Ps. 45.3 (gird your sword)

“Gird your sword / upon your thigh – your splendor / and your majesty / O warrior.” The images of authorial beauty in these first three verses are many: “A noble theme moves my heart…; you are the most beautiful of human beings, with your lips anointed with grace…; ...your splendor and majesty, O warrior.” As we reflected upon previously, the king is the object of desire; in him, and through him, radiates the light of beauty. In verse 2, it was the understood as the “anointing of grace” upon his lips. Perhaps we are to see in this anointing the fact that the king is ‘judges wisely’ and administers justice correctly. Whatever its referent, it clearly understands the king’s speech to not merely ‘correct’ but persuasive, attractive, and as exuding power. This speech is one of the primary duties of the king. Here, that same sense of ‘powerful beauty’ is portrayed within the second realm of kingly responsibility: war. Here, however, the images of beauty are evoked as those of regal power and authority—“splendor and majesty”. This is royal beauty. And, importantly, they are designations that almost always refer to God, not to man. Here, however, with the repeated emphasis of “your” (“your sword…your thigh…your splendor…your majesty”) we are to understand these as possessions of the king, in much the same way as the “anointed lips”. Likewise, these qualities represent the ‘force’ and ‘presence’ of a king. They are, in this way, particularly ‘public’ displays of beauty as they evoke reverence, fear, awe and respect. They are ‘kingly’ displays precisely as a ‘king’ is, by definition, a public person. For a king, therefore, to be ‘clothed’ in this power is to inhabit that realm of authority that, by its own presence, can cause panic in an enemy and this outpouring of praise in his people. Rhetorically: This verse is a transitional verse. The momentum slows and the psalmist issues a command to the king to “clothe” and “gird” himself. This ‘pause and command’ is important as the reader is brought into this inner sanctum with the psalmist. It is a type of intimacy. If this verse were removed the psalm would still be coherent but it would lose this profound sense of adoration, joy and exultation that could only be accomplished in this manner. The command too is clearly a loving command and it carries with it almost something of erotic desire in its joy at watching the king dress; the voice is almost feminine. The spirit that pervades this and the previous verse seem very closely aligned with that of the Song of Songs.