a desert-dweller · noun, common masculine plural absolute
bow
יִכְרְע֣וּyikh.re.'U
H3766
to bend the knee · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
before
לְ֭פָנָיוLe.fa.nav
H6440
the face (as the part that turns) · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
enemies
וְ֝אֹיְבָ֗יוve.'o.ye.Vav
H341
hating · conjunction + verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
lick
יְלַחֵֽכוּye.la.Che.khu
H3897
to lick · verb, piel imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
dust
עָפָ֥ר'a.Far
H6083
dust (as powdered or gray) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
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
Isaiah 49:23 And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth,…
Micah 7:17 They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth: they shall be afraid of the LORD our Go…
Luke 19:27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
1 Kings 9:18 And Baalath, and Tadmor in the wilderness, in the land,
1 Kings 9:20-21 And all the people that were left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, which were not of the children of Israel,
Psalms 2:9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.
Psalms 21:8-9 Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies: thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee.
Psalms 22:29 All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his o…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
John Gill on Psalms 72:9
They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him,.... In token of subjection to him, reverence and worship of him, to whom every knee shall bow, Isaiah 45:23. The Septuagint version, and others, render the word "Ethiopians", who dwell in a dry land, parched and burnt with the sun; and so it is a prophecy of their conversion to Christ, as in Psalm 68:31; of which there is an instance, Acts 8:27; the word is used of the wild beasts of the field, in Isaiah 13:21; to which wicked men, for the malignity of their nature, may be compared; as they are to the wild ass, to lions, leopards, and bears; and yet these are so tamed by the power of divine grace as to be made subject to Christ. Kimchi…
Psalm 72:7-11
7. In his days shall the righteous flourish; and there shall be abundance of peace, so long as the moon endureth. [133] 8. He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. 9. The inhabitants of the desert shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust. 10. The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring a present: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall bring a gift to him. 11. And all kings shall prostrate themselves before him; all nations shall serve him.
7. In his days shall the righteous flourish It is unnecessary for me frequently to repeat what I have once stated, that all these sentences depend upon the first verse. David, t…
This third strophe contains prospects, the ground of which is laid down in the fourth. The position of the futures here becomes a different one. The contemplation passes from the home relations of the new government to its foreign relations, and at the same time the wishes are changed into hopes. The awe-commanding dominion of the king shall stretch even into the most distant corners of the desert. ציּים is used both for the animals and the men who inhabit the desert, to be determined in each instance by the context; here they are men beyond all dispute, but in Psa 74:14; Isa 23:13, it is matter of controversy whether men or beasts are meant. Since the lxx, Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome here…
The Church Fathers
"In His presence shall fall down the Ethiopians, and His enemies shall lick the earth" [Psalm 72:9]. By the Ethiopians, as by a part the whole, He has signified all nations, selecting that nation to mention especially by name, which is at the ends of the earth. By "in His presence shall fall down" has been signified, shall adore Him. And because there were to be schisms in various quarters of the world, which would be jealous of the Church Catholic spread abroad in the whole round world, and again those same schisms dividing themselves into the names of men, and by loving the men under whose authority they had been rent, opposing themselves to the glory of Christ which is throughout all lands; so when He had said, "in His presence shall fall down the Ethiopians," He added, "and His enemies shall lick the earth:" that is, shall love men, so that they shall be jealous of the glory of Christ, to whom has been said, "Be exalted above the Heavens, O God, and above all the earth Your glory." For man earned to hear, "Earth you are, and unto earth you shall go." [Genesis 3:19] By licking this earth, that is, being delighted with the vainly talking authority of such men, by loving them, and by counting them for the most pleasing of men, they gainsay the divine sayings, whereby the Catholic Church has been foretold, not as to be in any particular quarter of the world, as certain schisms are, but in the whole universe by bearing fruit and growing so as to attain even unto the very Ethiopians, to wit, the remotest and foulest of mankind.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Adoration — The acts and postures by which the Hebrews expressed adoration bear a great similarity to those still in use among Oriental nations. To rise up and suddenly prostrate the body was the most simple…
Bowing — A mode of showing respect. Abraham “bowed himself to the people of the land” (Gen. 23:7); so Jacob to Esau (Gen. 33:3); and the brethren of Joseph before him as the governor of the land (Gen. 43:28).…
Dust — Storms of sand and dust sometimes overtake Eastern travellers. They are very dreadful, many perishing under them. Jehovah threatens to bring on the land of Israel, as a punishment for forsaking him,…
Kiss — Of affection (Gen. 27:26, 27; 29:13; Luke 7:38, 45); reconciliation (Gen. 33:4; 2 Sam. 14:33); leave-taking (Gen. 31:28, 55; Ruth 1:14; 2 Sam. 19:39); homage (Ps. 2:12; 1 Sam. 10:1); spoken of as…
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…
Deserts · Inhabited by wandering tribes — Inhabited by wandering tribes
Gentiles · PROPHECIES OF THE CONVERSION OF — PROPHECIES OF THE CONVERSION OF
Rulers · CHARACTER AND QUALIFI — CHARACTER AND QUALIFI
Salutations · Often accompanied by: Kissing the dust — Often accompanied by: Kissing the dust
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).
The anointed king will rule over the whole world. Even hostile nations will submit to him. In the ancient Near East, bearing gifts to the king acknowledged his success and his reputation (see 1 Kgs 10).
72:8-9 from sea to sea: This phrase represents the whole world. • Solomon’s kingdom extended from the Euphrates River in the east to the Philistine territory in the west (1 Kgs 4:21; see Pss 80:8-11; 89:19-25), where the Mediterranean Sea appeared to be at the ends of the earth (see 2:8). Everyone will bow before this king, including the desert nomads (72:9), his enemies, and all the kings of the world (see Mic 7:17).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 72:9
They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust.
They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him. Unconquered by arms, they shall be subdued by love. Wild and lawless as they have been, they shall gladly wear his easy yoke; then shall their deserts be made glad, yea, they shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. And his enemies shall lick the dust. If they will not be his friends, they shall be utterly broken and humbled. Dust shall be the serpent's meat; the seed of the serpent shall be filled therewith. Homage among Orientals is often rendered in the most abject manner, and truly no sign is too humiliating to denote the utter discomfiture a…
