Scripture Daily

Context No. 584 of 4322 · Psalms

Context · Reflection

Psalms 72:1-20: in context

1God, give the king your justice; your righteousness to the royal son. 2He will judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice. 3The mountains shall bring prosperity to the people. The hills bring the fruit of righteousness. 4He will judge the poor of the people. He will save the children of the needy, and will break the oppressor in pieces. 5They shall fear you while the sun endures; and as long as the moon, throughout all generations. 6He will come down like rain on the mown grass, as showers that water the earth. 7In his days, the righteous shall flourish, and abundance of peace, until the moon is no more. 8He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, from the River to the ends of the earth. 9Those who dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him. His enemies shall lick the dust. 10The kings of Tarshish and of the islands will bring tribute. The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. 11Yes, all kings shall fall down before him. All nations shall serve him. 12For he will deliver the needy when he cries; the poor, who has no helper. 13He will have pity on the poor and needy. He will save the souls of the needy. 14He will redeem their soul from oppression and violence. Their blood will be precious in his sight. 15He will live; and Sheba’s gold will be given to him. Men will pray for him continually. They will bless him all day long. 16Abundance of grain shall be throughout the land. Its fruit sways like Lebanon. Let it flourish, thriving like the grass of the field. 17His name endures forever. His name continues as long as the sun. Men shall be blessed by him. All nations will call him blessed. 18Praise be to the LORD God, the God of Israel, who alone does marvelous deeds. 19Blessed be his glorious name forever! Let the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and amen. 20This ends the prayers by David, the son of Jesse.

This is a psalm for a king, a prayer that the king would rule as God rules, and as it unfolds it paints a portrait of the ideal ruler, ultimately the messianic King. What is striking is what the psalm keeps returning to as the true measure of a good reign. Not conquest, not wealth, not monuments, but this, over and over: he will judge your poor with justice, save the children of the needy, deliver the needy when he cries out and the poor who has no helper, have pity on the weak, rescue their lives from oppression. Again and again the psalm defines a godly king by one thing: what he does for the people who have no one else. And it adds a line that lingers: their blood is precious in his sight. The lives of the lowly are treasured by the true King.

That is a striking definition of what authority is for. In the psalm, greatness in a ruler is measured downward, by how the least and most helpless fare under him, the poor who has no helper, the needy child, the oppressed with no advocate. Power is given not to serve the strong but to defend the defenseless, and a reign is judged good or bad by whether the weakest are protected and their lives held precious. This is the kind of king the psalm longs for, and it is exactly the kind of King Jesus turned out to be, whose kingdom lifts the lowly and counts the least as treasured.

That measures how I use whatever authority, advantage, or resources I have been given, because everyone has some. The temptation is to use it upward, to serve those who can benefit me, and to overlook the people who can do nothing for me in return. Psalm 72 says the godly use of any advantage is to defend the one who has no helper, to treat the lives of the lowly as precious. Do I use whatever influence and advantage I have to protect and lift those who have no one else, the way the true King does, or mainly to serve myself and those who can repay me?

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