Psalms 89:26

89:26 He will call out to me,

‘You are my father, ¹  my God, and the protector who delivers me.’ ² 

Hebrews 1:5

The Son Is Superior to Angels

1:5 For to which of the angels did God ³  ever say, “You are my son! Today I have fathered you”? ⁴  And in another place ⁵  he says, ⁶  “I will be his father and he will be my son.” ⁷ 

[89:26]  ¹ 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.

[89:26]  ² tn Heb “the rocky summit of my deliverance.”

[1:5]  ³ tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:5]  ⁴ tn Grk “I have begotten you.”

[1:5]  ⁵ tn Grk “And again,” quoting another OT passage.

[1:5]  ⁶ 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.

[1:5]  ⁷ tn Grk “I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me.”