Ps. 45.2 (the most beautiful human being)

“You / are the most beautiful / of human being – you’re your lips / anointed with grace; - so God / has blessed you / forever.” Literarily this verse represents the turning of the psalmist to the king and the beginning of his “composition”. This turning toward the king is important as to its effect on the reader. The opening verse was, in a sense, more about the psalmist than the king. It established who the speaker of the psalm was and, by providing this brief pause before entering into the praise, the reader finds himself standing with this ‘third’ but hidden party to the wedding ceremony. It is through him that we will be allowed to participate, and through his “tongue” that we envision the king and his bride. This removal, through the psalmist, both provides intimacy and the necessary “nobility” to the psalm. It provides a greater intimacy because we are not going to be able to see the king through the eyes of a professional and, therefore, experience the king and his bride in a manner otherwise unavailable. It provides greater nobility by the psalmist humbling himself to his art. In other words, the psalmist is clearly aware of the magnificence in front of him, and, by drawing attention to himself prior to entering into his praise of the king, he removes the reader and prepares him for the nobility about to be described. (He is, in a sense, a ‘John the Baptist’ the king.) Geographically, so to speak, the reader/listener is therefore primed for these lines. We are ‘observers’. And so, with the psalmist, we turn to the king and speak the initial rather shocking lines: “You are the most beautiful of human beings…” At first it seems as if we have not read anything like this before in the psalms; in on the one hand this is clearly correct (this pslam is utterly unique in all of the Psalter). However, when we realize to whom we are turning and reflect back upon the other royal psalms it does not, in fact, catch us by surprise. We have seen in other psalms where the king is central that God has a burning and unique love for the king. The king’s words strike him almost like no other and, more importantly, he reacts to the king like no other. In other words, this verse is not so far from the ethos of the royal psalms as from God’s perspective—to God, the king is “the most beautiful of human beings”. The king is this almost Adam figure, the pinnacle of creation and the representative of mankind. Here, this passion is simply transposed ‘below’, such that it is now spoken from a human tongue and is clothed in the courtly nobility appropriate to it. This, to me, is an incredibly important point and provides for a very rich understanding of the psalm. This is not, for example, really “God’s delight”; rather it is the earthly perception of that same appealing quality inherent in the king that God is so unable to avoid expressing passion over. The final word of this verse is important in this regard as I believe it points to the earthly delight expressed as it relates to God’s (here, hidden) delight: “so God has blessed you forever.” It is likely/possible that this psalm originated as far back as the courts of Solomon. If so, this term of a ‘forever’ blessing could, it seems to me, refer to the covenant God made with David “forever” whereby he would create for him a “house”. This would show here that the beauty of the king has now been acknowledged (desired) by God and that, therefore, this ‘beauty’/nobility is what roots the very Davidic covenant of perpetuity. Hence, in the psalmist’s perception of the king’s beauty we are able to see, from the earthly realm, that which was/is perceived from the God’s realm. In a sense, it is this beauty of the king that is the impulse of the covenant.