of rank between the parties in this marriage. Thy Maker is thy husband. Our love, therefore, must be worship, adoration. (C. J. Brown, D. D.)

The portrait of the Bride

The transference of the historical features of this wedding-song to a spiritual purpose is not so easy or satisfactory as in the case of the Brides consort. There is a thicker rind of prose fact to cut through, and certain of the features cannot be applied without undue violence. But in its main broad outlines this portraiture of the Bride tells of the Church of Christ as did that of the King tell of Christ Himself.

I. The all-surrendering love that must mark the bride. In all real wedded life, as those who have tasted it know, there comes, by sweet necessity, the subordination, in the presence of a purer and more absorbing affection, of all lower, howsoever sweet, loves that once filled the whole heart. The same thing is true in regard to the union of the soul with Christ. The description of the Brides abandonment of former duties and ties may be transferred, without the change of a word, to our relations to Him. If love to Him has really come into our hearts, it will master all our yearnings and tendencies and affections, and we shall feel that we cannot but yield up everything besides by reason of the sovereign power of this new affection. It will deal with the old loves just as the new buds upon the beech-trees in the spring deal with the old leaves that still hang withered on some of the branches--push them from their hold. Love will sweep the heart clean of its antagonists. Christ demands complete surrender. Ah! I fear me that it is no uncharitable judgment to say that the bulk of so-called Christians are playing at being Christians, and have never penetrated into the depths either of the sweet all-sufficiency of the love that they say they possess, or the constraining necessity which is in it for the surrender of all besides.

II. The kings love and the brides reverence (Psa_45:11). Here are two thoughts that go, as I take it, very deep into the realities of the Christian life. The first is that, in simple literal fact, Jesus Christ is affected, in His relation to us, by the completeness of our dependence upon Him, and surrender of all else for Him. We do not believe that half vividly enough. Again, in the measure in which we live out our Christianity, in whole-hearted and thorough surrender, in that measure shall we be conscious of His nearness and feel His love. There are many Christian people that have only got religion enough to make them uncomfortable. They must not do this because it is forbidden; they ought to do that because it is commanded. They would much rather do the forbidden thing, and they have no wish to do the commanded thing. And so they live in twilight. And they cannot understand the blessed experience of the man who really walks in the light of Christs face, and they miss the blessing that is waiting for them because they have not really given up themselves.

III. The reflected honour and influence of the bride. The Bride, thus beloved by the King, thus standing by His side, those around recognize her dignity and honour, and draw near to secure her intercession. Translate that out of the emblem into plain words, and it comes to this--if Christian people, and communities of such, are to have influence in the world, they must be thoroughgoing Christians.

IV. The fair adornment of the bride. The Kings daughter is all glorious within. The Book of the Revelation dresses her in the fine linen clean and white, which symbolizes the lustrous radiance and snowy purity of righteousness. The psalm describes her dress as partly consisting in garments gleaming with gold, which suggests splendour and glory, and partly in robes of careful and many-coloured embroidery, which suggests the patience with which the slow needle has been worked through the stuff, and the variegated and manifold graces and beauties with which she is adorned.

V. The homecoming of the bride. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The Bride

We have here the marriage of a great King, of Him who is King of kings. Christ and the Church are the parties concerned.

I. The party addressed. Who is it? Hearken, O daughter. Who is the daughter? The daughter here, without doubt, is the Church. Who else is there that can be the daughter of God? And how exceedingly beautiful and appropriate is the appellation bestowed upon her! She is the daughter. And why so? Because she is the wife of the Son. It is precisely as it is recognized in our own case. The wife of the son becomes the daughter of the father of the son, and still more remarkably, she becomes the daughter-in-law. That is literally the position occupied by the Church and the light in which she is regarded by the very law of God. Hence, hearken, O daughter. This is more than adoption, for there, there may be no kind of connection, but here it is of the closest kind. And there follows from it the transference to the bride of the glory, riches and happiness of the husband, while all the obligations, debts, delinquencies and deficiencies belonging to the wife are taken by him. You have no enemies that are not his; he no friends that are not yours. What a wonderful union it is.

II. The charge to the bride. Hearken and consider, etc. Now, the charge to forget thine own people, etc., may seem difficult. But there must be unreserved and undivided affection. There must be nothing allowed in the feelings and affections as comparable to Him. We must be ready to put all on one side for Christ. There must be no compromise. He gave up all for us.

III. The promise. So shall the King, etc. The beauty is that of holiness. Let it be ours. (J. Capel Molyneux, B. A.)

The espousal of souls to Christ

I. An exhortation. Hearken, O daughter, etc. This day, if your covenant is not to be an empty mocking, your heart must be opened to hear the declaration of His love, in redeeming your soul from destruction, and offering to espouse you to Himself.

II. An instruction Forget also, etc.

III. A promise. So shall the King greatly desire thy beauty. The believer is not called to forsake the objects of his natural corrupt taste, without a much higher and more precious object being set forth for his acceptance, even the love of the King. He delights in the first efforts after righteousness, as in the green figs and tender grapes, which, though of no value in themselves, yet promise well. By all comparisons, by every means which can strengthen faith, Christ gives pledge to the soul forgetting her own people and her fathers house, that His love will not be withheld, but that He will greatly desire her beauty. Thy beauty shall be perfect through His comeliness put upon thee.

IV. A command. He is thy Lord, etc. However great or perfect the beauty of the spouse may be, or however high the privileges or honours the king may vouchsafe to her, yet let her remember that all is of Christ, and through Christ, and to Christ; and let her keep her own place of subordination to Him. Let the soul making covenant with Christ beware of spiritual pride, of thinking that she has attained safety from sin, or that she is now so regenerated that she cannot fall. Be not high-minded, but fear. (G. Innes.)

Christ the best husband; or, an earnest invitation to young women to come and see Christ

I. How Christ doth espouse himself unto the children, but more especially unto the daughters of men. The marriage knot is tied here, in which are included four things.

1. A mutual choice. Christ, when He first comes to you, finds you full of sin and pollution; and He maketh choice of you, not because of your holiness, nor of your beauty; you are drawn to make choice of this Lord Jesus Christ, because He first chose you.

2. A mutual affection accompanies the choice. The more acquaintance you have of this Lord Jesus, the more pleased you are with your choice, and the more your affections are drawn towards Him. And where can you place your affections better than upon that Jesus, who shed His blood for your sakes?

3. There is likewise mutual union; and here doth the marriage lie chiefly in this union.

4. There is a mutual obligation between Christ and His spouse.

II. Christ doth invite all of you to be his spouse. He regardeth not the rich more than the poor. He chose a mean virgin, espoused to a carpenter, to be His mother; and He chooseth and calleth all such to be His spouse.

III. Those who would re espoused unto Christ must hearken, consider, and incline to his invitation, and forget even their fathers house. You are not here to cast off all affections unto natural relations; but you must forget all relations, so as to be ready to forego all their favour, when it standeth in competition with that of the Lord Jesus Christ; and do not let your carnal friends and relations hinder you from closing with, and espousing, the Lord Jesus. (G. Whitefield, M. A.)

The privileges and duties of Christs spouse.

These words are the Fathers advice to the newly espoused Bride, how she may please her husband, His Son.

1. Consider the appellation given to the soul espoused to Christ--Daughter. Here is the name which believers receive. The person that naturally was a child of the devil, on the espousal with the Son of God, becomes a child of God. Though He brings home a spouse out of an ill house, and has nothing with her, yet His Father welcomes her into His family, and gives her no worse word than daughter.

2. The advice. She must be very obsequious to her husband, and in all things to follow Him as His own shadow. Search the meaning of the words, hearken and consider. This is what a dutiful wife owes to her husband. Her husbands will must be hers. Her ear to him and her eye upon him. She must renounce all others for her husband. The more she minds them the less pleasing will she be. Consider--

I. The duty of the espoused to Christ, carefully to hear His will, and observe His motions, so as they may suit themselves to His pleasure in all things. This I take to be the meaning of this first clause. For explaining this doctrine, I shall show what is imported in it. It imports--

1. That Christs spouse is not left to walk at random. She is to notice every step of her carriage.

2. That those that are espoused to Christ must renounce their own will, and not seek to please themselves. If any man, saith Jesus, will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up, etc.

3. That our great aim in all things must be to please our Lord and husband, this is the law of marriage.

4. That we must trample upon our own inclinations when contrary to His, as Abraham did when offering up Isaac.

5. That when Christs will and our own go together, our main end must be to please Him.

6. We must not think to please Him with our own desires: only with what He commands.

7. That we must ever be with eye and ear attent that we may know and do His will (Psa_123:2).

II. What it is to hear his will. He speaks through His works by our own consciences; by His Word, and by His Spirit. And all these we must hear and obey, and that without disputing.

III. How we are to eye and observe him so as to please him. As our Lord and master; as our teacher; as our guide and leader; as our last and chief end; as our witness in all things; as our judge; as our husband. We should also diligently observe His countenance towards us; and His dispensations and way of dealing with us.

IV. Reasons of this doctrine. Because of all that He is to us. Because of His love to us which so demands it. He died for us. The angels obey Him, shall not we? His pleasure is that which is best for us. His bidding is ever for our good. There are three things I would have you to believe.

1. That you are not fit to be your own choosers. The event has proved it often, in that people getting their own will has been their ruin (Psa_78:29), and the best of the saints, getting the reins in their own hand, have set all on fire.

2. All our wilfulness proceeds on a mistake. We think sinful liberty best for us, ease, plenty, and the like. God knows it is otherwise, and therefore He will have us hear Him for our good.

3. Consider your experience. Have you not seen many times how God has done you good against your wills, good which you would never have got had He given you your will. (T. Boston, D. D)

Christs spouse

The second advice given to the spouse is this, Forget also thine own people and thy fathers house (Gen_2:24). It is equivalent to that, That ye put off concerning the former conversation (Eph_4:22; 1Pe_1:14). Now, in these words, Forget also, etc., there is--

1. The natural relations of Christs spouse pointed at in contradistinction to those of her husband. She wants not relations, indeed, but they are such as she can have no credit nor good from them, but will be the worse of them, and therefore her husband has taken her out from among them, and would have her to forget them. She has some that are her natural country people, her own people. Who are these but the world that lieth in wickedness; and before she was espoused to Christ, she was one of their own, but He hath chosen her out of the world. Every country hath its own fashions, and in former times she followed the fashions of the country as well as the rest. She has also a fathers house in that country. Who is her father naturally but the devil? (Joh_8:44), and though she has left the house, yet he keeps house there still with his children and servants (Luk_15:15).

2. There is the duty of Christs spouse with respect to these. She must forget both of them. And here there is something supposed, that is, that Christs spouse is apt to have a hankering after her own people and fathers house, even after she has left them, as Laban alleged that Jacob sore longed after his fathers house. There may be eager looks back again, while the soul minds them, and that with too much affection, not sufficiently weaned from them. There is something also expressed that Christs spouse ought to forget them. Not absolutely, for she not only may, but ought to mind them for her own humiliation and thankfulness. But in respect of affection, her heart must be weaned from them, she must not desire to return to them; and in respect of practice, she must no more conform herself to them. But the hearts of Christians are often found much unweaned from their fathers house. As it is with a childish, new-married woman, they have a foolish hankering after the house from which they came.

I. Is what this unweariedness apears.

1. In the cooling of our zeal against our fathers house.

2. In kindly reflections on its entertainments and pleasures. Israel lusting after the flesh-pots of Egypt.

3. In uneasiness under the restraints of our husbands house.

4. In hankering after the Egypt we have left. Remember Lots wife.

5. In kindly entertaining any sent from thence (2Sa_12:4).

6. In serving our husband after the fashion of our fathers house; like a new-married woman, who, though she has changed the house, yet she keeps the fashions of that from which she came. So, though the man will not neglect prayer, hearing, and ether duties, yet he is so far unweaned, that he performs these often only as they do who are still in his fathers house. When thou prayest, says He, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are. He will have his own work done after the fashion of His own house.

7. In our stealing visits to our fathers house, and secret tampering with former lusts. Stealing it must be, for our Lord and Husband will never give His consent to the meeting again (Eze_6:9). But alas! how often is Christs spouse missed out of her husbands house.

8. Many that have been espoused to Christ before the world, but not from the heart, quite forsake their husband, and go back, for altogether, to their fathers house by their apostasy. Like the Levites wife--for wife she was, though in a secondary degree (Jdg_19:1-30.).

II. What is the cause of all this? There are some who have been joined to Christ only by the hand, but never by the heart. But even those who are joined to Him by both may yet be chargeable with being unweaned from their fathers house, as the others certainly are. For--

1. The consent of many to Christ is an involuntary consent (Psa_78:34; Psa_78:36-37). The stone thrown up in the air will fall again when the force ceaseth.

2. The heart has not been freely loosed from some one sin or another. They go not very far away from Egypt (Mar_10:20-21).

3. Sin has never been made bitter enough to them. The soul that never tasted the bitterness of sin will break over purposes, vows and resolutions, to get to it again.

4. Because by reason of their not living by faith on Christ, they find not that soul satisfaction in Him which they expected. No wonder she longs to be back at her fathers house who is disappointed of comfort in her husbands.

5. Because there is a principle of corruption in the best, which still inclines the wrong way. We are unstable souls. A good frame is hard to get, and easily lost. It is like letters written in the sand, that a blast of wind doth obliterate. Hence the soul often turns aside very quickly, and on very slender occasions, as Peter at the voice of a maid, and that even soon after some remarkable manifestations from the Lord. Lastly, because those of our fathers house are ever seeking to seduce us, and make us as they are. How humble should all this make us, and how careful not to look back and hanker after our old sins. Think how such desires grieve the Spirit of Christ; how they will move your communion with Christ; how unfixed and unstable in religion they will make you; how they dishonour Christ; how they are the fountain of apostasy. They that are often looking away will break away at length. (T. Boston, D. D.)

Christs spouse

The bride is to forget her own people and her fathers house, i.e. the wicked world, the children of disobedience among whom we, etc. When the soul comes to Christ, it must say, as Ruth to Naomi, Thy people shall be my people, etc.

I. The forgetting of her people by the bride.

1. In what respects. We must forsake their company; we must not conform ourselves to them; we must forget them in affection.

2. Why we must do this. Because they are not going our way. In coming to Christ we give up with them. He says to us, If you take me, let them go their way. And the worlds friendship is enmity with God (Jam_4:8); and at last there will be a total separation (Mat_20:1). Grace begins it here. Evil company, too, is an affecting plague. Evil communications corrupt, etc. Remember, if you do not separate from them, you will share with them.

II. The forgetting of the fathers house. This father is our father, the devil.

1. You must part with the master of the house, Satan, and renounce your relation to the house. Though you have no express compact with him, you have need to do this.

2. And you must quit the work of the house. We must cast off the work of darkness. They weary themselves to commit iniquity. This is work, hard, toilsome, dark, soul-ruining work. Now, you must quit the work of the house, of whatever sort it be. You must not be like those that will give over their master, engage with another, and yet come back and fall to their work again.

3. You must part with the provision and entertainments of the house. People use to get their meat where they work, and Satans slaves get their meat also in their fathers house.

4. And you must quit the fashions of the house. Every house hath its own fashions, and so has your fathers; but you must not keep them up. In civil things the fashion is to mind the world first, and even to give conscience a el, retch, if a person can gain any profit or ease by it. If you quit not these fashions, you will never see the house of heaven (Luk_10:41-42; 1Co_6:8-9; 1Th_4:6). If ever men get more religion, they will get more moral honesty.

5. You must quit the garb of the house. Under the Old Testament, when people were to make any solemn appearance before God, they were called to change their garments (Gen_34:2). You must part with the inner garment of the house, that is the old man with his deeds (Eph_4:22; Col_3:9). The old man is the corrupt evil nature. You must also part with the upper garment of the house, that is, the filthy rags of our own righteousness (Isa_64:6; Zec_3:4). And lastly, you must quit the interest of the house. People are readily concerned for the interest of their own house, and none more than the members of your fathers house. Now, if you mind for heaven you must quit this interest and pursue that of heaven, which is directly opposite (Gen_3:15).

III. Why must christians forget their fathers house. Because--

1. Our fathers and our husbands house are quite contrary the one to the other. There is no reconciling them (2Co_6:14-15).

2. As our husbands house is most honourable, so our fathers is most base.

3. Because we will never apply ourselves to the way of our husbands house if we forget not our fathers house. While the hearts of the Israelites were set on the flesh-pots of Egypt, they could make no progress in their journey to Canaan.

4. Because it is the worst of houses. No wonder, for the devil, the worst of masters, is the master of the house. It is soul slavery. The fashions of the house are the very reverse of all that is good. The interests of the house are the dishonour of God, the ruin of mankind. The garb of the house is filthy rags, and the shame of their nakedness will at length appear before the world.

IV. Those are to be reproved that will not forget their fathers house. And who are these?

1. They are those that in the midst of Gospel light continue in the darkness of the house; their father has put out their eyes (2Co_4:4).

2. Those that retain the language of the house. When Peter spoke the damsel knew what countryman he was. And what shall we say of thee who art a cursor, swearer, liar, filthy speaker, but that thou art a Hellilean? I appeal to your own consciences what sort of language:/ours is.

3. Those that wear the badge of the house on their breasts, the master of the houses mark on their forehead. Profane people. You who will not pray. The wicked through the pride of his countenance will not seek after God.

4. Those that give up themselves to the trade of the house, minding nothing but the world, earthly things. They know not communion with God.

5. Those that are the hidden servants of the house. It has been said of some that they have stolen away to heaven without being observed; but there are others that steal away to hell, and the world never hears the sound of their feet: even deep-veiled hypocrites, whited sepulchres. (T. Boston, D. D.)

The youthful Christian exposed to the hostility of ungodly relatives and the world

The words of our text apply specially to Christ and His redeemed Church. But I take the words in a large general sense, as applicable to all who would be interested in the Redeemer. And the force of them in that sense is this, that no earthly relation, however near and however beloved--no earthly interest, however valuable and however important--must come between you and God. A strange method this (it may not unnaturally occur to your minds) of recommending religion! to tell you that it may perhaps expose you to the sorest crucifixion of natural feelings and to the most painful sacrifices. And--

I. There ever has been, and there ever will be, an inconsiderable opposition between the world and the godly. True, you may escape this opposition by dispensing with the seriousness of mind which religion produces. Keep only to the form of religion and the world will not complain. But its subjects are so momentous, so overwhelming, and its joy so tempered with solemnity, that they who know the power of religion will have the least relish for the frivolous pleasures of this world. Religion hangs so loosely on many that it gives no offence. It stands in no ones way. They can be all things to all men. Such persons are safe from the world. But if you will not be such as these, there is no alternative but to reckon on the opposition of the world and its friends.

II. Some of the situations in which christian sincerity will be tried.

1. In the first place, they may be deserted by friends and relatives. Even those on whom they depend for support may turn against them and cast them off.

2. They may be tempted to sin. They may be sorely plagued by the ungodly. Righteous Lot of old was vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked in Sodom; and there are innumerable ways in which the men of the world may tempt and injure the godly.

3. They may be despised. To be religious is thought mean and low. Now, some particular duty which shall mark them out as Christians may have to be performed. It is performed, and so draws the gaze and the contempt of all around. This is hard to bear. But it must be borne. Have you repented of your choice? (John Young, M. A.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa 45:10. Hearken, &c. — The prophet, having hitherto spoken to the bridegroom, addresses himself now to the bride or queen. O daughter — He speaks like an elder person, and as her spiritual father and counsellor; Consider, and incline thine ear — He useth several words signifying the same thing, to show his serious and earnest desire of her good, and the great importance and difficulty of practising the following counsel. Forget also — Comparatively; thine own people, and thy father’s house — He alludes to the law of matrimony, Gen 2:24, and to what Solomon said, or should have said, to Pharaoh’s daughter, to wean her from the idolatry and other vices of her father’s house. But this, as well as the rest of the Psalm, respects Christ, and is a seasonable and necessary advice and command to all persons that desire to be united to him, whether Jews or Gentiles, to cast off all their old errors and prejudices, all those superstitious, or idolatrous, or wicked opinions, or practices, which they had received by long, and ancient, and, as they might suppose, venerable tradition, from their fathers, and to give themselves up entirely to Christ to be instructed by him, to receive his doctrine, and obey his precepts, though they might seem new to them. Reader, art thou coming to Christ to give up thy name to him? Remember, thou art now entering into a new state; let old things, therefore, pass away; regard no more thy connections with earth; let the love, and, if possible, the very memory of thy former condition, be obliterated from thy mind; hate, comparatively, father and mother, and all that is dear to thee in the world; that is, love them less than Christ, and his honour, and thy interest in him, Luk 14:26.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

11. (Psa 45:10). Hear, daughter, and see, and bend thine ear, and forget thy people and the house of thy father. The Psalmist, in view of the ideal scene which he has brought before us, utters a kind of nuptial exhortation to the queen or chief bride of Messiah. Hear what I have to say; see, with the mind's eye, what I set before thee, look at it, consider it. Incline thine ear, lean forward as a sign of attention, so that nothing shall escape thee. See above, on Psa 17:6; Psa 31:3 (2). This preliminary summons to attend implies that something of serious moment is to follow. The word daughter may be simply used, as son is elsewhere, to suggest the relation of a junior to a senior, or of a pupil to a teacher. See above, on Psa 34:12 (11), and compare Pro 1:8; Pro 2:1; Pro 3:1; Pro 4:1, etc. Or the Psalmist may be understood as speaking in the person of the bride's father, when about to part with her; but this is less natural, since the father is referred to, in the last clause, as a third person. Some suppose a specific reference to the daughter of Zion as the real object of address, while others understand by daughter a king's daughter, a royal princess, or suppose her to be here addressed as one who was no longer to be treated as a daughter, but as a wife and mother. As if he had said, "Hitherto thou hast been a daughter, but now thou must forget thy father's house." All these ideas may have been present to the writer's mind, as they are all spontaneously suggested to the reader's. Forget thy people, etc., is a strong but natural and perfectly intelligible mode of saying, form new relations, or accommodate thyself to them when formed. There is obvious allusion to the law of marriage in Gen 2:24, and to the calling of Abraham in Gen 12:1. What the patriarch was there required to do is here enjoined upon his children in the person of their ideal representative. The ancient church or chosen people is required to come out from the world and be exclusively devoted to Jehovah. The exhortation becomes still more pointed and significant when taken in connection with the fact, that Solomon's wives, who seem to have supplied the figures for this striking allegorical tableau, instead of acting on the principle here laid down, by adopting the religion of their husband, "turned away his heart after other gods" (1Ki 11:4).

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psalms

THE PORTRAIT OF THE BRIDE

Psa 45:10 - Psa 45:15.

The relation between God and Israel is constantly represented in the Old Testament under the emblem of a marriage. The tenderest promises of protection and the sharpest rebukes of unfaithfulness are based upon this foundation. ‘Thy Maker is thy Husband’; or, ‘I am married unto thee, saith the Lord.’ The emblem is transferred in the New Testament to Christ and His Church. Beginning with John the Baptist’s designation of Him as the Bridegroom, it reappears in many of our Lord’s sayings and parables, is frequent in the writings of the Apostle Paul, and reaches its height of poetic splendour and terror in that magnificent description in Revelation of ‘the Bride, the Lamb’s wife,’ and ‘the marriage supper of the Lamb.’

Seeing, then, the continual occurrence of this metaphor, it is unnatural and almost impossible to deny its presence in this psalm. In a former sermon I have directed attention to the earlier portion of it, which presents us, in its portraiture of the King, a shadowy and prophetic outline of Jesus Christ. I desire, in a similar fashion, to deal now with the latter portion, which, in its portrait of the bride, presents us with truths having their real fulfilment in the Church collectively and in the individual soul.

Of course, inasmuch as the consort of a Jewish monarch was not an incarnate prophecy as her husband was, the transference of the historical features of this wedding-song to a spiritual purpose is not so satisfactory, or easy, in the latter part as in the former. There is a thicker rind of prose fact, as it were, to cut through, and certain of the features cannot be applied to the relation between Christ and His Church without undue violence. But, whilst we admit that, it is also clear that the main, broad outlines of this picture do require as well as permit its higher application. Therefore I turn to them to try to bring out what they teach us so eloquently and vividly of Christ’s gifts to, and requirements from, the souls that are wedded to Him.

I. Now the first point is this-the all-surrendering Love that must mark the Bride.

The language of the tenth verse is the voice of prophecy or inspiration; speaking words of fatherly counsel to the princess-’Forget also thine own people and thy father’s house.’ Historically I suppose it points to the foreign birth of the queen, who is called upon to abandon all old ties, and to give herself with wholehearted consecration to her new duties and relations.

In all real wedded life, as those who have tasted it know, there comes, by sweet necessity, the subordination, in the presence of a purer and more absorbing love, brought close by a will itself ablaze with the sacred glow.

Therefore, while giving all due honour to other forms of Christian opposition to the prevailing unbelief, I urge the cultivation of a quickened spiritual life as by far the most potent. Does not history bear me out in that view? What, for instance, was it that finished the infidelity of the eighteenth century? Whether had Butler’s Analogy or Charles Wesley’s hymns, Paley’s Evidences or Whitefield’s sermons, most to do with it? A languid Church breeds unbelief as surely as a decaying oak does fungus. In a condition of depressed vitality, the seeds of disease, which a full vigour would shake off, are fatal. Raise the temperature, and you kill the insect germs. A warmer tone of spiritual life would change the atmosphere which unbelief needs for its growth. It belongs to the fauna of the glacial epoch, and when the rigours of that wintry time begin to melt, and warmer days to set in, the creatures of the ice have to retreat to arctic wildernesses, and leave a land no longer suited for their life. A diffused unbelief, such as we see around us to-day, does not really arise from the logical basis on which it seems to repose. It comes from something much deeper,-a certain habit and set of mind which gives these arguments their force. For want of a better name, we call it the spirit of the age. It is the result of very subtle and complicated forces, which I do not pretend to analyse. It spreads through society, and forms the congenial soil in which these seeds of evil, as we believe them to be, take root. Does anybody suppose that the growth of popular unbelief is owing to the logical force of certain arguments? It is in the air; a wave of it is passing over us. We are in a condition in which it becomes shall drop the toys of earth as easily and naturally as a child will some trinket or plaything, when it stretches out its little hand to get a better gift from its loving mother. Love will sweep the heart clean of its antagonists; and there is no real union between Jesus Christ and us except in the measure in which we joyfully, and not as a reluctant giving up of things that we would much rather keep if we durst, ‘count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord.’

Have the terms of wedded life changed since my psalm was written? Is there less need now than there used to be that, if we are to possess a heart, we should give a whole heart? And have the terms of Christian living altered since the old days, when He said, ‘Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple’? Ah! I fear me that it is no uncharitable judgment to say that the bulk of so-called Christians are playing at being Christians, and have never penetrated into the depths either of the sweet all-sufficiency of the love which they say that they possess, or the constraining necessity that is in it for the surrender of all besides. Many happy husbands and wives, if they would only treat Jesus Christ as they treat one another, would find out a power and a blessedness in the Christian life that they know nothing about at present. ‘Daughter! forget thine own people and thy father’s house!’

II. Again, the second point here is that which directly follows-the King’s love and the Bride’s reverence. ‘So shall the King greatly desire thy beauty: for He is thy Lord; and worship thou Him.’

The King is drawn, in the outgoings of His affection, by the sweet trust and perfect love which has surrendered everything for him and happily followed him from the far-off land. And then, in accordance with Oriental ideas, and with His royal rank, the bride is exhorted, in the midst of the utter trust and equality born of love, to remember, ‘He is thy Lord, and reverence thou Him.’ So, then, here are two thoughts that go, as I take it, very deep into the realities of the Christian life. The first is that, in simple literal fact, Jesus Christ is affected, in His relation to us, by the completeness of our dependence upon Him, and surrender of all else for Him. We do not believe that half vividly enough. We have surrounded Jesus Christ with a halo of mystery and of remoteness which neither lets us think of Him as being really man or really God. And I press on you this as a plain fact, no piece of pulpit rhetoric, that His relation to us as Christians hinges upon our surrender to Him. Of course, there is a love with which He pours Himself out over the unworthy and the sinful-blessed be His name!-and the more sinful and the more unworthy, the deeper the tenderness and the more yearning the pity and pathos of invitation which He lavishes upon us. But that is a different thing from this other, which is that He is pleased or displeased, actually drawn to or repelled from us, in the measure of the completeness and gladness of our surrender of ourselves to Him. That is what Paul means when he says that he labours that ‘whether present or absent he may be pleasing to Christ.’ And this is the highest and strongest motive that I know for all holy and noble living, that we shall bring a smile into our Master’s face and draw Him nearer to ourselves thereby. ‘So shall the King greatly desire thy beauty.’

Again, in the measure in which we live out our Christianity, in whole-hearted and thorough surrender, in that measure shall we be conscious of His nearness and feel His love.

There are many Christian people that have only religion enough to make them uncomfortable, only enough to make religion to them a system of regulations, negative and positive, the reasonableness and sweetness of which they but partially apprehend. They must not do this because it is forbidden; they ought to do that because it is commanded. They would much rather do the forbidden thing, and they have no wish to do the commanded thing, and so they live in twilight, and when they come beside a man who really has been walking in the light of Christ’s face, the language of his experience, though it be but a transcript of facts, sounds to them all unreal and fanatical. They miss the blessing that is waiting for them, just because they have not really given up themselves. If by resolute and continual opening of our hearts to Christ’s real love and presence, and by consequent casting off of our false and foolish self-dependence, we were to blow away the clouds that come between us and Him, we should feel the sunshine. But as it is, a miserable multitude of professing Christians ‘walk in the darkness, and have no light,’ or, at the most, but some wintry sunshine that struggles through the thick mist, and does little more than reveal the barrenness that lies around. Brethren! if you want to be happy Christians, be out-and-out ones; and if you would have your hands and your hearts filled with Christ, empty them of the trash that they grip so closely now.

Then, on the other side, there is the reminder and exhortation: ‘He is thy Lord, worship thou Him.’ The beggar-maid that, in the old ballad, married the king, in all her love was filled with reverence; and the ragged, filthy souls, whom Jesus Christ stoops to love, and wash, and make His own, are never to forget, in the highest rapture of their joy, their lowly adoration, nor in the glad familiarity of their loving approach to Him, cease to remember that the test of love is, ‘Keep My commandments.’

There are types of emotional and sentimental religion that have a great deal more to say about love than about obedience; that are full of half wholesome apostrophes to a ‘dear Lord,’ and almost forget the ‘Lord’ in the emphasis which they put on the ‘dear.’ And I want you to remember this, as by no means an unnecessary caution, and of especial value in some quarters to-day, that the test of the reality of Christian love is its lowliness, and that all that which indulges in heated emotion, and forgets practical service, is rotten and spurious. Though the King desire her beauty, still, when He stretches out the golden sceptre, Esther must come to Him with lowly guise and a reverent heart. ‘He is thy Lord, worship thou Him.’

III. The next point in this portraiture is the reflected honour and influence of the bride.

There are difficulties about the translation of the 12th verse of our psalm with which I do not need to trouble you. We may take it for our purpose as it stands before us. ‘The daughter of Tyre’ {representing the wealthy, outside nations} ‘shall be there with a gift; even the rich among the people shall entreat thy favour.’

The bride being thus beloved by the King, thus standing by His side, those around recognise her dignity and honour, and draw near to secure her intercession. Translate that out of the emblem into plain words, and it comes to this-if Christian people, and communities of such, are to have influence in the world, they must be thorough-going Christians. If they are, they will get hatred sometimes; but men know honest people and religious people when they see them, and such Christians will win respect and be a power in the world. If Christian men and Christian communities are despised by outsiders, they very generally earn the contempt and deserve it, both from men and from heaven. The true evangelist is Christian character. They that manifestly live with the sunshine of the Lord’s love on their faces, and whose hands are plainly clear from worldly and selfish graspings, will have the world recognising the fact and honouring them accordingly. ‘The sons of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee, and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down to the soles of thy feet.’ When the Church has cast the world out of its heart, it will conquer the world-and not till then.

IV. The next point in this picture is the fair adornment of the bride. The language is in part ambiguous; and if this were the place for commenting would require a good deal of comment. But we take it as it stands in our Bible, ‘The King’s daughter is all glorious within’-not within her nature, but within the innermost recesses of the palace-’her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the King in raiment of needlework.’

It is an easy and well-worn metaphor to talk about people’s character as their dress. We speak about the ‘habits’ of a man, and we use that word to express both his customary manners and his costume. Custom and costume, again, are the same word. So here, without any departure from the well-trodden path of Scriptural emblem, we cannot but see in the glorious apparel the figure of the pure character with which the bride is clothed. The Book of the Revelation dresses her in the fine linen clean and white, which symbolises the lustrous radiance and snowy purity of righteousness. The psalm describes her dress as partly consisting in garments gleaming with gold, which suggests splendour and glory, and partly in robes of careful and many-coloured embroidery, which suggests the patience with which the slow needle has been worked through the stuff, and the variegated and manifold graces and beauties with which she is adorned.

So, putting all the metaphors together, the true Christian character, which will be ours if we really are the subjects of that divine love, will be lustrous and snowy as the snows on Hermon, or as was the garment whose whiteness outshone the neighbouring snows when He was ‘transfigured before them.’ Our characters will be splendid with a splendour far above the tawdry beauties and vulgar conspicuousness of the ‘heroic’ and worldly ideals, and will be endowed with a purity and harmony of colouring in richly various graces, such as no earthly looms can ever weave.

We are not told here how the garment is attained. It is no part of the purpose of the psalm to tell us that, but it is part of its purpose to insist that there is no marriage between Christ and the soul except that soul be pure, none except it be robed in the beauty of righteousness and the splendour of consecration, and the various gifts of an all-giving Spirit. The man that came into the wedding-feast, with his dirty, every-day clothes on, was turned out as a rude insulter. But what of the queen that should come foully dressed? There would be no place for her amidst its solemnities. You will never stand at the right hand of Christ, unless jour souls here are clothed in the fine linen clean and white, and over it the flashing wealth and the harmonised splendour of the gold and embroidery of Christlike graces. We know how to get the garment. Faith strips the rags and puts the best robe on us; and effort based upon faith enables us day by day to put off the old man with his deeds and to put on the new man. The bride ‘made herself ready,’ and ‘to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white.’

V. Lastly, we have the picture of the homecoming of the bride. ‘She shall be brought unto the King. . . . with gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought; they shall enter into the King’s palace.’

The presence of virgin companions waiting on the bride is no more difficult to understand here than it is in Christ’s parable of the Ten Virgins. It is a characteristic of all parabolical representation to be elastic, and sometimes to duplicate its emblems for the same thing; and that is the case here. But the main point to be insisted upon is this, that, according to the perspective of Scripture, the life of the Christian Church here on earth is, if I may so say, a betrothal in righteousness and loving-kindness; and that the betrothal waits for its consummation in that great future when the bride shall pass into the presence of the King. The whole collective body of sinful souls redeemed by His blood, and who know the sweetness of His partially received love, shall be drawn within the curtains of that upper house, and enter into a union with Christ Jesus ineffable, incomprehensible till experienced; and of which the closest union of loving souls on earth is but a dim shadow. ‘He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit’; and the reality of our union with Him rises above the emblem of a marriage, as high as spirit rises above flesh.

The psalm stops at the palace-gate. ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.’ But there is a solemn prelude to that completed union and its deep rapture. Before it there comes the last campaign of the conquering King on the white horse, who wars in righteousness. Dear friends! you must choose now whether you will be of the company of the Bride or of the company of the enemy. ‘They that were ready went in with Him unto the marriage, and the door was shut.’

Which side of the door do you mean to be on?

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

45:10-12 The bride is a representative of the king. Powerful people and nations try to gain her favor in order to get close to the king. This is a great honor, and she is encouraged to give herself fully to her new position.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Under the figure of Pharaoh’s daughter, he showeth that the Church must cast off all carnal affections to obey Christ only.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

This latter part of the psalm is addressed to the royal bride, standing on the right hand of the royal bridegroom. God, who said to the Son, Thy throne is for ever and ever, says this to the church, which, upon the account of her espousals to the Son, he here calls his daughter.

I. He tells her of the duties expected from her, which ought to be considered by all those that come into relation to the Lord Jesus: "Hearken, therefore, and consider this, and incline thy ear, that is, submit to those conditions of thy espousals, and bring thy will to comply with them." This is the method of profiting by the word of God. He that has ears, let him hear, let him hearken diligently; he that hearkens, let him consider and weigh it duly; he that considers, let him incline and yield to the force of what is laid before him. And what is it that is here required?

1. She must renounce all others.

(1.) Here is the law of her espousals: "Forget thy own people and thy father's house, according to the law of marriage. Retain not the affection thou hast had for them, nor covet to return to them again; banish all such remembrance (not only of thy people that were dear to thee, but of thy father's house that were dearer) as may incline thee to look back, as Lot's wife to Sodom." When Abraham, in obedience to God's call, had quitted his native soil, he was not so much as mindful of the country whence he came out. This shows, [1.] How necessary it was for those who were converted from Judaism or paganism to the faith of Christ wholly to cast out the old leaven, and not to bring into their Christian profession either the Jewish ceremonies or the heathen idolatries, for these would make such a mongrel religion in Christianity as the Samaritans had. [2.] How necessary it is for us all, when we give up our names to Jesus Christ, to hate father and mother, and all that is dear to us in this world, in comparison, that is, to love them less than Christ and his honour, and our interest in him, Luk 14:26.

(2.) Here is good encouragement given to the royal bride thus entirely to break off from her former alliances: So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty, which intimates that the mixing of her old rites and customs, whether Jewish or Gentile, with her religion, would blemish her beauty and would hazard her interest in the affections of the royal bridegroom, but that, if she entirely conformed to his will, he would delight in her. The beauty of holiness, both on the church and on particular believers, is in the sight of Christ of great price and very amiable. Where that is he says, This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell, for I have desired it. Among the golden candlesticks he walks with pleasure, Rev 2:1.

2. She must reverence him, must love, honour, and obey him: He is thy Lord, and worship thou him. The church is to be subject to Christ as the wife to the husband (Eph 5:24), to call him Lord, as Sarah called Abraham, and to obey him (Pe1 3:6), and so not only to submit to his government, but to give him divine honours. We must worship him as God, and our Lord; for this is the will of God, that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father; nay, in so doing it is reckoned that they honour the Father. If we confess that Christ is Lord, and pay our homage to him accordingly, it is to the glory of God the Father, Phi 2:11.

II. He tells her of the honours designed for her.

1. Great court should be made to her, and rich presents brought her (Psa 45:12): "The daughter of Tyre," a rich and splendid city, "the daughter of the King of Tyre shall be there with a gift; every royal family round about shall send a branch, as a representative of the whole, to seek thy favour and to make an interest in thee; even the rich among the people, whose wealth might be thought to exempt them from dependence at court, even they shall entreat thy favour, for his sake to whom thou art espoused, that by thee they may make him their friend." The Jews, the pretending Jews, who are rich to a proverb (as rich as a Jew), shall come and worship before the church's feet in the Philadelphian period, and shall know that Christ has loved her, Rev 3:9. When the Gentiles, being converted to the faith of Christ, join themselves to the church, they then come with a gift, Co2 8:5; Rom 15:16. When with themselves they devote all they have to the honour of Christ, and the service of his kingdom, they then come with a gift.

2. She shall be very splendid, and highly esteemed in the eyes of all, (1.) For her personal qualifications, the endowments of her mind, which every one shall admire (Psa 45:13): The king's daughter is all glorious within. Note, The glory of the church is spiritual glory, and that is indeed all glory; it is the glory of the soul, and that is the man; it is glory in God's sight, and it is an earnest of eternal glory. The glory of the saints falls not within the view of a carnal eye. As their life, so their glory, is hidden with Christ in God, neither can the natural man know it, for it is spiritually discerned; but those who do so discern it highly value it. Let us see here what is that true glory which we should be ambitious of, not that which makes a fair show in the flesh, but which is in the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible (Pe1 3:4), whose praise is not of men, but of God, Rom 2:29. (2.) For her rich apparel. Though all her glory is within, that for which she is truly valuable, yet her clothing also is of wrought gold; the conversation of Christians, in which they appear in the world, must be enriched with good works, not gay and gaudy ones, like paint and flourish, but substantially good, like gold; and it must be accurate and exact, like wrought gold, which is worked with a great deal of care and caution.

3. Her nuptials shall be celebrated with a great deal of honour and joy (Psa 45:14, Psa 45:15): She shall be brought to the king, as the Lord God brought the woman to the man (Gen 2:22), which was a type of this mystical marriage between Christ and his church. None are brought to Christ but whom the Father brings, and he has undertaken to do it; none besides are so brought to the king (Psa 45:14) as to enter into the king's palace, Psa 45:15.

(1.) This intimates a two-fold bringing of the spouse to Christ. [1.] In the conversion of souls to Christ; then they are espoused to him, privately contracted, as chaste virgins, Co2 11:2; Rom 7:4. [2.] In the completing of the mystical body, and the glorification of all the saints, at the end of time; then the bride, the Lamb's wife, shall be made completely ready, when all that belong to the election of grace shall be called in and called home, and all gathered together to Christ, Th2 2:1. Then is the marriage of the Lamb come (Rev 19:7; Rev 21:2), and the virgins go forth to meet the bridegroom, Mat 25:1. Then they shall enter into the king's palaces, into the heavenly mansions, to be ever with the Lord.

(2.) In both these espousals, observe, to the honour of the royal bride, [1.] Her wedding clothes - raiment of needle-work, the righteousness of Christ, the graces of the Spirit; both curiously wrought by divine wisdom. [2.] Her bride-maids - the virgins her companions, the wise virgins who have oil in their vessels as well as in their lamps, those who, being joined to the church, cleave to it and follow it, these shall go in to the marriage. [3.] The mirth with which the nuptials will be celebrated: With gladness and rejoicing shall she be brought. When the prodigal is brought home to his father it is meet that we should make merry and be glad (Luk 15:32); and when the marriage of the Lamb has come let us be glad and rejoice (Rev 19:7); for the day of his espousals is the day of the gladness of his heart, Sol 3:11.

4. The progeny of this marriage shall be illustrious (Psa 45:16): Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children. Instead of the Old Testament church, the economy of which had waxed old, and ready to vanish away (Heb 8:13), as the fathers that are going off, there shall be a New Testament church, a Gentile-church, that shall be grafted into the same olive and partake of its root and fatness (Rom 11:17); more and more eminent shall be the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, Isa 54:1. This promise to Christ is of the same import with that Isa 53:10, He shall see his seed; and these shall be made princes in all the earth; there shall be some of all nations brought into subjection to Christ, and so made princes, made to our God kings and priests, Rev 1:6. Or it may intimate that there should be a much greater number of Christian kings than ever there was of Jewish kings (those in Canaan only, these in all the earth), nursing fathers and nursing mothers to the church, which shall suck the breasts of kings. They are princes of Christ's making; for by him kings reign and princes decree justice.

5. The praise of this marriage shall be perpetual in the praises of the royal bridegroom (Psa 45:17): I will make thy name to be remembered. His Father has given him a name above every name, and here promises to make it perpetual, by keeping up a succession of ministers and Christians in every age, that shall bear up his name, which shall thus endure for ever (Psa 72:17), by being remembered in all the generations of time; for the entail of Christianity shall not be cut off. "Therefore, because they shall remember thee in all generations, they shall praise thee for ever and ever." Those that help to support the honour of Christ on earth shall in heaven see his glory, and share in it, and be for ever praising him. In the believing hope of our everlasting happiness in the other world let us always keep up the remembrance of Christ, as our only way thither, in our generation; and, in assurance of the perpetuating of the kingdom of the Redeemer in the world, let us transmit the remembrance of him to succeeding generations, that his name may endure for ever and be as the days of heaven.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

She is invited to the union, for forming which she must leave her father's people. She representing, by the form of the allegory, the Church, this address is illustrated by all those scriptures, from Gen 12:1 on, which speak of the people of God as a chosen, separate, and peculiar people. The relation of subjection to her spouse at once accords with the law of marriage, as given in Gen 3:16; Gen 18:12; Eph 5:22; Pe1 3:5-6, and the relation of the Church to Christ (Eph 5:24). The love of the husband is intimately connected with the entire devotion to which the bride is exhorted.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 10. Hearken. O daughter, and consider] This is the beginning of the address by the companions of the bride to their mistress; after having, in the preceding verses, addressed the bridegroom; or, rather, given a description of his person, qualities, and magnificence. Suppose the daughter of Pharaoh to be intended, the words import: Thou art now become the spouse of the most magnificent monarch in the universe. To thee he must be all in all. Forget therefore thy own people - the Egyptians, and take the Israelites in their place. Forget also thy father's house; thou art now united to a new family. So shall the king - Solomon, greatly desire thy beauty - thou wilt be, in all respects, pleasing to him. And it is right thou shouldst act so; for he is now become thy lord - thy supreme governor. And worship thou him - submit thyself reverently and affectionately to all his commands.

Taken in reference to Christ and the Gospel, this is an address to the Gentiles to forsake their idolatrous customs and connexions, to embrace Christ and his Gospel in the spirit of reverence and obedience, with the promise that, if beautified with the graces of his Spirit, Christ will delight in them, and take them for his peculiar people; which has been done.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

10. Hearken, O daughter! and consider I have no doubt, that what is here said is spoken of the Egyptian woman, whom the prophet has described as standing at the right hand of the king. It was not, indeed, lawful for Solomon to marry a strange woman; but this of itself is to be accounted among the gifts of God, that a king so powerful as the king of Egypt was, sought his alliance. At the same time, as by the appointment of the Law, it was required that the Jews, previous to entering into the marriage relation, should endeavor to instruct their wives in the pure worship of God, and emancipate them from superstition; in the present instance, in which the wife spoken of was descended from a heathen nation, and who, by her present marriage, was included in the body of the Church, the prophet, in order to withdraw her from her evil training, exhorts her to forget her own country and her father’s house, and to assume a new character and other manners. If she did not do this, there was reason to fear, not only that she would continue to observe in private the superstitions and false modes of worshipping God to which she had been habituated, but that also, by her public example, she would draw away many into a similar evil course; and, indeed, this actually came to pass soon after. Such is the reason of the exhortation which the prophet here gives her, in which, in order to render his discourse of more weight, he addresses her by the appellation of daughter, a term which it would have been unsuitable for any private man to have used. The more clearly to show how much it behoved the new bride to become altogether a new woman, he employs several terms thereby to secure her attention, Hearken, consider, and incline thy ear It is certainly a case in which much vehemence and urgent persuasion are needed, when it is intended to lead us to a complete renunciation of those things in which we take delight, either by nature or by custom. He then shows that there is no reason why the daughter of Pharaoh should feel any regret in forsaking her father, her kinsfolk, and the land of Egypt, because she would receive a glorious recompense, which ought to allay the grief she might experience in being separated from them. To reconcile her to the thought of leaving her own country, he encourages her by the consideration that she is married to so illustrious a king.

Let us now return to Christ. And, in the first place, let us remember that what is spiritual is here described to us figuratively; even as the prophets, on account of the dulness of men, were under the necessity of borrowing similitudes from earthly things. When we bear in mind this style of speaking, which is quite common in the Scriptures, we will not think it strange that the sacred writer here makes mention of ivory palaces, gold, precious stones, and spices; for by these he means to intimate that the kingdom of Christ will be replenished with a rich abundance, and furnished with all good things. The glory and excellence of the spiritual gifts, with which God enriches his Church, are indeed held in no estimation among men; but in the sight of God they are of more value than all the riches of the world. At the same time, it is not necessary that we should apply curiously to Christ every particular here enumerated; as for instance, what is here said of the many wives which Solomon had. If it should be imagined from this that there may be several churches, the unity of Christ’s body will be rent in pieces. I admit, that as every individual believer is called “the temple of God,” (1 Corinthians 3:17, and 6:19,) so also might each be named “the spouse of Christ;” but properly speaking, there is only one spouse of Christ, which consists of the whole body of the faithful. She is said to sit by the side of the king, not that she exercises any dominion peculiar to herself, but because Christ rules in her; and it is in this sense that she is called “the mother of us all,” (Galatians 4:26.)

This passage contains a remarkable prophecy in reference to the future calling of the Gentiles, by which the Son of God formed an alliance with strangers and those who were his enemies. There was between God and the uncircumcised nations a deadly quarrel, a wall of separation which divided them from the seed of Abraham, the chosen people, (Ephesians 2:14;) for the covenant which God had made with Abraham shut out the Gentiles from the kingdom of heaven till the coming of Christ. Christ, therefore, of his free grace, desires to enter into a holy alliance of marriage with the whole world, in the same way as if a Jew in ancient times had taken to himself a wife from a foreign and heathen land. But in order to conduct into Christ’s presence his bride chaste and undefiled, the prophet exhorts the Church gathered from the Gentiles to forget her former manner of living, and to devote herself wholly to her husband. As this change, by which the children of Adam begin to be the children of God, and are transformed into new men, is a thing so difficult, the prophet enforces the necessity of it the more earnestly. In enforcing his exhortation in this way by different terms, hearken, consider, incline thy ear, he intimates, that the faithful do not deny themselves, and lay aside their former habits, without intense and painful effort; for such an exhortation would be superfluous, were men naturally and voluntarily disposed to it. And, indeed, experience shows how dull and slow we are to follow God. By the word consider, or understand, our stupidity is tacitly rebuked, and not without good reason; for whence arise that self-love which is so blind, that false opinion which we have of our own wisdom and strength, the deception arising from the fascinations of the world, and, in fine, the arrogance and pride which are natural to us, but because we do not consider how precious a treasure God is presenting to us in his only begotten Son? Did not this ingratitude prevent us, we would without regret, after the example of Paul, (Philippians 3:8,) reckon as nothing, or as “dung,” those things which we admire most, that Christ might replenish us with his riches. By the word daughter, the prophet gently and sweetly soothes the new Church; and he also sets before her the promise of a bountiful reward, to induce her, for the sake of Christ, willingly to despise and forsake whatever she made account of heretofore. It is certainly no small consolation to know that the Son of God will delight in us, when we shall have put off our earthly nature. In the meantime, let us learn, that to deny ourselves is the beginning of that sacred union which ought to exist between us and Christ. By her father’s house and her people is doubtless meant all the corruptions which we carry with us from our mother’s womb, or derive from evil custom; nay, under this mode of expression there is comprehended whatever men have belonging to themselves; for there is no part of our nature sound or free from corruption.

It is necessary, also, to notice the reason which is added, namely, that if the Church refuses to devote herself wholly to Christ, she casts off his due and lawful authority. By the word worship we must understand not only the outward ceremony, but also, according to the figure synecdoche, a holy desire to yield reverence and obedience. Would to God that this admonition, as it ought, had been thoroughly weighed! for the Church of Christ had then been more obedient to his authority, and we should not in these days have had so great a contest to maintain in reference to her authority against the Papists, who imagine that the Church is not sufficiently exalted and honored, unless with unbridled license she may insolently triumph over her own husband. They, no doubt, in words ascribe supreme authority to Christ, saying, that every knee should bow before him; but when they maintain that the Church has an unlimited power of making laws, what else is this but to give her loose reins, and to exempt her from the authority of Christ, that she may break forth into any excess according to her desire? I stay not to notice how wickedly they arrogate to themselves the title and designation of the Church. But it is intolerable sacrilege to rob Christ and then adorn the Church with his spoils. It is no small dignity which the Church enjoys, in being seated at the right hand of the King, and it is no small honor to be called “the Mother” of all the godly, for to her it belongs to nourish and keep them under her discipline. But at the same time it is easy to gather from innumerable passages of Scripture, that Christ does not so elevate his own Church that he may diminish or impair in the least his own authority.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(10) Hearken.—The address now turns to the bride.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

10. Hearken, O daughter] The Psalmist adopts the tone of an authoritative teacher and uses language resembling that of the Wise Man to his disciples in the opening chapter of Proverbs (Pro_1:8, and frequently). The exhortation seems strange until it is remembered that the marriage was probably a matter of state policy, and that the bride would not even have seen her future husband.

forget &c.] Cast no lingering looks of regret behind, but adapt thyself to the new home and new conditions. Perhaps, as the Targ. suggests, there may be a special reference to religious beliefs and customs. It has been thought that Pharaoh’s daughter embraced Judaism, as Egyptian deities are not mentioned among those for which Solomon made high places. See Lumby on 1Ki_3:1.

10–12. The poet addresses the bride, counselling her to forget her old home and surrender herself with complete devotion to her husband, and describing the honours which await her.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear,.... These words are either spoken by the prophet, the author of the psalm; or by the King, the bridegroom himself; or, as others think, by Jehovah the Father, whose daughter the church is; unless it should be rather thought to be an address of the honourable women, the kings' daughters, the virgins and companions of the bride, delivered by them to her under the character of the daughter of Zion, the King's daughter, as she is called, Psa 45:13, "to hearken, incline her ear" and listen to her Lord and King, to his Gospel, and the doctrines of it, which are his voice and words, and to all his precepts and commands; and to "consider", see, and behold the goodness of God unto her, the greatness, excellencies, and glories of her husband; to look to him by faith, as he is held forth in the word and ordinances, and to him only and that constantly, which is well pleasing to him;

forget also thine own people and thy father's house; Christ is to be preferred before natural relations; converted persons are not to have fellowship with carnal men, though ever so, nearly related; former superstitions, Whether Jewish or Heathenish, are to be buried in forgetfulness; sinful self, and righteous self, are to be denied for Christ's sake; and the world, and all things in it, are to be treated with neglect and contempt by such who cleave to him. The Targum interprets this of the congregation of Israel hearing the law, beholding the wonderful works of God, and forgetting the idolatrous practices of their ancestors.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Hearken, O daughter, and consider - This is probably to be understood as the language of the psalmist, in vision, as uttering counsel and advice which would be appropriate to the new condition of the bride. Some have understood it as the language of the father of the bride, uttering appropriate counsel to his daughter on entering upon her new relationship; exhorting her to affection and obedience in that relationship; charging her to feel that she is his, that she is to go with him, that she is to identify herself with his interests, and to “forget,” - that is, not improperly to long for her own people and her father’s house. All this would be good advice for a father to give to his daughter in such circumstances; but the most natural interpretation is to regard the language here as that of the psalmist, or as inspired wisdom, in regard to the proper feeling in entering on such a relation. If this be the meaning, the word “daughter” may be used as a term of affection or kindness, as the word “son” often is, to denote one who is a disciple or learner. The “thought” suggested here is, that counsel or advice in regard to the manner in which she should demean herself to secure the continual confidence of her husband, may be very properly given to a newly-married bride. The counsel here suggested, considered with reference only to that relation, would be eminently wise.

And incline thine ear - Attend to what is now said. The address is repeated - “Hearken;” “consider;” “incline thine ear;” as if the matter were of great importance. On the phrase “incline thine ear,” see the notes at Psa 31:2; compare Psa 78:1.

Forget also thine own people - This is said on the supposition that the bride was a foreign princess. As such, it is to be supposed that she had been trained under other customs, under other forms of religion, and with reference to other interests than those which would now pertain to her. The counsel is, that she must now forget all these, and identify herself with her husband, and with his interests. The word “forget” cannot denote absolute forgetfulness, or that she was to cast off all affection for those who had trained her up; but the meaning is, that she was not to pine after them; that she was not to be dissatisfied with her new home and her new relations; that she was not to carry the institutions of her native country with her; that she was not to make use of her new position to promote the ends of her native country if they were adverse to, or hostile to, the interests of her husband and his country.

As applied to a bride now, the advice would mean that she is not to pine for her old home; that she is not to make complaining and unfavorable comparison between that and her new home; that she is not to divert her husband from his plans, and the proper pursuits of his life, by endeavoring to induce him to forsake his friends, and to abandon his position, in order that she may be restored to the society of her earlier friends; that she is not to introduce habits, customs, amusements, modes of living into her husband’s arrangements, derived from her former habits and modes of life, which would interfere with what is the proper economy of his house, and which would inconsistent with his principles, and with his means of living. When she marries, she should make up her mind, while she cherishes a proper regard for her old friends, and a proper memory of her past life, to identify her interests with his; to go where he goes; to live as he lives; and to die, if such be the will of God, where he dies, and to be buried by his side.

As applied to the Church - the bride of the Lamb - the idea here is that which we find so often enforced in the New Testament, that they who become the followers of the Saviour must be willing to forsake all for him, and to identify themselves with him and his cause. See the notes at Mat 10:37; notes at Luk 14:26. We are to forsake the world, and devote ourselves to him; we are to break away from all worldly attachments, and to consecrate all to him; we are to bid adieu to worldly companions as our chosen friends, and make the friends of Christ our friends: we are not to pine after the world, to seek to return to it, to pant for its pleasures; we are not to take advantage of our position in the church to promote the objects which we had pursued before we entered it; we are not to introduce the customs, the habits, the plans which we before pursued, “into” the church. We are in all things to become identified with him to whom we have become “espoused” 2Co 11:2; we are to live with him; to go with him; to die with him; to be his forever.

And thy father’s house - The home of thy childhood; the house where thy father dwells. The strongest earthly ties are to be made subservient to a higher and stronger tie, if we would become true followers of the Saviour. See Luk 9:59-62.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Hearken: these words are spoken, either,

1. In the person of the attendants upon the bride or bridegroom. Or,

2. Of the bridegroom. Or rather,

3. By the prophet himself; who having hitherto spoken to the bridegroom, or king, now addresseth his speech to the bride, or queen.

O daughter: so he calls her, partly in token of his respect and affection to her, and partly because she is supposed to be young and beautiful; and therefore the prophet speaks like an eider and graver person, and as her spiritual father and counsellor.

Consider, and incline thine ear: he useth several words, signifying the same thing, to show his serious and vehement desire of her good, and the great importance and difficulty of practicing the following counsel.

Forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house; not simply, but comparatively, so far as they oppose or hinder the discharge of thy duty to thy husband; or so far as they are corrupted in doctrine, or worship, or practice. He alludes to the law of matrimony, Gen 2:24, and to what Solomon did say, or should have said, to Pharaoh’s daughter, to wean her from the idolatry and other vices of her father’s house. But this, as well as the rest of the Psalm, respects Christ, arid is a seasonable and necessary advice and command to all persons that desire to come to Christ, whether Jews or Gentiles, that they would cast off all their inveterate errors and prejudices, all those superstitious, or idolatrous, or wicked opinions or practices, which they had received by long and ancient, and therefore venerable, tradition from their fathers, and entirely give up themselves to Christ to be instructed by him, and to receive his doctrine, though it would seem new to them. And by these words he seems to intimate, and tacitly to foretell, that not only the superstitious inventions and traditions of men, but even the legal worship appointed by Moses, and delivered to them from their parents successively for many generations, should be relinquished by the believing Jews, and abolished by Christ’s coming.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ver. 10. Hearken, O daughter, and consider. Ever is this the great duty of the church. Faith cometh by hearing, and confirmation by consideration. No precept can be more worthy of the attention of those who are honoured to be espoused to Christ that that which follows. And incline thine ear. Lean forward so that no syllable may be unheard. The whole faculties of the mind should be bent upon receiving holy teaching. Forget also thine own people, and thy father's house. To renounce the world is not easy, but it must be done by all who are affianced to the Great King, for a divided heart he cannot endure; it would be misery to the beloved one as well as dishonour to her Lord. Evil acquaintances, and even those who are but neutral, must be forsaken, they can confer no benefits, they must inflict injury. The house of our nativity is the house of sinwe were shapen in iniquity; the carnal mind is enmity against God, we must come forth of the house of fallen nature, for it is built in the City of Destruction. Not that natural ties are broken by grace, but ties of the sinful nature, bonds of graceless affinity. We have much to forget as well as to learn, and the unlearning is so difficult that only diligent hearing, and considering, and bending of the whole soul to it, can accomplish the work; and even these would be too feeble did not divine grace assist. Yet why should we remember the Egypt from which we cam out? Are the leeks and the garlic, and the onions anything, when the iron bondage, and the slavish tasks, and the death dealing Pharaoh of hell are remembered? We part with folly for wisdom; with bubbles for eternal joys; with deceit for truth; with misery for bliss; with idols for the living God. O that Christians were more mindful of the divine precept here recorded; but, alas! worldliness abounds; the church is defiled; and the glory of the Great King is veiled. Only when the whole church leads the separated life will the full splendour and power of Christianity shine forth upon the world.

Ver. 10. Forget also thine own people, and thy father's house. Three alls I expect you to part with, saith Christ. 1. All your sinful lusts, all the ways of the old Adam, our Father's house. Ever since Adam's apostasy, God and man have parted houses. Ever since, our Father's house is a house of ill manners, a house of sin and wickedness. 2. All your worldly advantages. "If any man come unto me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." He that hath all these must be ready to part with all; they are joined not disjunctively but copulatively. 3. All self, self will, self righteousness, self sufficiencies, self confidence, and self seekings. Lewis Stuckley.

Ver. 10. Forget also thine own people, and thy father's house. If you see a bee leave a fair flower and stick upon another, you may conclude that she finds most honey dew in that flower she most sticks upon: so here God's people would never leave so many fair flowers in the world's garden, had they not some other in which they find most sweetness. Christ hath his garden, into which he brings his beloved, and there she finds other manner of flowers than any the world hath, in which there is sweetness of a higher nature, even the honey dew of the choice mercy and goodness and blessing of God himself: if God's people do leave the full breasts of the world, it is because they have found the breasts of consolation from which they have sucked other manner of sweetness than the breast of the world can afford. Jeremiah Burroughs, in "Moses, his self denial." 1649.

Ver. 10. Forget. If thou be on the mountain, have no love to look back to Sodom. If thou be in the ark, fly not back to the world, as the raven did. If thou be set on Canaan, forget the flesh pots of Egypt. If marching against Midian, forget stooping to the waters of Harod. Jud 7:1-25. If on the house top, forget that is below thee. Mr 13:15. If thy hand be put to the plough, forget that is behind thee. Lu 9:62. Themistocles desired rather to learn the art of forgetfulness than of memory. Philosophy is an art of remembering, divinity includes in it an art of forgetting. The first lesson that Socrates taught his scholars was, Remember; for he thought that knowledge was nothing else but a calling to remembrance of those things the mind knew ere it knew the body. But the first lesson that Christ teacheth his scholars is, Forget:Forget thine own people; "Repent" Mt 4:17; first, "eschew evil, "1Pe 3:11. Thomas Adams.

Ver. 10. "Christ the best husband: or, an earnest invitation to young women to come and see Christ." George Whitefield's "Sermon, Preached to a Society of Young Women, in Fetter Lane."

Psalms 45:11*

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

10. The address is henceforward to the bride. With a traceable line of historic allusion, a higher and mystical sense attaches to the descriptions. As the king was typical of Christ, so now is his bride of the Church, according to a frequent metaphor of Scripture. The personal character of the queen must here be left out. It is her relation to the king, not her piety, which gives the foundation of the metaphor.

Hearken, O daughter—The address is in the familiar style of a parent or senior, like 1Jn_2:1, and the threefold call for attention—hear, see, extend the ear, (or lean forward,) that you may catch the sounds better—suggests the importance of the matter to be communicated.

Forget also thine own people—This is the momentous thought to which the poet had invoked so careful attention.

Taking the bride to be Pharaoh’s daughter, this might be considered as an earnest exhortation to her to forsake the idolatry of her ancestors and people, and identify herself in religion and nationality with the Hebrew family. This, had she thoroughly heeded, might have had a powerful influence for good over the king’s after life. But although we may suppose her native superstition was much modified, the fact that her queenly residence was fixed outside the walls of Zion, for religious reasons, (2Ch_8:11,) indicates a public disfavour to her religion. But the exhortation is to the Church, as a people called out from the world, to forsake people and kindred, even all, for Christ.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear. The psalmist, having introduced the bride to our notice in ver. 9, proceeds to address her, and to describe the glories of her person and of her entourage. First of all, he bids her "hearken," "consider," and "incline her ear," i.e. reflect deeply on the new relation in which she is about to be placed, the new sphere which she is entering, the new duties which she will have to discharge. She must give herself wholly to her Lord and Spouse; she must have no thought for any one but him. Forget also thine own people, and thy father"s house. She must break with all associations and bends and relationships that would separate between her and her King, forget the past in the present, cease to Judaize, and be wholly Christ"s.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Hearken - The prophet having hitherto spoken to the bridegroom, now addresseth his speech to the bride. O daughter - He speaks like an elder person, and as her spiritual father and counsellor. Incline - He uses several words, signifying the same thing, to shew his vehement desire of her good. Forget - Comparatively.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

(Heb.: 45:11-13) The poet next turns to address the one bride of the king, who is now honoured far above the kings' daughters. With שׁמעי he implores for himself a hearing; by ראי yb ;gni he directs her eye towards the new relationship into which she is just entering; by הטּי אזנך he bespeaks her attention to the exhortation that follows; by בּת he puts himself in a position in relation to her similar to that which the teacher and preacher occupies who addresses the bridal pair at the altar. She is to forget her people and her father's house, to sever her natural, inherited, and customary relationships of life, both as regards outward form and inward affections; and should the king desire her beauty, to which he has a right, - for he, as being her husband (Pe1 3:6), and more especially as being king, is her lord, - she is to show towards him her profoundest, reverent devotion. ויתאו is a hypothetical protasis according to Ges. 128, 2, c. The reward of this willing submission is the universal homage of the nations. It cannot be denied on the ground of syntax that וּבת־צר admits of being rendered "and O daughter of Tyre" (Hitzig), - a rendering which would also give additional support to our historical interpretation of the Psalm, - although, apart from the one insecure passage, Jer 20:12 (Ew. 340, c), there is no instance to be found in which a vocative with ו occurs (Pro 8:5; Joe 2:23; Isa 44:21), when another vocative has not already preceded it. But to what purpose would be, in this particular instance, this apostrophe with the words בּת־צר, from which it looks as though she were indebted to her ancestral house, and not to the king whose own she is become, for the acts of homage which are prospectively set before her? Such, however, is not the case; "daughter of Tyre" is a subject-notion, which can all the more readily be followed by the predicate in the plural, since it stands first almost like a nomin. absol. The daughter, i.e., the population of Tyre - approaching with presents shall they court (lit., stroke) thy face, i.e., meeting thee bringing love, they shall seek to propitiate thy love towards themselves. (פּני) חלּה corresponds to the Latin mulcere in the sense of delenire; for חלה, Arab. ḥlâ (root חל, whence חלל, Arab. ḥll, solvit, laxavit), means properly to be soft and tender, of taste to be sweet (in another direction: to be lax, weak, sick); the Piel consequently means to soften, conciliate, to make gentle that which is austere. Tyre, however, is named only by way of example; עשׁירי עם is not an apposition, but a continuation of the subject: not only Tyre, but in general those who are the richest among each separate people or nation. Just as אביוני אדם (Isa 29:19) are the poorest of mankind, so עשׁירי עם are the richest among the peoples of the earth.

As regards the meaning which the congregation or church has to assign to the whole passage, the correct paraphrase of the words "and forget thy people" is to be found even in the Targum: "Forget the evil deeds of the ungodly among thy people, and the house of the idols which thou hast served in the house of thy father." It is not indeed the hardened mass of Israel which enters into such a loving relationship to God and to His Christ, but, as prophecy from Deut. 32 onward declares, a remnant thoroughly purged by desolating and sifting judgments and rescued, which, in order to belong wholly to Christ, and to become the holy seed of a better future (Isa 6:13), must cut asunder all bonds of connection with the stiff-neckedly unbelieving people and paternal house, and in like manner to Abram secede from them. This church of the future is fair; for she is expiated (Deu 32:43), washed (Isa 4:4), and adorned (Isa 61:3) by her God. And if she does homage to Him, without looking back, He not only remains her own, but in Him everything that is glorious belonging to the world also becomes her own. Highly honoured by the King of kings, she is the queen among the daughters of kings, to whom Tyre and the richest among peoples of every order are zealous to express their loving and joyful recognition. Very similar language to that used here of the favoured church of the Messiah is used in Psa 72:10. of the Messiah Himself.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

The inspired singer now repeats the words with which the King, the Messiah, addresses His Bride.

v. 10. Hearken, O daughter, called so by the Bridegroom because she is begotten and regenerated through the Gospel, 1Pe 1:23, and consider and incline thine ear, becoming so absorbed in the words of His grace as to forget everything else, even the closest ties of human relationship; forget also thine own people and thy father’s house, all for the sake of the Bridegroom and His love;

v. 11. so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty, taking pleasure in her for the beauty of her obedience, her finest and most precious ornament; for He is thy Lord, who has made her His own by the shedding of His precious blood; and worship thou Him, giving Him the honor due Him as the great Lord and serving Him in the beauty of holiness.

v. 12. And the daughter of Tyre, as the representative of the heathen world, shall be there with a gift, bringing presents and attempting to gain the favor of the Bride; even the rich among the people shall intreat thy favor, seeking entrance into the kingdom of the Messiah. It is when the Bride, the Church, denies and forgets everything else, all the precious things of this world, that people outside the Church become interested. It is not by making concessions to the world that the Church gains members, but by being strictly exclusive, holding the treasure of the Gospel unpolluted.

v. 13. The King’s daughter, the Bride of Messiah, is all glorious within, clothed, as she is, with the garment of the Messiah’s righteousness; her clothing is of wrought gold, of braided work of gold, with rich colored embroidery, the most costly garments, jewels of Christ’s grace, spiritual and heavenly blessings.

v. 14. She shall be brought unto the King in raiment of needlework, skillfully embroidered; the virgins, her companions that follow her, also such believers as have been gained from the heathen world, shall be brought unto thee, being identified with the Bride and received by Christ in the eternal palaces of heaven.

v. 15. With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought; they shall enter into the King’s palace, into the everlasting glories of heaven. v16. Instead of Thy fathers shall be Thy children, whom Thou mayest make princes in all the earth. The King is here once more addressed. Instead of His fathers, the kings of the line of David who preceded Him, He will have sons, believers, citizens in His kingdom, His spiritual children; for His family will never die out, since He will always gain new adherents out of all nations, whom He will then set as princes over all the earth. All believers are kings and princes before Christ and His heavenly Father, they share in His glorious dominion, 1Pe 2:9; Rev 1:6. And so the inspired singer finally, as a member and representative of Christ’s Church on earth, extols the name of Messiah, the King.

v. 17. I will make Thy name to be remembered in all generations, from generation to generation; therefore shall the people praise Thee forever and ever. Peoples, nations, believers, from every part of the earth, all the various members of the Church from all lands, give thanks to the King. And this song of thanksgiving, as it is begun here in time, will be continued without end, throughout eternity; for then the Bride, the Church, will forever be united with Christ, her Bridegroom, and her hallelujahs will sound forth in endless, glorious refrain.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Listen, daughter

The writer begins to speak to the queen and refers to her as "daughter" because she is a young woman.

incline your ear

The writer speaks of listening carefully to something as if it were bending one's ear towards the person who is speaking. AT: "listen carefully" (See: Metaphor)

forget your own people

The writer speaks of the queen no longer following the beliefs and customs of her native people as if it were forgetting them. AT: "no longer follow the customs of your people" (See: Metaphor)

your father's house

Here the word "house" refers to family. AT: "your relatives" (See: Metonymy)

In this way

"and" or "so"

the king will desire your beauty

This is a polite way to say that the king will want to sleep with the queen as his wife. (See: Euphemism)

translationWords

house

lord

revere

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

The daughters of kings will visit you, as the matter that is stated (Isa. 49:23): “and their princesses your wet nurses.”

will visit you lit. your visitors. Heb. ביקרותיך. The “kaph” is punctuated with a “dagesh” because it is an expression of visiting, although it is preceded by a “yud.” I saw in Rav Saadia’s punctuation that this word is arranged with (Isa. 42:24), “Who subjected Jacob to plunder (למשיסה),” which is written with a “yud” although the “sammech” is punctuated with a “dagesh.” Menachem, however, associated it as an expression of value, as (Job 28:16): “with precious (יקר) onyx.

the queen Heb. שגל, the queen, as (Neh. 2:6): “and the queen (השגל) was sitting beside him”; (Dan. 5:2), “and they shall drink with them, the king and his nobles, his queen (שגלתה) and his concubines.” Your wife will stand at your right.

with golden jewelry from Ophir with a collection of golden ornaments that comes from Ophir.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.