By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY
This article will look at the way that the Queenship of Our Lady was prefigured in the Old Testament by the person and activities of various biblical women. One of these was Esther, a Jewish girl who, due to her beauty, became Queen of Persia during the Babylonian exile. The Jewish people were threatened with a plot instigated by Haman, and it was only through Esther’s intercession that they were they saved, with Haman himself being hanged from the gibbet which had been intended for Esther’s protector Mordecai.
Esther has been seen as a type of Mary in that her earthly Queenship foreshadowed the idea of Mary as Queen of Heaven, the Mother of Jesus the King. Esther’s beauty helped to save her people, but Mary, beautiful in both body and soul, had a much greater vocation, that of cooperating in the redemption of the whole world.
This is not the not the only example of this type of Queenship in the Bible. Psalm 45 describes a royal wedding, probably Solomon’s, with the first part being addressed to the King and the second to the Queen (Psalm 45:1-8a).
That we are dealing here with more than an ordinary wedding, in the mind of the inspired writer, is apparent as the psalm moves forward, and it becomes clear that the King who is addressed in verse 6 of the psalm is actually God. However, the next verse sees God anointing God, and in a Christian Messianic sense, this is an obvious reference to Jesus as Son being anointed by God the Father.
In a Christian sense, too, this psalm as a whole has been understood as referring to the “marriage” between Christ and the Church, the “bride” of Christ.
It is the second part of the psalm, though, which is more directly concerned with the Queen, which is also of interest with regard to Mary (Psalm 45:8b-17).
These verses describe the “queen in gold of Ophir,” standing at the right of the King, and describe how she would be showered with costly gifts, and would have virgin companions in her escort. The last few verses in this passage are as follows: “Instead of your fathers shall be your sons; you will make them princes in all the earth. I will cause your name to be celebrated in all generations; therefore the peoples will praise you for ever and ever.”
We are dealing with more than an earthly queen here, since her sons will be renowned all over the earth, and all generations will celebrate her name and praise her for ever. This passage can clearly be linked with our Lady’s words in the Magnificat, when she said, “For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name” (Luke 1:48-49).
St. Athanasius commented on the above psalm as follows: “The self-same who was born of the Virgin is, in truth, King, and the Lord God. And on his account, she who gave him birth is properly and truly proclaimed Queen, Lady, and Mother of God. And hence it befits us, as we contemplate her and the Incarnate Son born of her, to say: at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir. For woman though she is, she is Queen and Lady, and Mother of God; and standing now as Queen at the right hand of her Son the King of all, she is celebrated in the Scriptures as clad around with the gilded clothing of incorruption and immortality.”
Clearly, if the King is the Messiah, that is Jesus, then the Queen must be Mary, since she is the only woman within the Gospels who can stand in such a position with regard to Christ.
Strictly speaking, though, Mary is the Queen Mother, the Mother of Jesus, the King, and we can gain a better idea of Mary’s role in this sense by looking at the mothers of the Old Testament kings in the line of David. The Kings of Judah usually had more than one “wife” and it seems that polygamy was tolerated, partly for political reasons, as a means of cementing alliances between different states. This was certainly the case during the time of Saul, David, Solomon, and beyond, but the title “Queen,” in the sense of the feminine of the Hebrew Melek, “King,” was not actually given to any of these wives, even when, as for example in the case of Bathsheba and King David, she was his favored wife.
It seems that the title used to indicate “Queenship” in Hebrew was Gebirah or “Great Lady,” the counterpart of Gebir, “Lord” or “ruler,” and this was only given to the mother or grandmother of the Kings of Judah, and never to their wives (cf. 1 Kings 15:13; also Jer. 29:2 in parallel with 2 Kings 24:15).
The title Gebirah was not just a ceremonial one, since the Great Lady or Queen Mother had a special dignity and power in the kingdom of Judah. The Great Lady could also assist in the ruling of the kingdom (cf. 2 Kings 11:3).
We read of Solomon greeting his mother Bathsheba with great honor: “So Bathsheba went to King Solomon, to speak to him on behalf of Adonijah. And the king rose to meet her, and bowed down to her; then he sat on his throne, and had a seat brought for the king’s mother, and she sat on his right” (1 Kings 2:19).
This indicates that the Queen mother had a position as an advocate before the king, and if we apply this principle to Mary, then it is possible to see her as our advocate, as the one who pleads before Jesus her Son, interceding on our behalf, and ready to do whatever she can for us.
There are several indications in the New Testament that we are to regard her in this way. That she was to be the mother of a king was made clear to her by Gabriel at the Annunciation: “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32-33).
Similarly, Elizabeth’s words to Mary during the Visitation, when she referred to Mary as “the Mother of my Lord,” echo the sort of language used at court in the kingdom of Judah, where the king was addressed as “My Lord,” and where, by extension, the mother of the King, would have been the “Mother of my Lord.” This does not of course affect the primary sense of this passage, which indicates that Jesus is to be understood as “the Lord,” that is as an incarnation of the God of the Old Testament, with Mary as His Mother.
So describing our Lady as a queen is very much justified by these biblical types of her, which point toward her great role as Queen Mother of Christ the King. And of course, it is appropriate to think about these points around October, the month of the rosary, especially as the final Glorious Mystery is the Coronation of Our Lady as Queen of Heaven.
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(Donal Anthony Foley is the author of a number of books on Marian Apparitions, and maintains a related website at www.theotokos.org.uk. He has also a written a time-travel/adventure book for young people — details can be found at: http://glaston-chronicles.co.uk/.)
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