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Messianic interpretation must be very ancient. Just as Eze 21:32 refers back to שׁילה, Gen 49:10, גּבּור אל among the names of the Messiah in Isa 9:5 (cf. Zec 12:8) refers back in a similar manner to Ps 45. And whilst the reception of the Song of Songs into the canon admits of being understood even without the assumption of any prophetically allegorical meaning in it, the reception of this Psalm without any such assumption is unintelligible. But this prophetically Messianic sense is therefore not the original meaning of the Psalm. The Psalm is a poem composed for some special occasion the motive of which is some contemporary event. The king whom it celebrates was a contemporary of the poet. If, however, it was a king belonging to David's family, then he was a possessor of a kingship to which were attached, according to 2 Sam. 7, great promises extending into the unlimited future, and on which, consequently, hung all the prospects of the future prosperity and glory of Israel; and the poet is therefore fully warranted in regarding him in the light of the Messianic idea, and the church is also fully warranted in referring the song, which took its rise in some passing occasion, as a song for all ages, to the great King of the future, the goal of its hope. Moreover, we find only such poems of an occasional and individual character received into the Psalter, as were adapted to remain in constant use by the church as prayers and spiritual songs.
With respect to the historical occasion of the song, we adhere to the conjecture advanced in our commentary on Canticles and on the Epistle to the Hebrews, viz., that it was composed in connection with the marriage of Joram of Judah with Athaliah. The reference to the marriage of Ahab of Israel with Jezebel of Tyre, set forth by Hitzig, is at once set aside by the fact that the poet idealizes the person celebrated, as foreshadowing the Messiah, in a way that can only be justified in connection with a Davidic king. It could more readily be Solomon the king of Israel, whose appearance was fair as that of a woman, but majestic as that of a hero.^[1]
Even to the present day several interpreters^[2] explain the Psalm of Solomon'

1. So Disraeli in his romance of Alroy (1845).
2. So even Kurtz in the Dorpater Zeitschrift for 1865, S. 1-24.