to give · verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine singular
king
לְמֶ֣לֶךְle.Me.lekh
H4428
a king · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
judgments
מִ֭שְׁפָּטֶיךָMish.pa.tei.kha
H4941
properly · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
God
אֱֽלֹהִ֗ים'elo.Him
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural absolute
righteousness
וְצִדְקָתְךָ֥ve.tzid.ka.te.Cha
H6666
rightness (abstractly) · conjunction + noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
king’s
מֶֽלֶךְMe.lekh
H4428
a king · noun, common masculine singular absolute
son
לְבֶןle.ven-
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
2 Chronicles 1:10 Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people: for who can judge this thy people, that is so great?
Jeremiah 23:5-6 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execut…
1 Chronicles 22:12-13 Only the LORD give thee wisdom and understanding, and give thee charge concerning Israel, that thou mayest keep the law of the LORD thy God.
1 Chronicles 29:19 And give unto Solomon my son a perfect heart, to keep thy commandments, thy testimonies, and thy statutes, and to do all these things, and t…
1 Kings 1:39-2:4 And Zadok the priest took an horn of oil out of the tabernacle, and anointed Solomon. And they blew the trumpet; and all the people said, Go…
Psalms 127:1 Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
Isaiah 11:2 And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowl…
John 3:34 For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
John Gill on Psalms 72:1
Give the King thy judgments, O God,.... A prayer of David, or of the church he represents, to God the Father concerning Christ; for he is "the King" meant; which is the sense of the old Jewish synagogue: the Targum is,
"give the constitutions of thy judgments to the King Messiah;''
and so their Midrash (m) interprets it. He is "the King", by way of eminence, as in Psalm 45:1; not only the King of the world in right of creation and preservation, in conjunction; with his Father, having an equal right with him; but of saints, of the church and people of God, by the designation and constitution of his Father; hence he was promised and prophesied of as a King, Jeremiah 23:5, Zechariah 9:9; and…
Psalm 72:1-6
1. O God! give thy judgments to the king, and thy righteousness to the king's son. 2. He shall judge thy people in righteousness, and thy poor ones in judgment. 3. The mountains shall bring forth peace to the people, and the hills in righteousness. [121] 4. He shall judge the poor of the people; he shall save the children of the afflicted; and shall break in pieces the calumniator. 5. They shall fear thee with the sun; and generation of generations shall fear thee [122] in the presence of the moon. 6. He shall descend as rain upon the mown grass; as the showers [123] which water the earth.
1. O God! give thy judgments to the king. [124] While David, to whom the promise had bee…
The name of God, occurring only once, is Elohim; and this is sufficient to stamp the Psalm as an Elohimic Psalm. מלך (cf. Psa 21:2) and בּן־מלך are only used without the article according to a poetical usage of the language. The petition itself, and even the position of the words, show that the king's son is present, and that he is king; God is implored to bestow upon him His משׁפּטים, i.e., the rights or legal powers belonging to Him, the God of Israel, and צדקה, i.e., the official gift in order that he may exercise those rights in accordance with divine righteousness. After the supplicatory teen the futures which now follow, without the Waw apodoseos, are manifestly optatives. Mountains an…
The Church Fathers
And I support this from Psalm 71 [LXX], which says, "Give to the king your judgment, O God; and your justice to the king's son, to judge your people with justice, and your poor with judgment." For clearly the psalm, which has been ascribed to Solomon, prophesies of Christ.
"O God, Your judgment to the King give Thou, and Your justice to the King's Son" [Psalm 72:1]. The Lord Himself in the Gospel says, "The Father judges not any one, but all judgment He has given to the Son:" [John 5:22] this is then, "O God, Your judgment to the King give Thou." He that is King is also the Son of the King: because God the Father also is certainly King. Thus it has been written, that the King made a marriage for His Son. [Matthew 22:2] But after the manner of Scripture the same thing is repeated. For that which he has said in, "Your judgment;" the same he has otherwise expressed in, "Your justice:" and that which he has said in, "the King," the same he has otherwise expressed in, "to the King's Son."...But these repetitions do much commend the divine sayings, whether the same words, or whether in other words the same sense be repeated: and they are mostly found in the Psalms, and in the kind of discourse whereby the mind's affection is to be awakened.
Further, to persuade you that you have not understood anything of the Scriptures, I will remind you of another psalm, dictated to David by the Holy Spirit, which you say refers to Solomon, who was also your king. But it refers also to our Christ. But you deceive yourselves by the ambiguous forms of speech. For where it is said, 'The law of the Lord is perfect,' you do not understand it of the law which was to be after Moses, but of the law which was given by Moses, although God declared that He would establish a new law and a new covenant. And where it has been said, 'O God, give Thy judgment to the king,' since Solomon was king, you say that the Psalm refers to him, although the words of the Psalm expressly proclaim that reference is made to the everlasting King, i.e., to Christ. For Christ is King, and Priest, and God, and Lord, and angel, and man, and captain, and stone, and a Son born, and first made subject to suffering, then returning to heaven, and again coming with glory, and He is preached as having the everlasting kingdom: so I prove from all the Scriptures.
Dictionary and topics
Psalms, Book Of — The present Hebrew name of the book is Tehill’im, “Praises;” but in the actual superscriptions of the psalms the word Tehillah is applied only to one, (Psalms 145:1) ... which is indeed emphatically…
Solomon — Peaceful, (Heb. Shelomoh), David’s second son by Bathsheba, i.e., the first after their legal marriage (2 Sam. 12). He was probably born about B.C. 1035 (1 Chr. 22:5; 29:1). He succeeded his father…
Gentiles · PROPHECIES OF THE CONVERSION OF — PROPHECIES OF THE CONVERSION OF
Judge · Kings and other rulers as — Kings and other rulers as
Justice · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
King · Acts as — Acts as
Rulers · CHARACTER AND QUALIFI — CHARACTER AND QUALIFI
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Ps 72 This royal psalm closes Book Two, with 72:18-20 functioning as an epilogue to all of Book Two. The psalmist reflects on the prospects of David’s royal line and on Zion (see Pss 46, 48). He prays that Israel’s kings will be good and prosperous, extending the Lord’s blessing on his people throughout the whole earth. The surpassing righteousness and dominion sought in this prayer foreshadow the coming of Jesus, the Son of David.
72:1-7 The blessings of justice create a balance in nature, resulting in harmony, prosperity, and fertility.
72:1 love of justice . . . righteousness: Kings in the ancient Near East were expected to represent justice; the standard for Israel’s kings was much hig…
Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's son.
Give the king thy judgments, O God. The right to reign was transmitted by descent from David to Solomon, but not by that means alone: Israel was a theocracy, and the kings were but the viceroys of the greater King; hence the prayer that the new king might be enthroned by divine right, and then endowed with divine wisdom. Our glorious King in Zion hath all judgment committed unto him. He rules in the name of God over all lands. He is king "Dei Gratia" as well as by right of inheritance. And thy righteousness unto the king's son. Solomon was both king and king's son; so also is our Lord. He has power and authority…
