RS reads: “Of the Son he says, ‘Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever.’” (KJ, NE, TEV, Dy, JB, NAB have similar renderings.) However, NW reads: “But with reference to the Son: ‘God is your throne forever and ever.’” (AT, Mo, TC, By convey the same idea.)
Which rendering is harmonious with the context? The preceding verses say that God is speaking, not that he is being addressed; and the following verse uses the expression “God, thy God,” showing that the one addressed is not the Most High God but is a worshiper of that God. Hebrews 1:8 quotes from Psalm 45:6, which originally was addressed to a human king of Israel. Obviously, the Bible writer of this psalm did not think that this human king was Almighty God. Rather, Psalm 45:6, in RS, reads “Your divine throne.” (NE says, “Your throne is like God’s throne.” JP [verse 7]: “Thy throne given of God.”) Solomon, who was possibly the king originally addressed in Psalm 45, was said to sit “upon Jehovah’s throne.” (1 Chron. 29:23, NW) In harmony with the fact that God is the “throne,” or Source and Upholder of Christ’s kingship, Daniel 7:13, 14 and Luke 1:32 show that God confers such authority on him.
Hebrews 1:8, 9 quotes from Psalm 45:6, 7, concerning which the Bible scholar B. F. Westcott states: “The LXX. admits of two renderings: [ho the·osʹ] can be taken as a vocative in both cases (Thy throne, O God, . . . therefore, O God, Thy God . . . ) or it can be taken as the subject (or the predicate) in the first case (God is Thy throne, or Thy throne is God . . . ), and in apposition to [ho the·osʹ sou] in the second case (Therefore God, even Thy God . . . ). . . . It is scarcely possible that [’Elo·himʹ] in the original can be addressed to the king. The presumption therefore is against the belief that [ho the·osʹ] is a vocative in the LXX. Thus on the whole it seems best to adopt in the first clause the rendering: God is Thy throne (or, Thy throne is God), that is ‘Thy kingdom is founded upon God, the immovable Rock.’”—The Epistle to the Hebrews (London, 1889), pp. 25, 26
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