Psalm Reflection - Week 4

Psalm 72 A Messianic Psalm

Last week we prayed with Psalm 46: a Psalm of Zion. This week, we turn to Psalm 72 which pairs nicely with Psalm 46. When Israel reflects on the covenant God entered into with the House of David, it includes two aspects: God's abiding presence in Zion and God's faithfulness to the Davidic descendents. This is where it begins. Where it goes from here breaks the expectations of all that Israel hoped for from God. Human expectations could not contain God's wondrous plan!

There are several clear biblical hopes that are stated in this psalm. One of these recalls what were God's original intentions for humanity "In the beginning…" when he blessed them at creation. God's intention was for peace (Shalom). This is more than the absence of warfare. Israel understood this as a fullness of life, blessing, abundance, harmony and wholeness. We see all this reflected here: justice, security, prosperity, an abundance of rain to insure a rich harvest, even to the peaks of the mountains, which usually are barren! We know from the story in Genesis 3, God's original hope is constantly thwarted by the human condition.

Another key biblical concept is to be found in the expectation that the king will be compassionate and effective insuring the rights of the poor. He will hear their cries and insure justice is done for them. At the heart of the Sinai Covenant tradition, God calls Israel to be ever mindful of God's own response to them when they were oppressed and poor in Egypt. God heard their cries and led them to freedom. Israel was to model their relationship with each other based on God's compassion and faithfulness and how God had responded to their need. Likewise the king, in a special way, was to be God's ears for hearing and responding to the poor and helpless.

The Bible speaks of "justice" in a fuller sense than we might understand. Justice is not so much about equality or legal decisions or judgment as it is a reference to how God is God! How is God faithful to promises made in covenant? Israel (and we) are called to reflect this same faithfulness that we see in God. "Be perfect (OR compassionate) as God is perfect". We are to be perfect in our effort to reflect God's covenant quality of faithfulness and mercy or compassion. This is justice!

Turning now to the role of the king. It was understood that the king enjoyed a favored relationship with God. He is spoken of as "son": "I will be a father to him and he shall be a son to me" (2 Sam 7:14). The king was to act to bring about the "shalom" of God, to insure that God's justice (faithfulness to promises made in Covenant) would be the experience of every person. The king was the meeting point between God and the people. A very familiar text (Isa Ch 11) expresses the same idea as we speak of here in Psalm 72. The ideal king would insure justice, bring about peace and prosperity, knowledge of God.

Israel and we are well aware of the failure of human leaders to implement the noble goals that a people hold dear. So Israel describes the ideal leader in several places in the Bible. We call these "messianic passages". You will see how they incorporate the qualities that would effectively enable a leader to being about the promises Israel lives in hope of realizing from God by virtue of their covenant. The term "Messiah" means "anointed one." The kings were the "anointed ones"! Messianic passages then speak about kingship in ideal terms. Life as good as it gets under the governance of one who ruled with the very qualities of God! Israel's history is a dismal failure and the king gets a lot of the blame. As the king goes, so go the people. As Israel's fortunes rise and fall in light of human history, there comes a time when there were no longer kings in Israel. Yet hope keeps these psalms a living part of the tradition. They do not toss them out because there is no longer a monarchy.

How typical of the ways of God that when the human understanding is strained to the breaking point, God takes us beyond the limitations of the words to a totally new and unimagined possibility! I refer to the way we now read these psalms in light of Christ. Bound up in Christ are all the ancient promises, hopes, and covenants. He brings about God's justice, God's faithfulness. He insures peace-such that is beyond the fragile possibility of peace as we think about it on earth. When the Gospel writers speak of Jesus as "Messiah", attached to that title are all the understandings we find described here in this psalm. The peace he gives is a peace beyond the hopes of Israel and beyond the boundaries of that land. It is taken to include the whole earth: "Tarshish" refers to Spain, "the Isles" to the islands of the Mediterranean, "Sheba" in the Arabian Desert and "Seba" in Africa.

God's preferential love for the "Poor" is evident throughout the Bible and nowhere more than in the Psalms. The poor touch the heart of God: "When the poor cry out to the Lord, he hears them and rescues them from all their distress" (Ps 34:7). The responsibility of the leader (King) to insure the rights of the poor and helpless and marginalized is not a hope foreign to our own experience.

Psalm 72 is the final psalm in the 2nd book of the Psalter. Remember the 150 Psalms are divided into 5 books. Each "book" ends with doxology or praise to God. See the final verses of Psalm 41, 72, 89,106 150.

As you pray this psalm this week, take note of:

1) words and images

2) other biblical references

3) foot notes and cross references

4) consider how the early Church might have read and

prayed this psalm

5) how does it speak to our world today.

Pray this slowly and repetitiously…and listen!

Other Messianic Passages in Scripture: Isa 8:23-9:6, Micah 5:1-3, Jer 23:1-6,Ezekiel 34 and 37, Zech 9:9-10.

Each of these readings suggests that a new era has begun in human history. The figure in each reading is a descendent of the house of David, insuring the succession of the ideals of the Davidic Covenant. These may be familiar passages because we have always read them as pointing TO Jesus when in fact the New Testament writers reach back to discover in them the origin of Israel's hopes. Indeed we find in these words a clearer entry into the question of who Jesus is for us!