Psalm 72: Prayer for the king

As we saw in Psalm 48, Israel prayed to and honoured the Great King who lived in the temple they provided for him in the capital. In Psalm 72, God’s people pray for the king who mediates God’s reign to his nation.

These were the two ways Israel experienced the reign of their heavenly sovereign:

• the temple was God’s house, with his throne (the ark) in his private chamber;
• the king was God’s viceregent, the living expression of heaven’s reign on earth.

In Psalm 72 (the final one of Book 2) the kingship transitions from David to his son, as his people pray for his reign to endure forever.

First we’ll see what this meant for Israel, so we can understand what it means for us.

For Israel

Psalm 72:title-1 (NIV)
Of Solomon.
Endow the king with your justice, O God,
the royal son with your righteousness.

This is a coronation psalm, endowing the king with God’s authority from above. Like Psalm 2, it proclaims the royal son who is called to reign with his father’s authority.

Psalm 72:2-4 (NIV)
² May he judge your people in righteousness, your afflicted ones with justice.
³ May the mountains bring prosperity to the people, the hills the fruit of righteousness.
⁴ May he defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; may he crush the oppressor.

The whole psalm is a prayer for the royal son to reign right.

To us, righteousness can sound like an impossible standard that no one can attain. That expectation of the ideal perfection comes to us from the Greeks. Hebrew culture was far more practical: righteousness was about doing right, doing the right thing by his people, giving them justice (the parallel word in verse 2). The fruit of doing right by each other is that the whole community prospers, for no one misses out (verse 3).

That’s how the king leads the kingdom (verse 4). His justice has two sides: saving the children of the needy, and crushing the oppressor (compare Luke 20:47).

When a king acts not for his own benefit but for the good of the community, his people want his reign to last forever:

Psalm 72:5-8 (NIV)
⁵ May he endure as long as the sun, as long as the moon, through all generations.
⁶ May he be like rain falling on a mown field, like showers watering the earth.
⁷ In his days may the righteous flourish and prosperity abound till the moon is no more.
⁸ May he rule from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.

They know that no individual king could outlast the sun and moon. They’re praying for the Davidic kingship to endure in time and space.

From sea to sea (verse 8) means the whole land, from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean (Exodus 23:31). From the River to the edge of the land (ends of the earth) means everything from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean (Deuteronomy 11:24; Joshua 1:4). These were the boundaries of the Promised Land in Numbers 34. Only in Solomon’s time did the kingdom reach that far, but the poetic hope remained (Zechariah 9:10; Micah 7:12; Psalm 80:11).

Psalm 72:9-11 (NIV)
⁹ May the desert tribes bow before him and his enemies lick the dust.
¹⁰ May the kings of Tarshish and of distant shores bring tribute to him. May the kings of Sheba and Seba present him gifts.
¹¹ May all kings bow down to him and all nations serve him.

Verses 9-11 pray for foreigners to recognize the king God has appointed for his people instead of fighting him. Solomon showed God’s wisdom to the nations:

• 1 Kings 5:7–10 (NIV)
  ⁷ When Hiram [king of Tyre] heard Solomon’s message, he was greatly pleased and said, “Praise be to the Lord today, for he has given David a wise son to rule over this great nation.” … ¹⁰ Hiram kept Solomon supplied with all the cedar and juniper logs he wanted.
• 1 Kings 10:6–10 (NIV)
  ⁶ She [Queen of Sheba] said to the king, … ⁹ “Praise be to the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on the throne of Israel. Because of the Lord’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king to maintain justice and righteousness.” ¹⁰ And she gave the king 120 talents of gold, large quantities of spices, and precious stones.

As well as doing right by his neighbours, the prayer is for Solomon to do right by the people under his power, especially the vulnerable ones:

Psalm 72:12-14 (NIV)
¹² For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help.
¹³ He will take pity on the weak and the needy and save the needy from death.
¹⁴ He will rescue them from oppression and violence, for precious is their blood in his sight.

The good king takes care of those who cannot take care of themselves. The needy (poor) cannot afford justice. The afflicted don’t have the energy to fight back. The weak don’t have the strength to defend themselves.

When life is all about the strong taking advantage of the vulnerable, those in need don’t last long (verse 13). Left to the law of the jungle, only the fit survive.

That’s why God authorized human government. Whether king or democracy, government exists to protect vulnerable people from those who use force to control others, to rescue them from oppression and violence. The rich and powerful cannot treat the poor and vulnerable as less worthy of life. To deny the needy what they need is to treat their life as cheap, their blood as not worth saving (verse 14).

Psalm 72:15-16 (NIV)
¹⁵ Long may he live! May gold from Sheba be given him. May people ever pray for him and bless him all day long.
¹⁶ May grain abound throughout the land; on the tops of the hills may it sway. May the crops flourish like Lebanon and thrive like the grass of the field.

Solomon did receive gold from Sheba, but the only way he could provide food for the needy was for his own people to share it from their harvest. Taxation is never popular, yet the people pray for God to give them flourishing crops so they can bless the king, empowering him to provide for everyone.

The prayer concludes with an echo of verse 5, and the hope that the nations will be blessed in the son of Abraham (compare Genesis 12:2), that the nations will recognize the blessing of God’s reign in his anointed:

Psalm 72:17 (NIV)
¹⁷ May his name endure forever; may it continue as long as the sun.
Then all nations will be blessed through him, and they will call him blessed.

Verses 18-20 are not part of Psalm 72. The compilers express their praise and add their “May it be so!” to the Davidic prayers that make up most of Books 1 and 2:

Psalm 72:18-20 (NIV)
¹⁸ Praise be to the Lord God, the God of Israel, who alone does marvellous deeds.
¹⁹ Praise be to his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory.
Amen and Amen. ²⁰ This concludes the prayers of David son of Jesse.

The division between Books is always clearly demarked with a comment from the compilers:

• Book 1: Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen. (Psalm 41:13)
• Book 3: Praise be to the Lord forever! Amen and Amen. (Psalm 89:52)
• Book 4: Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Let all the people say, “Amen!” Praise the (Psalm 106:48)

For us

How does Psalm 72 apply to us? Australia has a king named Charles, and the Bible urges us to pray for kings and all those in authority, that we may life peaceful and quiet lives (1 Timothy 2:2).

But King Charles is not a descendant of David. He does not represent God’s reign. He is not God’s anointed. Only one ruler has that title! Only God’s Christ (his anointed) is Lord of all. (1 Corinthians 1:2; Ephesians 1:21; Philippians 2:9-10; Revelation 19:16).

And yet, there’s a tragic gap between Psalm 72 and Matthew 1. As we’ll see next week, the Davidic rule disintegrated in Book 3 of the Psalms. For almost 600 years, there was no anointed king ruling over God’s people.

Then a high-ranking heavenly messenger was sent to Mary of Nazareth to say:

Luke 1:30-33 (NIV)
³⁰ “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favour with God. ³¹ You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, ³³ and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

Shepherds saw the heavenly sovereign’s glory when they received the good news that the reign of highest heaven was returning to earth in the Davidic king:

Luke 2:9-11 (NIV)
“Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah [the Anointed], the Lord [the ruler].”

This God-anointed king used his authority to heal the afflicted, restoring his people physically and spiritually (Luke 5:24). He announced the blessing of God’s kingdom for the poor, provided food for the hungry, comforted the grieving, and included the rejected (Luke 6:20-26). Although he was the human descendant with God’s authority (the son of man), he claimed nothing for himself, not even a place to lay his head (Luke 9:58).

That was the key difference between Jesus and Solomon. Solomon’s people eventually grew tired of the harsh burden and heavy yoke he placed on them to build a palace for himself (1 Kings 12, compare 7:1-12). As Jesus received the kingship from the Father, he promised to ease the burden on his weary people. The yoke of his kingship would be easy, for his expectations were not heavy (Matthew 11:27-30).

And it worked! In the community that gathered around his kingship (the ekklēsia), people cared for each other: there was not a needy person among them (Acts 4:34).

Psalm 72 prayed for the king to introduce the Lord’s reign to the nations: “May all kings bow down to him and all nations serve him” (72:11). And even after the kingship had died, the compilers added their affirmation: “May the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and Amen!” (72:19).

The anointed Son connected us with his Father in the heavens, so we invite his reign: Father, hallowed by your name, your kingdom come (Luke 11:2).

Heaven’s reign over the nations is arriving in him. The good news is that everything God had decreed in the prophetic writings is now being revealed in Jesus the Anointed, so that all the nations might come to the obedience that comes through trusting him (Romans 16:25-26).

Oh, and by the way, God defeated the ultimate enemy when he raised his Son from tomb to throne, answering the prayers of his people: “May he endure as long as the sun, as long as the moon, through all generations” (Psalm 72:5, 17).

The blessing of God’s reign returns to the earth as the nations recognize their king: “All nations will be blessed through him and they will call him blessed” (72:17).

Truly, “Something greater than Solomon is here” (Luke 11:31).

Adapted from “Formed in God’s Story: Psalms.” Full notes and podcasts here.

What others are saying

Patrick Henry Reardon, Christ in the Psalms (Chesterton, IN: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2000), 142:

The Kingdom here described is truly not a kingdom of this world.

James Luther Mays, Psalms, Interpretation, (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1994), 236:

Psalm 72 is a prayer for the anointed king asking that God bring about his rule on earth through the reign of the king. It looks and hopes for a new era created by God through the person of the king. The agenda of intercession includes all that belongs to the ideal ruler: justice, prosperity, long life, universal dominion with power over his enemies and submission from other kings and their nations, the prayers of his people, fame, and admiration. The prayer is composed almost entirely of intercessions.

Beth Tanner, The Book of Psalms, NICOT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014), 580:

Knowing that Psalm 72 is a coronation hymn, modern readers may be tempted to look at it as merely an interesting piece of history. But this hymn offers so much more. It defines the kingdom of God, be that kingdom the historical one of ancient Israel or the kingdom of God for which we pray, “thy kingdom come.” This prayer teaches us what righteous leadership is to be. The lesson is as relevant today as it was three thousand years ago. In God’s kingdom, God’s ways of justice and righteousness are to be the norms. In this way, we can avoid the traps of power and position that tempt humans to take the power into their own hands and to govern for some and ignore others. This is the way that God intends the world to be; it was true in Abraham’s time, in the time of the kings, and in the world today. It is the kingdom to which we all press forward and the place in which our future hope is vested.

Related posts

• Psalm 48: The praise of Zion
• Psalm 22: David’s defeat
• What’s in the five books of the Psalms?