During an election year, there’s no psalm that’s more relevant than Psalm 72, a prayer for a good leader for the nation.
In every place around the world and in every era, there has been a need for good leaders. While a good leader may lead people into prosperity and well-being, a bad leader can make life miserable. Getting the good and avoiding the bad can quite literally be the difference between life and death.
Although he had many shortcomings which caused trouble in later generations, the wisdom tradition of Israel set King Solomon as the focal point for understanding what a wise and just ruler looks like. So, it’s no surprise that the one psalm attributed to Solomon is itself focused on that topic. (It’s possible that “of Solomon” could also be translated as “for Solomon,” meaning that Psalm 72 wasn’t written by Solomon, but with Solomon and what he represents in mind. I don’t know and, frankly, I don’t think it’s all that important. It’s a Solomon psalm either way.)
Various passages in the New Testament call on God’s people to pray for our national leaders. And the wisdom and prayer traditions of the Old Testament assumed that this would be the case.
The reality is this: We’d rather vote for our leaders than pray for them. We’d prefer to complain about them to our co-workers and neighbors and social media friends than humbly submit them to God.
Those of us shaped by the Scriptures ought to have this as a basic rule of thumb: Pray at least ten minutes for any leader before posting anything about her or him. And Psalm 72 is a great guide to what that praying might look like. As with all the psalms, Psalm 72 is an excellent starting place for our praying, launching us into prayer and giving us ample space for improvisation in our continued praying.
Considering when it was written, it is unsurprisingly royal in focus. Our improvising in prayer can have us praying for presidents or prime ministers, senators or city council members. Despite it being royal, whichever political office you have in view is within the scope of Psalm 72.
As with any prayer that has a particular person in mind, the psalm doesn’t look at God much. Attention is being paid to the king, not to God. It is pure petition. The praise that comes at the end of the psalm is actually not part of the psalm itself. The final three verses are the concluding salvo of praise at the end of the second of the five books the Psalter is comprised of. Psalm 72 itself is petition and petition alone. As such, it gives us permission to pray prayers of pure petition as well. Praise is to be our most natural language when addressing God. But in our world of need, petition often pushes praise out of the way. And this biblical witness tells us that’s quite fine.
Endow the king with your justice, O God,
the royal son with your righteousness.
May he judge your people in righteousness,
your afflicted ones with justice (Ps. 72:1-2).
The hallmark of the good leader is personal righteousness which spills over in justice for all people, especially the needy and afflicted.
In this, the leader is a mirror of God himself. Almost everything we know about God in the Scriptures has to do with his efforts on our behalf. God doesn’t take any selfies. We very rarely get glimpses of him on his own. He’s almost always in action and what he’s doing is almost always something for us. Likewise, good leaders are known by what they do for others and particularly those who need help.
The prophets join the Psalms in measuring a leader’s rule by how the vulnerable are treated by it.
May the mountains bring prosperity to the people,
the hills the fruit of righteousness (Ps. 72:3).
Because of the leader’s work on behalf of the people, the land prospers. The people have plenty to eat, they have homes to live in, and they are healthy and safe.
The mountains and hills of Israel were the terraced vineyards of the ancient Near East. Egypt and Babylon brewed beer, but Israel was the source of wine prized by the nations around it. Grapes were the fruit of Israel’s prosperity. It’s one of the reasons why the vine was a symbol for the nation.
But Solomon envisions another fruit coming from the hills: righteousness. As the king is righteous, so too will the people be righteous. God’s moral character and relational goodness are passed on to the leader who then passes them on to the people.
The wealth of the land won’t just be its wine, it’ll be its moral character and relational integrity.
May he defend the afflicted among the people
and save the children of the needy;
may he crush the oppressor (Ps. 72:4).
Solomon prays for a leader who will protect the vulnerable. The sick, the elderly, the mentally ill, the children, the poor — each is vulnerable, each is easily taken advantage of. A good leader defends them.
Not only that, the good leader crushes their abusers. In many cases, the only way to stop abuse is to yank out the fangs of those who are abusing. Dogs who bite are put down. There is a harshness here, but it’s a harshness abusers bring down on themselves.
The simplicity of the poetry doesn’t leave room for nuance here. But the goal is this: End the oppression by ensuring the oppressor never oppresses again.
May he endure as long as the sun,
as long as the moon, through all generations.
May he be like rain falling on a mown field,
like showers watering the earth.
In his days may the righteous flourish
and prosperity abound till the moon is no more (Ps. 72:5-7).
A person who leads in such a way is one you never want to die, never stop leading. We want to live in the light of this leader forever, because it’s as bright and as fixed as sun and moon in the sky.
A person who leads like this is like a spring rain, bringing life and freshness to the land. Under such a regime, all people of good character flourish, which means to grow and blossom and bear fruit. There is no end to the potential for prosperity.
Many democracies have term limits to protect the nation from power-grabbers, and there’s a wisdom to that. But the vision here is termless, limitless. Who would want an end to something so good?
May he rule from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
May the desert tribes bow before him
and his enemies lick the dust.
May the kings of Tarshish and of distant shores
bring tribute to him.
May the kings of Sheba and Seba
present him gifts.
May all kings bow down to him
and all nations serve him (Ps. 72:8-11).
The “River” here is the Euphrates. Even though our maps show it to the east of Israel, it was viewed as being in the north, since the desert to the east was uncrossable. Still, there were tribes to the east on the edges of the desert of Arabia. Tarshish refers to Spain in the distant wet. And Sheba and Seba refer to African kingdoms to the south. And so, we have all peoples from all compass points and their leaders bowing down and serving God’s good leader.
The image here is of all people benefitting from the rule of the leader of God’s people. Not only does the nation under such leadership prosper as the preceding verses imply, but so too does the rest of humanity.
This goes back to the initial vision for God’s people given to Abraham in Gen. 12:1-3. All nations are to be blessed by the people arising from his family. This isn’t a private, cozy blessing. It’s a comprehensive, all-encompassing blessing.
The mission of God through the people of God is never satisfied with personal prosperity. It always reaches outward, seeking to bless all people in all places. Biblical love and leadership always looks outward.
For he will deliver the needy who cry out,
the afflicted who have no one to help.
He will take pity on the weak and the needy
and save the needy from death.
He will rescue them from oppression and violence,
for precious is their blood in his sight (Ps. 72:12-14).
Again, Solomon loops back to the leader’s care for the needy, the afflicted, the weak, the oppressed.
The prosperity of the people is measured not from the top, but from the bottom. The lifestyles of the rich and famous draw our attention. But it’s the least, the last, and the lost who draw the attention of a good leader. It’s only when they are doing well that the people as a whole are doing well.
The good leader always advocates for those at the bottom of the pile, making sure to provide a voice for the otherwise voiceless, standing up for those who can’t stand up for themselves.
The hungry, the homeless, the unborn, the immigrant, the inmate, the elderly, the mentally ill, the abandoned, the physically limited, the poor, the disaster-struck, the minority — these get determined attention. When their blood is spilled, it’s as if the leader’s own children were bleeding. There is anger and urgency and action.
Long may he live!
May gold from Sheba be given him.
May people ever pray for him
and bless him all day long.
May grain abound throughout the land;
on the tops of the hills may it sway.
May the crops flourish like Lebanon
and thrive like the grass of the field.
May his name endure forever;
may it continue as long as the sun.
Then all nations will be blessed through him,
and they will call him blessed (Ps. 72:15-17).
Again, Psalm 72 returns to economic prosperity, ping-ponging back and forth between care for the vulnerable and care for the economy. When both of these come together under one person, the leader becomes wealthy along with the rest of the nation (“May gold from Sheba be given him”) and the people who have been blessed and cared for by him return the favor (“May people every pray for him and bless him all day long”).
In an agrarian economy, the financial prosperity of the people will be measured by the flourishing of grain and other crops. There are numerous psalms which do this.
Paying attention to the economy, including praying for it and measuring the effectiveness of leaders based on it, doesn’t feel all that spiritual. But it is. These are the kinds of details that affect everyone, especially God’s beloved poor. When the economy suffers, the weakest suffer the most. When the economy does well, all share in the prosperity.
And again, we see that it’s not just the people under direct leadership who benefit. All nations are blessed by a good leader and all of them bless that leader because of it.
And so the psalm ends. But before it does, there’s a final salvo of praise to conclude Book 2 of the Psalms.
Praise be to the LORD God, the God of Israel,
who alone does marvelous deeds.
Praise be to his glorious name forever;
may the whole earth be filled with his glory.
Amen and Amen.
This concludes the prayers of David son of Jesse (Ps. 72:18-20).