Psalms 89:26

89:26 He will call out to me,

‘You are my father, my God, and the protector who delivers me.’

Hebrews 1:5

The Son Is Superior to Angels

1:5 For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my son! Today I have fathered you”? And in another place he says,I will be his father and he will be my son.”


sn You are my father. The Davidic king was viewed as God’s “son” (see 2 Sam 7:14; Ps 2:7). The idiom reflects ancient Near Eastern adoption language associated with covenants of grant, by which a lord would reward a faithful subject by elevating him to special status, referred to as “sonship.” Like a son, the faithful subject received an “inheritance,” viewed as an unconditional, eternal gift. Such gifts usually took the form of land and/or an enduring dynasty. See M. Weinfeld, “The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East,” JAOS 90 (1970): 184-203, for general discussion and some striking extra-biblical parallels.

tn Heb “the rocky summit of my deliverance.”

tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

tn Grk “I have begotten you.”

tn Grk “And again,” quoting another OT passage.

tn The words “he says” are not in the Greek text but are supplied to make a complete English sentence. In the Greek text this is a continuation of the previous sentence, but English does not normally employ such long and complex sentences.

tn Grk “I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me.”