Psalm 72 feels like a coronation song, but it quickly becomes something more searching and unsettling. Its title, “Of Solomon,” can mean by, for, or about Solomon. Yet the poem stretches far beyond anything Solomon ever achieved. That is the point. This is not flattery. It is a Spirit-shaped prayer so large that it exposes the limits of every earthly ruler.
Coming just after Psalm 71, there is a quiet tenderness here: the aging voice of David gives way to a prayer for the son who will follow him. “The prayers of David son of Jesse are ended” is an astonishing note to place here. David’s last recorded prayer is not for himself, but for the next generation’s king. Mature faith learns this generosity. It wants grace not only to finish well, but to leave behind justice.
And what is the first mark of a godly king? Not military brilliance. Not economic growth. Not national prestige. The psalm is relentless: the true king is known by how the poor fare under him. He judges with righteousness, defends the needy, crushes the oppressor, and counts the blood of the vulnerable as precious. In the ancient Near East, kings often claimed to protect the weak; inscriptions say so often. But Psalm 72 makes that claim the very measure of rule. Authority is not justified by splendor. It is justified by mercy.
One image is especially beautiful: the king comes like rain on mown grass. Not like lightning. Not like a chariot charge. Rain on a field already cut down. That is one of the Bible’s deepest pictures of Christ’s reign. He comes to what has been shorn, diminished, and left looking finished. He does not despise the cut-down field. He waters it.
The line about the mountains “bringing peace” would not sound sentimental to an Israelite. Mountains were hard places—rocky, exposed, often associated with danger and scarcity. Yet under righteous rule, even the hard places yield shalom. That word means more than calm feelings. It means wholeness, rightness, life fitting together under God. The psalm knows that peace is social, legal, agricultural, and spiritual all at once.
Then the horizon widens: Tarshish in the far west, Sheba and Seba to the south, the trade routes of ships and caravans bending toward this king. Christians have long heard an echo here of the nations streaming to Christ. Augustine read this psalm as the world gathered under the greater Son of David; Calvin said Solomon was only a shadow, Christ the substance. Even the Magi seem to stand in its afterglow.
So Psalm 72 leaves us with a holy ache. We do not yet see this kingdom in fullness. But we know its King. And because we know him, we learn what to pray for in every age: not merely strong leaders, but righteous ones; not merely peace, but justice-shaped peace; not merely blessing for ourselves, but rain for the cut-down fields of the world.
Suggested cross-references: 2 Samuel 23:3–4; Isaiah 11:1–5; Zechariah 9:10; Luke 1:32–33; Matthew 12:42; Revelation 11:15
Hymn: Hail to the Lord’s Anointed or Jesus Shall Reign Where’er the Sun
Lord Jesus, greater than Solomon, reign where we are hard, cut down, and thirsty. Teach us to love the justice you love, to honor the lives the world treats as small, and to pray for your kingdom until the whole earth is filled with your glory. Amen.