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Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
Psalm 45:6
Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever. The king addressed directly as elohim, quoted of the Son at Hebrews 1:8.
Psalm 45:6, in every translation this tool compares.
English can say your throne, God, addressing someone as God directly, or God is your throne, making God the foundation rather than the one addressed. The Hebrew grammar here genuinely supports reading it the first way, and whether a human king is really being called God, even in an exalted, honorific sense, is exactly what makes the verse so debated.
Because this royal wedding psalm appears to address the human king directly as elohim, God, a startling title for a mortal ruler, and Hebrews 1:8 quotes exactly this reading and applies it to the Son, making the verse's grammar a genuinely load-bearing question for New Testament Christology.
Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre.
Most versions read thy throne, O God, following the vocative reading and the Septuagint's own rendering, which Hebrews 1:8 quotes directly. A minority reading takes it as God is your throne, avoiding a direct divine address to the human king.
כִּסְאֲךָ אֱלֹהִים kis'akha elohim · H3678 + H430
Elohim occurs four times in this psalm, at verses 2, 6, and twice in 7, with the surrounding occurrences clearly referring to God; the vocative reading, thy throne, O God, treats verse 6 as continuing that pattern, an extraordinarily exalted address to the Davidic king as God's own representative, perhaps even more than merely representative. The Septuagint reads it the same vocative way, and Hebrews 1:8 quotes that Greek text directly, applying the address to the Son as part of its argument for his superiority over the angels.
English must choose a subject and an address; thy throne, O God directly calls the addressee God, while God is your throne makes God a foundation rather than a title, two genuinely different claims that the Hebrew grammar, ambiguous enough to be argued for centuries, does not force in only one direction.
When a psalm's grammar allows a human figure to be addressed with divine vocabulary, take the ambiguity seriously rather than resolving it by assuming discomfort with the direct reading. Ancient Israelite royal ideology could apply exalted, even startling language to its kings as God's representatives.
Thy throne, O God follows the Septuagint, matches the surrounding elohim occurrences in the same psalm, and is the reading Hebrews 1:8 explicitly builds on. God is your throne avoids directly calling a human king God but requires reading the Hebrew syntax somewhat less naturally against its immediate context.
- elohim's other occurrences in the same psalm: Psalm 45:2, 7
- Septuagint's vocative rendering, quoted at Hebrews 1:8
- Standard survey of both readings in major commentaries on Psalm 45 and Hebrews 1
