Psalm 45 has the title “A Song of Loves”, and its language is glowing and splendid. Set as a love poem between the King and his Bride, it is a description of the Lord’s Divine Human. It is a spiritual song of the relationship between the Lord and His church, between the Lord and heaven and between the Lord and each one of us. On another level it gives expression to the marriage of good and truth and the attraction between them. And on yet another level it describes conjugial love between man and woman.

Verse 1 introduces the song, calling it a good theme about the King and the desire to speak of this. Verses 2 to 9 focus on the qualities of the King, then introduce the daughters of kings, and at the right hand of the King, the queen in gold. Verses 10 to 17 are about the daughter, the bride of the King, who will leave her father’s house and go to the King who desires her beauty. With her virgin attendants they enter the King’s palace, and the song closes speaking of the sons who shall be made princes, bringing continuance to all generations.

It is interesting to note that everything said about the King is intensely masculine and everything about the daughter is extremely feminine. Spiritually, it is this wide difference in representation which closely unites.

The King is described as being fairer (literally more beautiful) than the sons of men; the original Hebrew form makes it say, ‘fairer by far’. This is because the King stands for Divine Wisdom which gives expression to Divine Truth. The ‘sons of men’ mean those who can receive and understand what is divinely true. Grace poured upon your lips means that the wish of Divine wisdom is to be revealed in doctrinals, in knowable forms to us. So, the line becomes complete. (Apocalypse Explained 684)

Verses 3 and 4 bring the grandeur and majesty of the King to the fore,

‘Gird your sword upon your thigh, O Mighty One, and in Your majesty ride prosperously because of truth, humility and righteousness.’

Spiritually, this refers to the Lord’s truth being like a sword which destroys everything that is false. The riding in majesty is the Divine will to be in combat against all that opposes truth. The thigh is the seat of conjugial love which is the foundation of every spiritual love expressed in what is true. (Apocalypse Explained 684, and Apocalypse Revealed 830, 836).

The threefold ‘truth’, ‘humility’ and ‘righteousness’ in verse 4 express the trinity in everything divine and spiritual in the same way that the Lord said of Himself, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’.

Verse 6 brings us to the eternal throne of God and the sceptre of righteousness. These describe God in images of authority. Then in verse 7 this state of divinity is bestowed on the King who is the divine in human form, the glorified Lord who makes humanity divine. Spiritually, the divine human means our own work of regeneration in which we shun evils and are made whole by the Lord and in this the Lord is glorified. (True Christian Religion 599)

The next verses give the qualities of the divine human. He is anointed with the oil of gladness, his garments are scented with myrrh, aloes, and cassia, which are from the ivory palaces, by which they have made you glad. Spiritually, anointing means to represent what is divine, the oil of gladness means that this is to be in divine good. (Arcana Caelestia 10125)

Myrrh, aloes, and cassia scent the garments. Garments which clothe the body stand for divine truth which we put on spiritually when we commit to the Lord. The three scented oils represent in order, divine truth in the ultimate plane of life, divine truth in the spiritual plane and divine truth in the celestial or highest plane. The Lord’s truth is to form our living, our thinking and our love and intention, and their scent is to go forth from us. (Apocalypse Explained 684)

The ivory palaces bringing gladness stand for the delight which is felt when our affection for natural truth is joined to spiritual truth. (Apocalypse Revealed 724, 774).

Then we come to the daughter, the bride, whose beauty is desired by the King. She goes to the King who she is to worship. He clothes are of gold and in many colours, and she is attended by virgins. They enter the King’s palace. All these descriptions represent our reception of the Lord because we have a longing and an affection for truth to join with our love of good. Specifically, this affection for truth is kindled by the Word which is the Lord. (Apocalypse Explained 863)

The princes, the sons, and the remembering, represent the everlasting nature and purpose of the union of good and truth. (Arcana Caelestia 6887-6888)

836. 19:21 And the rest were slain with the sword of Him who sat on the horse, which went forth from His mouth. This symbolically means that all those of various heretical sects among the Protestant Reformed who had not lived according to the Lord's commandments in the Word that they knew, having been judged in accordance with the Word, perished.

The rest mean all those of various heretical sects among the Protestant Reformed who had not lived according to the Lord's commandments in the Word that they knew, namely the commandments of the Decalogue, thus who did not refrain from evils as being sins. For people who do not for that reason refrain from these are caught up in evils of every kind, inasmuch as they have these inherent in them from birth and so from early childhood to the end of life; and these evils increase daily if they are not removed by active repentance.

These are the people of whom we are told that they were slain with the sword of Him who sat on the horse. To be slain means symbolically, here are as often before, to be slain spiritually, which is to perish in respect to one's soul. The sword of Him who sat on the horse, which went forth from His mouth, symbolizes the Word's truths combating the falsities accompanying evil. For various kinds of swords symbolize truth fighting against falsity, and falsity fighting against truth (no. 52). However, a sword on the thigh means a combat from love; a sword in the hand, or dagger, means a combat with power; and a sword from the mouth means a combat from doctrine. Consequently the sword that went forth from the mouth of the Lord means a combat from the Word against falsities (nos. 108, 117, 827), as it is the Word that goes forth from the mouth of the Lord.

The reference here is to combat with the Protestant Reformed and not with Roman Catholics, because the Protestant Reformed read the Word and acknowledge the truths in it to be Divine truths. Not so Roman Catholics. They acknowledge the Word indeed, but still do not read it, and each regards the pronouncements of the Pope as having priority, and the Word as far from being on par with them. Combat from the Word is therefore impossible in their case. They also put themselves above it and not under it. But even so they are judged in accordance with the Word, and in accordance with papal pronouncements insofar as these accord with the Word.