Psalm 45 Academics
Royal wedding song
Psalm 45
Academic Resources
Explore our academic Psalms resources for Psalm 45, including our Layer-by-Layer analysis, select Exegetical Issues, and Overview Videos.
Overview 
- This page will introduce and provide orientation to Psalm 45 as a whole. It covers the message, structure, background and participants of the psalm.
Layer-by-Layer Analysis 
- The heart of our process is our layer-by-layer exegetical analysis, where we unfold the semantics, story behind, discourse, and poetics of each psalm.
Grammar & Semantics
Semantics is the study of how language is used to represent meaning. The goal of semantic analysis is to understand the meaning of words and how they relate to each other in context. Our Semantics analysis consists of the following sub-layers:
- Grammar & Textual Criticism
- Lexical Semantics
- Phrase-Level Semantics
- Verbal Semantics
Story Behind
The Story Behind the Psalm shows how each part of the psalm fits together into a single coherent whole. Here, we analyze the meaning of sentences and larger units of discourse, up to and including the entire psalm. This also include historical background and figurative imagery.
Discourse
Our Discourse Layer moves beyond semantic-level meaning, and analyzes features of the text dependent on the speaker, addressee, and macrosyntax.
Poetics
Exploring the Psalms as poetry is crucial for understanding and experiencing the psalms and thus for faithfully translating them into another language.
Verse-by-Verse Notes 
- Explore the psalm verse-by-verse and section-by-section.
Psalm 45 Exegetical Issues 
- These issues examine the top three tough questions for each psalm, explaining different scholarly interpretations, and offering our perspective.
- The primary difficulty in this verse lies in the final prepositional phrase of the third line, "in the heart of the enemies of the king (בְּ֝לֵ֗ב אוֹיְבֵ֥י הַמֶּֽלֶךְ),." Some have suggested that the MT's יִפְּל֑וּ בְּ֝לֵ֗ב should be emended to read יִפֹּל לְבַב. Others argue that v. 6a is in apposition to the "awesome deeds" of v. 5c, so that v. 6c is not dependent on v. 6a. A simple reading of the MT results in the third line syntactically modifying the first line, with the second line as a parenthetical.
- Since the king is the most probable addressee in v. 7, many have considered it a theological difficulty to refer to the king as "God," so scholars and translators have sought alternate textual reconstructions or alternate grammatical construals to understand a remarkable reference to a human king.
- There are a number of ways to understand the syntax of v. 13, some dependent on how one reads the final clause of v. 12 (וְהִשְׁתַּחֲוִי־לוֹ), whether as apposition, adding an elided verb, as a vocative, or emending the text.
