A Prayer
for the
King
Psalm 72:1-15
Good News Translation (GNT)
"HEBREW TITLE:
By Solomon.
1 Teach the king to judge
with your righteousness, O God;
share with him your own justice,
2 so that he will rule over
your people with justice
and govern the oppressed
with righteousness.
3 May the land enjoy prosperity;
may it experience righteousness.
4 May the king judge
the poor fairly;
may he help the needy and
defeat their oppressors.
5 May your people worship
you as long as the sun shines,
as long as the moon
gives light,
for ages to come.
6 May the king be like rain
on the fields,
like showers falling
on the land.
7 May righteousness flourish
in his lifetime,
and may prosperity last
as long as the moon gives light.
8 His kingdom will reach
from sea to sea,
from the Euphrates to
the ends of the earth.
9 The peoples of the desert
will bow down before him;
his enemies will throw
themselves to the ground.
10 The kings of Spain
and of the islands
will offer him gifts;
the kings of Sheba
and Seba(b)
will bring him offerings.
11 All kings will bow down
before him; all nations
will serve him.
12 He rescues the poor
who call to him,
and those who are needy and neglected.
13 He has pity
on the weak and poor;
he saves the lives of
those in need.
14 He rescues them from
oppression and violence;
their lives are precious to him.
15 Long live the king!
May he be given gold from Sheba;(c)
may prayers be said
for him at all times;
may God's blessings
be on him always!
Footnotes
Psalm 72:10 Sheba was toward
the south in Arabia
and Seba was on the
opposite side of the Red Sea.
Psalm 72:15 See 72.10.
Taken from the
'word-on-the-web'
supplied by
Scripture Union
A Prayer for the King
Psalm 72:1-15
At the coronation of
Queen Elizabeth II,
the service included prayers
for her reign.
In today's psalm,
we have a prayer that was
possibly used
at a royal coronation,
focusing on the relationship
between the king
and the people and,
by extension,
the outworking of that
relationship on the
fruitfulness of the land.
The psalm provides insight
into how Israel understood
the ideal relationship
between king, God and people.
As God's representative,
the king is required to show
God's justice to the people
and defend the rights
of the poor (vs 1-4).
Through this action,
the earth is itself blessed.
The people pray for
the king's life,
compare the effect of the
king on the nation
with that of rain on
fertile soil (vs 5-8)
and ask that the king's
influence will extend beyond
the borders of the nation
(vs 9-11).
The essential characteristic
of his reign is his care
for the poor and needy
(vs 12-15)
and the people pray again
for the fertility of the land,
linked as it is with the
reign of the king
(vs 16-20).
In this idealised portrait
of the king's rule,
the land and people
experience a shalom
that embraces all creation.
Of course,
the reality in Israel
did not meet the ideal,
but the hope for it never died out,
leading, in part,
to the development of the
hope for the Messiah.
In Jesus, we know that this
ideal king has come.
Our prayer is that the dynamism
of the relationship between
king and people in this psalm
is lived out in our
relationship with
our king so that,
as the people prayed,
the world is changed.
The challenge for us is
whether we believe
this can happen and whether
our relationship with Jesus
has that dynamism.
Just imagine what could happen!