Psalms 45:10-11

45:10 Listen, O princess! ¹ 

Observe and pay attention! ² 

Forget your homeland ³  and your family! ⁴ 

45:11 Then ⁵  the king will be attracted by ⁶  your beauty.

After all, he is your master! Submit ⁷  to him! ⁸ 

Luke 1:38

1:38 So ⁹  Mary said, “Yes, ¹⁰  I am a servant ¹¹  of the Lord; let this happen to me ¹²  according to your word.” ¹³  Then ¹⁴  the angel departed from her.

[45:10]  ¹ tn Heb “daughter.” The Hebrew noun בת (“daughter”) can sometimes refer to a young woman in a general sense (see H. Haag, TDOT 2:334).

[45:10]  ² tn Heb “see and turn your ear.” The verb רָאָה (ra’ah, “see”) is used here of mental observation.

[45:10]  ³ tn Heb “your people.” This reference to the “people” of the princess suggests she was a foreigner. Perhaps the marriage was arranged as part of a political alliance between Israel (or Judah) and a neighboring state. The translation “your homeland” reflects such a situation.

[45:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “and the house of your father.”

[45:11]  ⁵ tn After the preceding imperatives, the jussive verbal form with vav (ו) conjunctive is best understood as introducing a purpose (“so that the king might desire your beauty”) or result clause (see the present translation and cf. also NASB). The point seems to be this: The bride might tend to be homesick, which in turn might cause her to mourn and diminish her attractiveness. She needs to overcome this temptation to unhappiness and enter into the marriage with joy. Then the king will be drawn to her natural beauty.

[45:11]  ⁶ tn Or “desire.”

[45:11]  ⁷ tn Or “bow down.”

[45:11]  ⁸ sn Submit to him. The poet here makes the point that the young bride is obligated to bring pleasure to her new husband. Though a foreign concept to modern western culture, this was accepted as the cultural norm in the psalmist’s day.

[1:38]  ⁹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the transition to a new topic.

[1:38]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “behold.”

[1:38]  ¹¹ tn Traditionally, “handmaid”; Grk “slave woman.” Though δούλη (doulh) is normally translated “woman servant,” the word does not bear the connotation of a free woman serving another. BDAG notes that “‘servant’ for ‘slave’ is largely confined to Biblical transl. and early American times… in normal usage at the present time the two words are carefully distinguished” (BDAG 260 s.v. δοῦλος). The most accurate translation is “bondservant,” sometimes found in the ASV for δοῦλος (doulos), in that it often indicates one who sells himself or herself into slavery to another. But as this is archaic, few today understand its force.

[1:38]  ¹² tn Grk “let this be to me.”

[1:38]  ¹³ sn The remark according to your word is a sign of Mary’s total submission to God’s will, a response that makes her exemplary.

[1:38]  ¹⁴ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.