Thy Throne is the Throne of God Forever and Ever
Hebrews 1:8 reads, “but of the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever; and the sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of thy kingdom” (ASV text).
Or, “but of the Son he saith, Thy throne is God forever and ever; and the sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of thy kingdom” (ASV margin).
When taken out of context, the Greek of this first clause is grammatically ambiguous. However, its construction is parallel to the next clause, “And the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of thy kingdom.”
The three oldest manuscripts alone have “of his kingdom.” Later manuscripts do not. Another suggested reading is, “And the scepter of uprightness, O scepter, is of thy kingdom”!
Noting that there is no explicit verb in the Hebrew or Greek of either Psalm 45:6 (44:7 Septuagint) or Hebrews 1:8, perhaps the best translation would be, “Thy throne is the throne of God forever and ever; And the sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.” This reading would seem to be consistent with Revelation 3:21, “as I also … sat down with my Father in his throne.”
Jesus, now enthroned with God
When we see “forever and ever” it is usually literally, for the ages of the ages. Only in Revelation 14:11 is it literally, for ages of ages. And only in Hebrews 1:8 is it for the age of the age, to which the Septuagint Greek also agrees. This latter might mean just the thousand-year kingdom of Christ, as if to mean for the Greatest Age (prior to the Eternal Kingdom of God). Or it may mean the Greatest Age of the seventh creative day.
Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd Edition (1998, page 592), unintentionally improves the case for reading “is of his kingdom.”
“Although the reading autou (Strongs 847, translated “of self”), which has early and good support (papyrus 46, Codex Siniaticus, Codex Vaticanus 1209), may seem to be preferable because it differs from the reading of the Old Testament passage that is being quoted (Psalms 45:7, which is Septuagint 44:7), sou, translated “thine” or “of you,” to which, on this point of view, presumably the mass of New Testament witnesses have been assimilated, a majority … was more impressed (a) by the weight and variety of the external evidence supporting sou, and (b) by the internal difficulty of construing autou (translated “of self”).
“Thus, if one reads autou, the words ho theos (“the God”) must be taken, not as a vocative (an interpretation that is preferred by most exegetes), but as the subject (or predicate nominative), an interpretation that is generally regarded as highly improbable.
“Even if one assumes that kai (translated “and”), which is absent from the Hebrew and the Septuagint of the Psalm, was inserted by the author with the set purpose of making two separate quotations, with verse 8a in the second person and 8b in the third person, the strangeness of the shift in persons is only slightly reduced.”
The “interpretation … preferred by most” acknowledges that the choice is significantly driven by theology. It is perhaps significant that the only three manuscripts we have prior to AD 400 read inconveniently for trinitarians, while all those later than the century of controversy read tolerably to that theology. Nevertheless, there is as yet no proof positive of a willful falsification, only an evidential suspicion.
One might add, as does Lonzo Pribble, Theology Simplified (2009), that the following verse also weighs against the “O God” translation, when it says to the Son, “God, thy God, hath anointed thee.”
– Br. James Parkinson