Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to the royal son!
The inscription leaves us uncertain who composed this psalm, though it closes David's prayers and bears his mark more than Solomon's. Solomon could scarcely have prophesied his own reign without vanity; but David, foreseeing the prosperity promised his house, lifted his eyes to that greatest King yet to come, the Messiah, whose reign this description truly fits.
AI summary
Commenting on Psalm 72:1-20
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.
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.