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 14:26-27

14:26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate ⁹  his own father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, and even his own life, ¹⁰  he cannot be my disciple. 14:27 Whoever does not carry his own cross ¹¹  and follow ¹²  me cannot be my disciple.

[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.

[14:26]  ⁹ tn This figurative use operates on a relative scale. God is to be loved more than family or self.

[14:26]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “his own soul,” but ψυχή (yuch) is frequently used of one’s physical life. It clearly has that meaning in this context.

[14:27]  ¹¹ sn It was customary practice in a Roman crucifixion for the prisoner to be made to carry his own cross. Jesus is speaking figuratively here in the context of rejection. If the priority is not one’s allegiance to Jesus, then one will not follow him in the face of possible rejection; see Luke 9:23.

[14:27]  ¹² tn Grk “and come after.” In combination with the verb ἔρχομαι (ercomai) the improper preposition ὀπίσω (opisw) means “follow.”