Hebrews 1:8
That's the Watchtower's
New World translation.
KJ:
The KJV is pretty bad in this instance (as in many more). Heb.1:8 quotes
Psalm 45:6. The Hebrew-English Tanakh, from the Jewish Publication Society, reads thusly:
"
Your divine throne is everlasting; your royal scepter is a scepter of equity."
It does not translate the original Hebrew as "your throne, O God." So when Paul was quoting from this verse in Psalms, he was not saying that the Messiah was God. The Messiah's (Jesus') throne was divine, yes---divine meaning "of, relating to, or
proceeding directly FROM God"---and this throne would be firmly backed up, or, supported by, God.
The very next verse shows an honest person that the Son could not be God. It says:
"You love righteousness and hate wickedness; rightly has God,
YOUR GOD, chosen to anoint you with oil of gladness over all your peers." (Psalm 45:8, according to the Tanakh; Hebrews 1:9, KJV)
Tell me....does God have "peers"? No! But the subject of these verses does. Never mind the fact that even the KJV states that
THE SON HAS A GOD.
Did you bother to research any of this? Do you have any explanations for your acceptance of a sloppy translation that contradicts itself in the very next verse?
The meaning of what the Tanakh actually says is accepted as a possibility by the
New Revised Standard Version & Today's English Version in their footnotes. The
Holman Christian Standard Bible also understands the correct translation:
"But to the Son:
Your throne, God, is forever and ever, and the scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of justice....God,
your God, has anointed you with the oil of joy..."
The Son never has to wonder about the length of his kingdom because God is there to support it forever.
In fact, to some translators, "God is your throne" is the accepted rendering, meaning that it is God [the Father] who is actually "the throne," or,
the Source of power and authority. So either way it is understood (that God IS the throne, or that God backs up the Son's throne) it means the same thing, and the Son is obviously not God.
"The NRSV, TEV, and NWT have done the right thing by informing their readers that
there are two ways the verse can and has been translated; both translations are possible...but which translation is more PROBABLE? First, on the basis of linguistics,
ho theos is more likely to mean 'God,' as it does hundreds of times throughout the N.T., than 'O God,' a meaning it has in only three other places in the N.T. ...Moreover, there is no other way to say 'God is your throne' than the way Hebrews 1:8 reads....We must conclude that the more probable translation is 'God is your throne,' the translation found in the NWT and in the footnotes of the NRSV and TEV....If this verse were quoted in the N.T. in reference to anyone else, the translators would not have hesitated to translate it as 'God is your throne.' It seems likely that it is only because most translations were made by people who
already believe that Jesus is God that the
less probable way of translating this verse has been preferred." (
Truth in Translation, BeDuhn, pp.97-101)