He will judge thy people with righteousness, and thine afflicted with judgment.
This prayer is also a prophecy: it asks God to give a king His own judgments and His own righteousness, and no human ruler has ever reigned that way. It raises two questions: who is this King, and who are the "poor" He cares for?
The psalm's opening prayer asks for something no king can supply for himself.
The psalm opens with a prayer to God. It asks that divine righteousness may guide the King, so that He can give decisions, or judgments, that match the will of God. We see in this way that the blessing of the kingdom depends entirely on a King who carries out God's judgments according to God's righteousness. We find this King only in Christ — the Son of David. Solomon was only a picture of Him.
David wrote the psalm with Solomon in mind, yet it reaches far past him.
David began to write his wishes for Solomon in poetic form. Then the Holy Spirit caught him up in the current of His own thoughts about the One whom Solomon only faintly pictured. The KING of this psalm is One to whom the kings of Tarshish and the islands, the kings of Sheba and Seba, will pay tribute. He is so great that all kings will fall down before Him, and all nations will serve Him. He is plainly the King of kings. No one is that but Jesus.
Righteousness comes first in this reign, not power or wealth. One writer sets it against the day Jew and Gentile condemned Jesus.
When the once rejected Jesus takes the throne, the earth will at last see a government marked by absolute perfection. First comes the establishing of righteousness — the first four verses are full of this. Jew and Gentile alike condemned Jesus. In His death, judgment was divorced from righteousness in the most outrageous way. When He returns in His glory and sets up His kingdom in power, that moment will arrive. Scripture says of it, "But justice will return to the righteous, and all the upright in heart will follow it" (Ps. 94:15) [older translations read, "judgment shall return to righteousness"].
The striking thing about this King's court is what it will not contain.
Think what it will mean for this oppressed and groaning earth to live under the excellent laws recorded in the inspired pages of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible! Then a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice. "May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice!" — no twisting of the law, no bribery, no biased verdicts then.
God calls them His poor. One writer names both the group and what this King will do for them.
He will come to break the oppressor in pieces (verse 4), and to save the children of the needy. The psalm calls the remnant of the nation, taken together, God's poor (verse 2). Such a group will be left in the land after God removes the haughty and the scoffers in judgment (Zeph. 3:11-12). On them He will come down like showers of new life on freshly mown grass (verse 6). He will visit that nation with overflowing grace and blessing, once it has reached the end of its humbling.
Their poverty is not simply economic; it is the cost of staying faithful.
This of course will mean the deliverance and vindication of the oppressed and afflicted. All through the ages, the scramble of life has trampled down the poor and needy. But "the poor and needy" in view here are, without doubt, the godly people whom the anti-Christian powers of the last days will persecute. The coming Roman leader will "wear out the saints of the Most High" (Dan. 7:25), but the King of kings will bring deliverance.
The verse describes a future government. One writer draws a line straight into today.
Only then will the poor get the care they should have. In the meantime, in the Church of God, the Spirit of God insists through the apostles, "Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do" (Gal. 2:10). So today public government does not care properly for the poor, and the Church of God carries that responsibility instead, even if in a very limited sphere.
- Given — the reign starts as a gift. God hands His own judgments and righteousness to the King, so the kingdom's blessing rests on Him.
- Greater — Solomon fits the words only faintly. The King who receives tribute from every nation can be no one but Christ.
- Righteous — righteousness comes first. At the cross the world tore judgment and righteousness apart; His reign joins them again.
- Clean — no twisted rulings, no bribes, no favourites. His court answers every failure of human justice.
- Poor — God's own afflicted people, worn down by persecution, are the ones He delivers. Remembering the poor is already the Church's work today.
The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the hills, by righteousness.
Psalm 72 is written about Solomon, but it reaches far past him to the reign of David's greater Son over the earth. Verse 3 answers one question: where does lasting peace for a people come from?
(Where the ESV says the mountains "bear prosperity," the older wording these writers use says they "bring peace.")
The psalm does not describe a struggle. It describes a settled state, and one commentator finds its meaning plain on the surface.
Psalm 72 introduces us, not to David in suffering and conflict, but to the full reign of peace and royal blessing. It is the Son of David we have here, the source and guarantee of the blessings of that thousand-year reign. I do not think this psalm needs much explanation, because it is so clear. Here is the king to whom God gives His judgments. He is at the same time the king's Son, the Son of David, reigning in righteousness and peace, like Solomon or Melchizedek.
Solomon's own reign never matched the language used here.
Here is a remarkable prophecy of David's Son. Solomon fulfilled only a small part of it. It still waits to be fulfilled in the true Seed, the Second Man… Most of this language cannot be applied to the Church in any sense. But read it as the literal fulfilment of the promises God gave Abraham and David about the earth — a kingdom that begins with judgment and brings in blessing for all. Read that way, the picture is divinely perfect.
The two landscape words picture rank in government — the great and the small.
Then comes the effect: "The mountains" — pictures of settled, established power — "shall bring peace to the people; and the hills" (the lesser authorities), "by righteousness." The perfect justice of the Head shows itself in everyone who represents Him.
These authorities change the moment the King appears among them.
The very presence of the Lord Jesus when His kingdom begins will so affect the governments that they too will act in righteousness (v. 3). So His authority brings justice to the poor of the people and salvation to the children of the needy (v. 4), breaking the oppressor in pieces.
Commentators differ on how far to press the figure. One takes the hills as real hills, transformed:
The mountains and the hills will bring peace. Look up at them, and you will no longer see warning fires or signs of enemies on the way. Covered to their tops with rich harvests, they will drip with sweet wine and flow with the purest oil… Violence will no longer be heard inside the borders of Immanuel's land.
The verse ties peace to righteousness, and the order matters. The two names given to Melchizedek follow it too.
First, his name, Melchizedek, means king of righteousness. Then he is king of Salem, which means king of peace. These are the two characters in which Christ will reign in the kingdom: first as David, then as Solomon. He will always combine the two. He will reign right through the thousand years in righteousness, and the effect of this will be peace.
Israel learned the cost of reversing that order.
In the past Israel sought peace at the cost of righteousness. Now they find there can be no peace without righteousness. Righteousness and peace can only kiss each other because of the value of the sacrifice of Christ.
The verse is not a description of the present world, and one writer marks the difference between the ages.
In the present age grace reigns through righteousness (Rom. 5:21). In the eternal state righteousness will dwell (2 Peter 3:13). But in the kingdom of the thousand years righteousness will reign. That will be its mark, as the prophet says: "Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness" (Isa. 32:1).
Though the scene is future, the principle behind it has already reached believers by another route.
In the thousand-year kingdom, righteousness must rule first, so that peace can come in… This is as true now as it will be then, and the gospel fulfils it in a far more wonderful way. Peace has come to us as the result of righteousness at the cross. Our Melchizedek has truly lived up to His name.
- The King. The reign described is that of David's Son — clear, settled, and only partly pictured in Solomon.
- The channel. Peace arrives "by righteousness"; reverse the order and you get neither.
- The reach. Mountains and hills stand for greater and lesser authorities, so the King's perfect justice shows in every officer under Him.
- The result. He gives the poor justice, saves the needy, breaks the oppressor — peace measured by what happens to the weakest.
- The preview. The same order runs through the cross: righteousness satisfied there, peace given to us now.