Psalm 72:20

Psalm 72 is a royal psalm, a prayer for the king, linked with Solomon. It asks for a reign of righteousness and justice, and for a dominion that reaches from sea to sea and to the ends of the earth, with kings bringing gifts and all nations serving (Psalm 72:8–11). In Israel the king was God’s anointed representative, charged with upholding justice and defending the weak, and the hope placed in him rested on the covenant God made with David in 2 Samuel 7. The kings who followed often fell short of that hope, and the psalm’s words reach further than any one man could carry.

So when the psalm comes to its close, the praise rises past the king to God himself. Verses 18 and 19 bless the LORD God of Israel, and in their light even the best human ruler is a servant whose reign reflects God’s own righteous rule. Every wondrous thing a good reign could bring comes from God, and the hope of a truly righteous kingdom rests on what he can do.

These verses also close a whole book of the Psalter. The Psalms are arranged in five books, and Book Two, Psalms 42–72, ends here. Each of the first four books ends with a blessing of God much like this one: Psalm 41:13 closes Book One, Psalm 89:52 closes Book Three, and Psalm 106:48 closes Book Four. Book Two opens in longing, “As the hart panteth after the water brooks” (Psalm 42), and it ends here in praise.

The verb for “blessed”, bârak, comes from a root meaning to kneel. It is used for blessing God as an act of adoration and for blessing people as a benefit. When we bless God, we declare the goodness and worth that already belong to him and give him the praise due to his name. It is an act of worship, the creature kneeling before the one who is the source of all good.

The verse names him with care. Yᵉhôvâh, printed “LORD” in capitals, is God’s personal, covenant name, the name of the God who keeps his promises to his people. ʼĕlôhîym, “God”, is plural in form and used of the one God, and it speaks of his power as Creator and Ruler of all. Joined as “the LORD God” (Yᵉhôvâh ʼĕlôhîym), they tell us that the one who rules everything is the same God who has bound himself to Israel.

“The God of Israel” says this again from the side of history. He is the God who told Moses, “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6), and who delivered, fed and guided the nation from that day on. His power over all the world is the power he has used for his own people.

“Wondrous things” translates a form of pâlâʼ, a word for what is extraordinary and beyond human power and understanding. Its root carries the sense of something too difficult or too high for us, and it describes God’s works that fill people with awe. The word “only” is levaddo, “he alone”. The verse claims for God every truly wondrous deed, and so it sets him apart from false gods, human rulers and every created power. He is the one God, and there is none like him.

Scripture names these wonders. God made the heaven and the earth (Genesis 1), he opened the sea for Israel at the Exodus (Exodus 14), and he fed his people with manna in the wilderness (Exodus 16). Psalm 136 gives thanks for these deeds one after another, beginning with praise “to him who alone doeth great wonders: for his mercy endureth for ever.” Moses sang the same truth after the crossing of the sea: “Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?” (Exodus 15:11). Through Isaiah God says, “I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me” (Isaiah 45:5–7). At the end, those who overcome sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb: “Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints” (Revelation 15:3–4).

Set beside the king of Psalm 72, this verse makes the reach of the psalm plain. A king may judge rightly and protect the poor, and the psalm prays that he will. The wonders behind such a reign, its deliverance, its provision and its lasting peace, are the LORD’s work, and he is the one to bless for them.

Verse 19 carries the blessing on for ever. In Scripture a name, shêm, stands for the person himself: his character, his reputation, his authority and his presence. To bless God’s name is to praise all that he is and all that he has shown himself to be. He proclaimed that name to Moses on the mountain: “The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth” (Exodus 34:5–7).

The word for glory, kâbôwd, means glory, honour and splendour, and it often speaks of God’s presence made known. So “his glorious name” is God’s revealed character in all its splendour. “For ever” sets that praise beyond every change in our circumstances, because the one praised is eternal.

Then the psalm prays, “let the whole earth be filled with his glory.” The king’s dominion was to reach from sea to sea, and this prayer reaches wider still, to a whole earth filled with God’s presence, his truth and his righteous rule, where all nations know him. This was the hope of the prophets. God swore, “But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD” (Numbers 14:21). Habakkuk foresaw that “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14), and the seraphim whom Isaiah heard cried, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3). The prayer of verse 19 asks for what God has already promised.

The last verse of the psalm is a note of a different kind. It is a colophon, a line set at the end of a collection to mark its close, and it comes from those who gathered the Psalms into their books. It tells us that this collection of David’s prayers has reached its end. God gave us his word through human hands, and this small note lets us see that care at work: the psalms were gathered, arranged and kept with reverence, so that they would shape the worship of later generations.

“Prayers” is tᵉphillâh, the word for prayer, from a verb meaning to judge and so to intercede or pray. The psalms before this include laments, praises, thanksgivings and wisdom, and all of them are spoken to God or before him, so “prayers” names them well. The verb “are ended”, kâlâh, means to end, cease or be finished, and here it marks the close of the collection. The name of David covers the collection as a whole, made up mainly of his own psalms, with Psalm 72, the psalm for his son, set at its close.

The king Psalm 72 prays for is fully seen in Jesus, the Son of David, and these closing verses find their answer in him. He is the Word through whom all things were made (John 1:3), so creation, the first of God’s wondrous works, was done through him. In his ministry he healed the sick, cast out demons, calmed storms and raised the dead, and the angels’ words at his tomb, “He is not here, but is risen” (Luke 24:6), announce the greatest wonder of all. His death and resurrection are the wonders that reconcile us to God. God has appointed him “heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds” (Hebrews 1:2). So when we bless the LORD God who only does wondrous things, we bless the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and we know the Son as the one through whom God’s saving wonders are done.

The prayer of verse 19 is answered in him as well. Isaiah promised a child on the throne of David whose government and peace would increase without end (Isaiah 9:6–7). John writes of the Word made flesh, “and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The earth is being filled with that glory as the gospel goes out to the nations, and it will be full when Christ returns and great voices in heaven say, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 11:15). Then every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9–11).

The note of verse 20 points to him too. David’s gathered prayers come to their end, and Christ “ever liveth to make intercession” for those who come to God by him (Hebrews 7:25). He calls himself “the root and the offspring of David” (Revelation 22:16), and the angel told Mary that God would give him the throne of his father David, and “of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:32–33).

These verses give us words of praise that fit every season. They name the God we worship: the LORD, who keeps covenant, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. They give us a prayer as wide as the world, that his glory fill the whole earth, and an Amen that rests on his own promise to do it. The God who opened the sea, fed his people in the wilderness and raised his Son from the dead is still at work, and our hope of a righteous kingdom rests on him and on his King. The quiet note at the end shows the care with which God’s people kept David’s prayers, so that they still teach us to pray. When we bless his glorious name, we join the praise that will one day fill the earth.