THE PSALMS
THE PSALMS
The Psalms are full of personal knowledge of things, which is very important in Scripture, personal knowledge, and the knowledge of persons. The psalm writers are persons of great importance, and God gives a great place to them in the epistle to the Hebrews. He cites what they say. They excelled in the way they spoke about Christ, and one of them, in Psalm 45, spoke about a queen. It is a beautiful psalm; in fact, there is hardly a more beautiful. We turn to it with pleasure. It is a love song, and it is a Maschil, teaching psalm for the sons of Korah. It has a great place in that sense. We have the Lord Jesus spoken of as the Messiah, and in verse 9 it is said, “Upon thy right hand doth stand the queen in gold of Ophir”. She stands there. The queen in Nehemiah 2 sat by the king as if to support him without saying anything. That is a very blessed thought for a sister, silently supporting her head, but everyone sees that she is supporting what he is saying. She is not at variance with him; she is not interfering with him. She is sitting by him and hence the request of Nehemiah, the servant of God is granted and Jerusalem is rebuilt. That was the point in God’s mind and the queen supported it.
[p. 428] So, as I said, this psalm furnishes us with a beautiful word about the Messiah’s queen, you will understand. “Kings’ daughters are among thine honourable women”. And “Upon thy right hand doth stand the queen in gold of Ophir”. The very best gold adorned her. She is there clothed in that way and she is standing there without saying anything. She is standing there. That is a great matter for the king, that he is supported by her in that dignity, in that attire; as suitable. So later it is said of the assembly, the Lamb’s wife, “And it was given to her that she should be clothed in fine linen, bright and pure”, Revelation 19: 8. Not gold, but linen bright and pure, suitable to the dispensation and the end of it, the idea of being clean, of being purified. “Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they may have right to the tree of life, and that they should go in by the gates into the city”, Revelation 22: 14. We are to be in keeping with that now.