Psalms 72: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm is a prayer for the king, asking God to give him the ability to judge fairly and to defend the poor, the needy, and the children of those in need. It asks that his rule reach from sea to sea, that other kings bring him gifts and bow before him, and that his name and his people's prosperity last as long as the sun and moon. It closes with a blessing of the LORD, the God of Israel, and a line stating that the prayers of David son of Jesse end here.

Claim by Claim

1. 72:1
   • The psalm is ascribed to Solomon, either as its author or as the one it is for.
   • The speaker asks God to give the king God's own judgments.
   • The speaker asks God to give the king's son God's righteousness.
2. 72:2
   • He will judge God's people with righteousness.
   • He will judge God's afflicted ones with justice.
3. 72:3
   • The mountains will bear peace for the people.
   • The hills will bear it in righteousness.
4. 72:4
   • He will judge the afflicted of the people.
   • He will save the children of the needy.
   • He will crush the oppressor.
5. 72:5
   • They will fear you as long as the sun lasts.
   • They will fear you as long as the moon lasts, through all generations.
6. 72:6
   • He will come down like rain upon mown grass.
   • He will come down like showers that water the earth.
7. 72:7
   • In his days the righteous will flourish.
   • There will be abundance of peace until the moon is no more.
8. 72:8
   • He will rule from sea to sea.
   • He will rule from the River to the ends of the earth.
9. 72:9
   • Those who dwell in the desert will bow down before him.
   • His enemies will lick the dust.
10. 72:10
    • The kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands will render tribute.
    • The kings of Sheba and Seba will present gifts.
11. 72:11
    • All kings will bow down to him.
    • All nations will serve him.
12. 72:12
    • He will deliver the needy one who cries out.
    • He will deliver the afflicted one who has no helper.
13. 72:13
    • He will have pity on the weak and the needy.
    • He will save the lives of the needy.
14. 72:14
    • He will redeem their life from oppression and from violence.
    • Their blood will be precious in his sight.
15. 72:15
    • He will live.
    • Gold of Sheba will be given to him.
    • Prayer will be made for him continually.
    • He will be blessed all day long.
16. 72:16
    • There will be an abundance of grain in the land, on the tops of the mountains.
    • Its fruit will wave like Lebanon.
    • People from the city will blossom like the grass of the earth.
17. 72:17
    • His name will endure forever.
    • His name will continue as long as the sun lasts.
    • People will be blessed in him.
    • All nations will call him blessed.
18. 72:18
    • Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel.
    • He alone does wondrous things.
19. 72:19
    • Blessed be his glorious name forever.
    • May the whole earth be filled with his glory.
    • Amen and amen.
20. 72:20
    • The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

72:1

A prayer at or for a king's reign, addressed to God about the king rather than to the king. "Thy judgments" means God's own rulings or standards for settling cases: the request is that the king be given God's way of deciding what is right. "The king's son" is the same figure described a second way (a reigning king who is also of royal descent) and does not mean two different people. The Hebrew heading attached to this psalm links it to Solomon.

72:2

The Hebrew verbs through most of this psalm can be read either as wishes ("may he judge") or as confident statements ("he will judge"), and translators split on which to use; the King James chose "shall" throughout. The word rendered "poor" here and in verses 4, 12 and 13 covers more than lack of money: it means the afflicted, the powerless, those with no one to take their side in court.

72:3

Mountains and hills stand for the whole land. The picture is of the terrain itself yielding peace and prosperity as its crop, the way it yields grain and fruit, because the king governs justly.

72:4

An oppressor is someone who uses power or money to crush people weaker than himself.

72:5

"Fear" here means reverent awe, not fright. In the Hebrew text the one feared is God ("thee"), while the ancient Greek translation reads "he shall endure as long as the sun," making the line about the king; the difference is one small change in the Hebrew, and both readings are old.

72:6

Grass that has just been mown regrows only if rain comes. The comparison is to rain arriving exactly when it is needed and doing quiet, invisible good, not to a storm.

72:8

"From sea to sea" and "from the River to the ends of the earth" were stock phrases for territory without limits. "The River" with no name attached meant the Euphrates, the great river at the far northeast edge of the world Israel knew.

72:9

Bowing until the face touches the ground was the standard gesture before a king in the ancient Near East. "Lick the dust" pushes it further: total defeat and submission, the loser flat on the ground before the victor.

72:10

Tarshish was a wealthy port at the far western end of the Mediterranean, its exact location now unknown; "the isles" translates a word meaning coastlands, the distant shores across the sea. Sheba was in southwest Arabia, famous for gold, spices and incense; Seba lay south of Egypt in Africa. Together they name the edges of the known world in every direction. The "presents" are tribute, gifts from lesser kings acknowledging a greater one.

72:12

Protecting the poor, the widow and the orphan was the advertised job of a king across the ancient Near East; rulers carved the claim onto their monuments. This psalm holds Israel's king to that standard rather than inventing a new one.

72:13

In the King James, "souls" usually means lives, the whole person. Saving their souls means keeping them alive.

72:14

"Redeem" translates a legal and commercial word: to buy someone out of slavery, debt or danger by paying what it costs. "Their blood shall be precious in his sight" means he treats their lives as valuable and will not let them be spent cheaply, blood stands for life throughout the Hebrew scriptures.

72:15

Praying for the reigning king, and greeting him with "long live the king," were ordinary public duties, not flattery. The gold of Sheba was the finest known.

72:16

Grain growing thickly on mountaintops is the point: hill country was thin, stony soil where crops normally struggled. Lebanon's mountains were covered in vast cedar forests, so "shake like Lebanon" means standing crops rippling like a whole forest in the wind. ("Corn" in the King James means grain of any kind, not maize.)

72:17

"Men shall be blessed in him" carries two senses the Hebrew leaves open: that other nations receive blessing through him, and that they use his name as the measuring stick in their own blessings, "may you turn out like him." The wording deliberately echoes the promise made to Abraham in Genesis.

72:18

Verses 18 and 19 are not part of the prayer but a closing doxology, a formal burst of praise. The book of Psalms was assembled in five collections, and one of these doxologies marks the end of each. This one closes the second collection.

72:19

"Amen" is a Hebrew word meaning roughly "it is so" or "let it stand", the congregation's way of signing on to what has just been said. Doubling it makes it emphatic.

72:20

An editor's note, not part of the psalm. It closes an older collection of David's psalms that ended here. Psalms attributed to David appear later in the book as well, which suggests this line survived from an earlier stage of how the collection was assembled.