Psalms 45:10-12 - Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible

Bible Comments

Advice Given To The Bride (Psalms 45:10-12).

The bride is advised to forget her past life and to look forward to her glorious future. She may well never have met her husband-to-be, and was probably feeling a little lost and homesick. But she is advised to accept advice and be responsive, and to forget her own people and her father's house and give proper reverence to her new husband. Then will the king desire her, and all will treat her with honour. This was a duty that every king's daughter was expected to follow. They were brought up to recognise that they would go to some foreign king as a treaty wife, and from then on should forget their old home.

It is a beautiful picture of the bride of Christ who on coming to Christ is called on to turn her back on the past and live only for Him. Her sole desire is to be to please Him.

Psalms 45:10-12

Listen, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear;

Forget also your own people, and your father's house,

So will the king desire your beauty,

For he is your lord, and reverence you him.

And the daughter of Tyre will be there with a gift,

The rich among the people will entreat your favour.'

The bride is called on to listen carefully to final last minute advice, probably from some beloved attendant who has accompanied her on her journey. It is that she will pay close heed to what she is now told. She must now put out of her mind her own people, for whom she has had such affection, and her father's house where she has been so courted and admired, and give all her attention to pleasing her new lord. Then the king will desire her beauty. For she is to remember that he is now her lord and that she must reverence him.

Then not only will her husband desire her beauty, but influential and wealthy people will come and pay her homage. The ‘daughter of Tyre', like ‘the daughter of Zion', is a description of the whole people of Tyre. Tyre was at the time an outstandingly rich and influential city state. She would only bring a gift to someone of great importance. And the same was true of the wealthy. They would seek the favour of someone whom they saw as influential.

It is therefore unlikely that the bride is the daughter of Pharaoh. The daughter of Pharaoh was unlikely to be impressed by either of these facts. But the young Shulammite princess, who was probably Solomon's first wife, certainly would have been.

As far as the Messianic aspect is concerned it is an indication that His ‘bride' should leave behind their old lives and be completely committed to Him. Old things are to pass away. All things are to become new (2 Corinthians 5:17). He is to be their ‘all'.

Psalms 45:10-12

10 Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father's house;

11 So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him.

12 And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift; even the rich among the people shall intreat thy favour.b