Psalms 72
Psalm 723 carries the heading A Psalm for Solomon, and it reads like a prayer prayed over a young king at the start of his reign. Its requests are striking for what they leave out. There is no plea for long life as such, no prayer for riches or for the necks of enemies under his feet for their own sake. The one thing it asks God to give the king is God's own justice: Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's son. Everything else in the psalm flows from that single gift - as though a throne were only ever as good as the justice that sits on it.
What that justice looks like is spelled out in one direction above all: downward, toward the people who have no leverage. He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment… he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. The strong can look after themselves; the psalm measures a reign by what happens to the weak under it. And the result is not grim order but flourishing - the king's coming is like rain upon the mown grass, and in his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace.
Then the prayer swells past anything an earthly king could hold. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea… all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him… His name shall endure for ever. Solomon's kingdom, for all its gold, shrank and split within a generation of his death. The psalm's reach - every nation, every generation, a name that never sets like the sun - outran him and every son of David after him. The prophets would pick up its exact words for a King still to come, and the New Testament would find that King receiving the worship of foreign visitors, claiming all authority in heaven and earth, and gathering the blessing once promised to Abraham for all the families of the ground.
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Psalm 72:1-7 · A Psalm for SolomonGive the King Thy Judgments
1Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's son. 2He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment. 3The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness. 4He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. 5They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations. 6He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth. 7In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth.
The psalm opens not by flattering the king but by praying for him - and the one thing it asks God to give is God's own judgments and righteousness. A throne in Israel was never a seat of private power; the king sat under the law, not above it, charged to administer a justice he did not invent. So the prayer begins exactly where good government must: Give the king thy judgments, O God. Everything the rest of the psalm hopes for - peace, plenty, protection of the poor, a name that endures - hangs on whether the king rules by that borrowed righteousness or by his own will.
Notice the direction the king's justice runs. It is not aimed upward at the powerful or outward at rivals, but downward, toward those with no leverage: thy poor… the poor of the people… the children of the needy… him that hath no helper. The strong can hire advocates and buy protection; the psalm measures a reign by what becomes of the people who can do neither. And the king's justice is not passive. He does not merely refrain from oppressing - he shall break in pieces the oppressor, actively shattering the systems that grind the weak down. Mercy to the poor and judgment on their oppressors are, in this psalm, the same act.
The image for the king's coming is startlingly gentle: He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth. Not a storm that flattens, but rain that revives - soaking quietly into ground that has just been cut, calling green life back up out of the stubble. A tyrant's arrival is dreaded; this King's arrival is longed for the way dry fields long for rain. His rule does not exhaust the land and its people; it makes them grow. It is one of Scripture's loveliest pictures of what good authority feels like to those underneath it.
Psalm 72:8-14Dominion from Sea to Sea
8He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. 9They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust. 10The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. 11Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him. 12For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. 13He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. 14He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight.
The horizon now opens to the whole earth. From sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth - from the great Sea in the west to the seas at the edges of the known world, from the Euphrates outward to wherever land runs out. Distant kings come laden with tribute: Tarshish far to the west, Sheba and Seba away to the south. This is no longer one nation among many guarding its borders; it is a dominion every other throne bows to. Solomon tasted a shadow of it when the queen of Sheba came with her gifts - but only a shadow. The psalm prays for the substance.
The reason kings will bow and nations serve is given in a single tender clause: For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. Universal dominion and care for the helpless are not in tension here - the one rests on the other. This King is worthy of every crown precisely because He stoops to the one nobody else will help. His greatness is measured downward: He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy - and counts their blood precious.
Psalm 72:15-20His Name Shall Endure For Ever
15And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba: prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised. 16There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth. 17His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed. 18Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. 19And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen. 20The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.
And he shall live - the king's life and reign go on; gold flows to him, and prayer also shall be made for him continually. An ordinary king receives prayer offered for him while he lives, and is forgotten when he dies. But the psalm has already prayed that this king would be feared as long as the sun and moon endure (v. 5) and that his name shall endure for ever (v. 17). A reign that outlasts the sun is not the reign of a man whose grave you can visit. The psalm keeps reaching for a King who lives and is praised without end.
The prayer ends not with the king but with God, and with the widest hope in the Bible: let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen. It is the answer to a refrain that runs through Scripture - all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD (Num. 14:21); for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea (Hab. 2:14). The just reign of the King and the filling of the earth with God's glory are not two events but one. When the King at last rules as this psalm prays, creation will be as full of God as the sea is full of water.
The closing line, The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended (v. 20), is not part of the song itself but a note marking a seam in the Psalter: here ends its Second Book.3 It is a fitting place to pause. The prayers of David - the shepherd-king who longed for a throne of perfect justice and never built one - come to rest on a psalm that prays for a Son who would. David's prayers end; the King they reach toward does not.
Further study
- The Hebrew of Psalm 72 with classical Jewish commentators side by side - helpful for mishpat (vv. 1-2, justice as setting-right), tsedaqah (righteousness), the agrarian shalom of verses 3 and 7, and the kinsman-redeemer verb ga'al behind he shall redeem their soul (v. 14).
- Psalm 72 ↔ Zechariah 9 · Philippians 2 · Galatians 3Intertextual BibleTraces how Psalm 72's dominion… from sea to sea (v. 8) is taken up word for word in Zechariah 9:10, how all kings shall fall down before him (v. 11) meets Philippians 2:10-11, and how all nations shall call him blessed (v. 17) reaches back to the Abrahamic promise Paul cites in Galatians 3.
- Psalm 72 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's translators' notes on Psalm 72 - the superscription for Solomon, the royal-prayer form, the geography of Tarshish, Sheba, and Seba, the difficult agricultural imagery of verse 16, and the editorial colophon closing Book II at verse 20.
Where this echoes in Scripture
Give the King Thy Judgments
- Isaiah 11:1-5With righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth.Isaiah prays Psalm 72’s royal justice onto the coming Branch of Jesse.
- Isaiah 9:6-7Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David… with judgment and with justice.An endless reign of mishpat and shalom on David’s throne.
- Jeremiah 23:5-6I will raise unto David a righteous Branch… and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.The promised king who finally does what Psalm 72 prays.
- Deuteronomy 17:18-20He shall write him a copy of this law… that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren.Israel’s king was bound under God’s law - the borrowed justice the psalm asks for.
Dominion from Sea to Sea
- Zechariah 9:9-10Behold, thy King cometh… lowly, and riding upon an ass… his dominion shall be from sea even to sea.Takes up Psalm 72:8 as Messianic prophecy.
- Philippians 2:9-11At the name of Jesus every knee should bow… and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.The universal homage of verses 9-11 fulfilled.
- 1 Peter 1:18-19Ye were redeemed… with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.The price behind the King who redeems and counts blood precious (v. 14).
- Revelation 11:15The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.Dominion from sea to sea, brought to its consummation.
His Name Shall Endure For Ever
- Genesis 22:18In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.The Abrahamic oath behind “all nations shall call him blessed” (v. 17).
- Daniel 7:13-14There was given him dominion… that all people… should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion.An everlasting, all-nations reign - the name that endures.
- Habakkuk 2:14The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.The psalm’s closing prayer that the whole earth be filled with his glory.
- Luke 1:32-33The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David… and of his kingdom there shall be no end.Gabriel announces the endless Davidic reign Psalm 72 reaches toward.