Psalm 45:8-17.
After God's righteous judgment has been executed on this world that has so long dishonoured His Name and refused to own His rights over it as creator, a world that has rejected His Son and spurned His grace, the reign of Christ as the Man of Peace will begin. Men have long yearned for peace, but since their rejection of the Prince of Peace they have had constant conflict, and in spite of all their pursuit of pleasure they have lived in perpetual fear of what was coming upon them. Man's day has passed, and Christ's day has come, with all its benefits for mankind, and for the display of the divine glory in Him whom God has exalted to be Head over all things, and who has taken possession of the kingdoms of the world.
Coming forth from the ivory palaces, all the garments of the King will be fragrant with the sweet savour of His grace. His garments display His varied glories, even as the colours and materials of the priestly garments of Aaron set forth distinctive glories of Christ. In the millennium, Christ will sit as Priest upon His throne; the glories of King and Priest uniting in Him who alone could bear such glory. All symbolized in the gold, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, will be answered in the glory that belongs to Christ as God's King and Priest in that day.
The suffering love of the Lord Jesus, of which the myrrh speaks, will be fragrant to all around Him in His kingdom. None will be allowed to forget in the day of His glory that He was once The Man of Sorrows in this world. Myrrh was mingled with the wine offered to the Lord upon the cross (Mark 15:23); and myrrh and aloes were the spices used by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus in preparing the holy body of Jesus for His burial. The Spirit of God so often now engages our hearts with Christ's sufferings, during the time of His rejection by the world, and especially when we meet to remember the Lord; in the day of Christ's glory there will be the answer to all the suffering, and the recollection of it, in the sweet fragrance of the myrrh.
In the aloes there is that which is bitter to the taste but sweet in fragrance. Death was bitter for the Lord Jesus as He endured the cross, entering into the awfulness of divine judgment, drinking the cup of wrath to its last dark drop. There was all the shame, all that the proud and wicked heart of man could devise to revile the holy One in the hours of His sufferings; and there were the combined assaults of all the powers of darkness. His was indeed a bitter cup! But how rich is the fragrance of the perfection of His obedience and sub-mission to God's will, and of the love told out in all that He sustained for God's glory and our blessing. This will not be forgotten in the day of His glory.
Cassia had its own peculiar fragrance, but it was compounded with the other principal spices to make the holy anointing oil to anoint the tabernacle and its vessels of service, and Aaron and his sons (Ex. 30). If, as has been thought, cassia was the pith of a tree, or shrub, it would suggest the hidden fragrance of the Lord in Manhood here, that which the Father only could discern and appreciate, that which was for His own pleasure in His beloved Son. But in the coming day the garments of the King will be fragrant with what Jesus was as the Man of His pleasure, even as at His coming there will be the display in Him of His Father's glory (Luke 9:26).
As He comes out of His ivory palaces the Lord will have the joy of hearing the praises of His people Israel. When He was on earth in humiliation there was for a brief moment the foretaste of this when, riding into Jerusalem on the colt, the Lord was greeted with, "Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the Name of the Lord" (John 12:13). Alas! this note of praise was very quickly silenced, and instead there was the cry, "Away with Him." But the day is not far distant when the cry "Hosanna" will be heard again, and in Israel's joyful praises the Lord will be gladdened.
Solomon made a great throne of ivory, and Ahab made an ivory house, but the King of kings will have ivory palaces that will endure. The ivory throne of Solomon was never heard of after its construction, and the ivory house of Ahab is only mentioned after he had died; but the ivory palaces of Christ will remain throughout the millennium, reflecting the glory of the Great King, indicating the stability of His kingdom, and manifesting the abundance of His resources.
The Queen of Sheba, who visited Solomon, was an honourable woman, but the same could not be said of the "many strange women" that were loved by Solomon, and who turned away his heart after other gods. When the Lord was on earth there were honourable women "which ministered unto Him of their substance"; and such as Martha and Mary who received Him into their home, and the faithful women who "stood by the cross of Jesus." Whatever their birth naturally, or whatever their character before coming into contact with Jesus, these honourable women were, every one of them by divine grace, "King's daughters"; their relationship with Him put honour upon them, and gave them nobility of character and made them daughters of the King.
The honourable women who ministered to the Lord on earth will have their own place in His kingdom, but the honourable women of this psalm have their part in the earthly kingdom, and probably refer to the distinguished cities of Israel in the coming day, as no doubt the Queen at His right hand refers to the place of glory that Jerusalem will occupy at that time. The cities that refused the Lord in spite of His mighty works, Bethsaida, Chorazin and Capernaum, upon which the Lord pronounced His woes and foretold their judgment, will not be numbered among the honourable women in the day of Christ's glory.
Jerusalem, as the Queen, will be richly adorned in the glory of which the gold of Ophir speaks, a glory that will not be dimmed or taken from her as in her earlier history, glory that reflects the splendour of the Great Kind, and displayed in her to all the nations of the earth. In that day the kingdoms of the world will have become the kingdom of the Lord and of His Christ, and Jerusalem will be the centre of His kingdom, and the place to which the nations will come to do Him homage.
The favoured place enjoyed by the earthly Jerusalem brings to mind the unique place of privilege given to the church as the heavenly Jerusalem, from which the glory of God shines out in her whom Christ has loved and redeemed to share His place where He is Head over all things. This is the answer to the prayer of the Son here below, "And the glory which Thou hast given me I have given them, that they may be one, as we are one; I in them and Thou in me, that they may be perfected into one that the world may know that Thou hast sent me, and that Thou hast loved them as Thou hast loved me" (John 17:22-23).
Solomon's queen was of royal birth, the daughter of the King of Egypt, and Jerusalem will bear a royal character in the coming day, both as a King's daughter and as the Queen of the Great King. In verse 10 she is addressed as a royal daughter, "Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father's house; so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty: for He is thy Lord; and worship thou Him."
Jerusalem under the New Covenant is called upon to forget her relationships and history under the old covenant in which God's Name was gravely dishonoured. The old city was destroyed after its rejection and murder of the Messiah, but the new city is in quite a different relationship with God, for His law is now written upon His people's heart, and all their former sins are remembered no more. When Jesus was here His people would not hearken, they refused to consider and incline their ear; but now all is changed. Instead of weeping over the guilty city, the King now delights in the beauty that He has placed upon her; instead of refusing Him His place as Messiah, Jerusalem bows before Him as her Lord.
Surely there is a word for our hearts in all this! Once we were sinners of the Gentiles, without God and without hope; but now we are graced in Christ before God, accepted in the Beloved, and richly blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. In Ephesians 2 we are not asked to forget what we were, but rather to remember, and having recalled all our former state and misery, we are to be occupied with Christ and with all that God has given to us in Him. If we are engaged with Him and His things, instead of the things of this sinful world which rejected Him, and still refuses Him His place, He will find His delight in us.
If Christ has brought us into a place of favour and intimacy with Himself, we are never to forget who He is in His Person, and the glory that is essentially His and the place God has given Him as Man at His right hand. He is our Lord, and as such the object of our adoration and worship.
The Lord will not only be worshipped by the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the cities of Israel, He will have tribute from the nations. Tyre was a great commercial city against which God sent Nebuchadnezzar to execute His judgment. For this work the great Gentile king received payment from God in the spoiling of Egypt (Ezra 29:18-20). The daughter of Tyre no doubt portrays to us a new generation of merchantmen, who pay tribute to the Great King in the millennial day.
When Jesus was on earth, the poor sought His favour, and to them He preached Glad Tidings. There were a few of the rich who sought Him, such as Zacchaeus, and who received blessing, but there was also the rich young ruler who though seeking eternal life, went away sorrowful. The rich who entreat His favour will not go away sorrowful in the coming day; like Zacchaeus they will value the company of Jesus more than their riches.
Within the ivory palaces the king's daughter is all glorious, adorned in raiment of needlework, her clothing of wrought gold. This may set before us the place of dignity and favour enjoyed by the godly remnant who have come through the time of tribulation in fidelity to the Lord. It is not the displayed glory of the kingdom that is now seen as in the queen in verse 9, but rather the place of intimacy within the dwelling of the King, where the adornment of the King's daughter is for the eye and pleasure of the King. The wrought gold tells of divine righteousness wrought in the saints in the Spirit's power; the raiment of needlework of the precious features of Christ manifested in the days of testimony for His pleasure.
Though Israel and Jerusalem are specially in view in this Psalm, they forcibly remind us of the relationship of Christ and the church. Like the King's daughter, the church is derived from Christ, even as Eve was from Adam; like the queen, the church is united to Christ, as Eve was also to Adam. The church will not only display the divine glory in Christ's kingdom, but will be arrayed in fine linen at the marriage of the Lamb, the fine linen manifesting the righteousnesses of saints, that which was wrought for Christ in the details of the life of His own here below.
The King's daughter may tell us of the godly remnant of Judah, which had the special trials in Judea in the days of anti-christ: the virgins her companions may speak of the godly from among the other tribes who, in different circumstances, were loyal to Christ during the time of His absence, that is, those in other parts of the land, and dispersed among the nations. All will have their part with Christ within the ivory palaces, in the place of intimacy and favour: just as the church will share with Christ the blissful intimacy and favour of His place in the Father's House. Gladness and rejoicing will be their portion then, His suited answer to their place of reproach, suffering and sorrow.
A new generation, under the New Covenant, will share the glory of the kingdom. The fathers, under the old covenant, forfeited all that God gave them, and brought upon themselves the judgment of God; but the children will be princes in all the earth, possessing for the King His wide dominions, for the whole earth will have been brought under His sway. Israel will no longer be "scattered and peeled," but gathered around their Messiah, the Great King; they no longer will be "the tail" among the nations, but will be "the head." They will owe it all to Him whom they once rejected, but whom they will gladly accept in the day of His glory.
The Name of the King, Jesus, the Son of God, will God cause to be remembered in all generations. So long as the earth remains, the generations on earth will assuredly know that Christ is the ruler over all the earth, His reign bringing blessing to His people Israel, peace to all the nations, and prosperity to all who are subject to Him. Any rebellion will be immediately crushed, and disobedience to His commandments will be punished. With Satan chained in the bottomless pit, the external influences from spiritual wickedness will be removed, though the old nature in men will still be there. Only by the suppression of evil can peace obtain on earth, and righteousness reign for the blessing of mankind.
With blessing abounding in Immanuel's land, and the glory of the Lord covering the earth as the waters cover the sea, Jehovah's people, Israel in their place of peculiar favour and blessing, will praise their King for ever and ever. The Name of Jesus, once disowned by His people, will be fragrant for them, for then will they realize that He passed through all the suffering and judgment that they might be blessed. Then they will see the fulfilment of the words spoken by the angel to Mary, "Thou … shalt call His Name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called Son of the Highest: and the Lord shall give unto Him the throne of His father David: and He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end" (Luke 1:31-33).
Wm. C. Reid.
Royal robes shall soon invest Thee,
Royal splendours crown Thy brow;
Christ of God, our souls confess Thee
King and Sovereign even now!