A King's Greatness Is Measured Beside the Needy

Solomon’s own request at Gibeon was for “an understanding heart to judge thy people” (1 Kings 3:9), and the first line asks the same gift for the king. “Judgments” is plural, mishpatim, the particular rulings of God’s law, while “righteousness” is the quality from which those rulings come.

“Judge” here is din, to hear a cause and give a verdict, and the poor are aniyyim, the afflicted, who had the least means to bring a case to a king. The first judgment the Book of Kings records Solomon giving is between two harlots quarrelling over a child (1 Kings 3:16–28), women with no standing but his hearing.

“Bring” is nasa, to carry or bear, the verb for land bearing produce: the mountains yield shalom as they yield grain. The name Solomon, Shelomoh, is built on shalom, and a psalm “for Solomon” makes peace the harvest of his reign.

“Break in pieces” is dakka, to crush to powder, the verb of Isaiah 53:5, “bruised for our iniquities”. The oppressor is oshek, the extortioner who takes by force, the wrong Leviticus 19:13 forbids: “Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour.”

The Greek translators read “he shall continue as long as the sun”, which keeps the subject on the king; the Hebrew, followed by the King James, turns suddenly to God, “they shall fear thee”. “Throughout all generations” is literally “generation of generations”, dor dorim.

“Mown grass” is gez, a word that also means a shorn fleece, the word used of Gideon’s fleece in Judges 6:37; either way it is something cut short and waiting to grow back. Amos 7:1 mentions “the king’s mowings”, a first cut taken as a royal due, after which the later rain brought the regrowth.

“So long as the moon endureth” is literally “until there is no moon”, a limit that is no limit. The Greek and some Hebrew manuscripts read “righteousness” for “the righteous” in the first line, which would make the verse about justice flourishing rather than just men.

Exodus 23:31 set Israel’s bounds “from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river”; the psalm takes those limits and pushes the last one out to “the ends of the earth”. “The river” with no name is the Euphrates, the frontier Solomon’s rule reached (1 Kings 4:21).

“They that dwell in the wilderness” is tsiyyim, a word used elsewhere of desert creatures, here probably the nomad tribes beyond the settled land. To “lick the dust” is prostration with the face in the dirt, which Micah 7:17 compares to a serpent; the Black Obelisk shows Israel’s king Jehu face down before Shalmaneser III.

Tarshish lay at the far western end of the Mediterranean, probably in southern Spain, and “the isles” are the coastlands along the way. Sheba was in south Arabia, whose queen came to Solomon with spices and gold (1 Kings 10:1–2), and Seba is listed among the sons of Cush (Genesis 10:7), south of Egypt. West and south stand for every distance.

The named kings of verse 10 widen to “all kings” and “all nations”, and the two halves pair a posture, falling down, with a duty, service, the tribute and labour a vassal owed his overlord. 1 Kings 4:21 records that the kingdoms from the river to Egypt “brought presents, and served Solomon all the days of his life”.

Job uses almost the same words in defending his own record: “I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him” (Job 29:12). Protecting the helpless was the recognised mark of a righteous ruler across the ancient Near East; Hammurabi’s law code says it was set up so that the strong should not oppress the weak.

“Spare” is chus, to feel pity, the word Deuteronomy uses of the eye, “thine eye shall not pity”; here the king’s eye does. “Poor” in this verse is dal, the thin or weak, a third word beside ani and evyon, as if the psalm will not let any kind of want go unnamed.

“Redeem” is ga’al, the next of kin’s duty to buy back and to avenge, so the king stands as kinsman to people who have none. “Deceit” is tokh, oppression by fraud, and “violence” is chamas, the word for what filled the earth before the flood (Genesis 6:11). Psalm 116:15 uses the same “precious in the sight” of the death of God’s saints.

“And he shall live” is the acclamation shouted at a coronation, literally “let the king live”, the cry that went up when Saul was presented in 1 Samuel 10:24, “God save the king”. The gold of Sheba was proverbial: 1 Kings 10:10 has the queen give Solomon a hundred and twenty talents.

Grain on the tops of the mountains is grain where little is usually sown, on thin soil. “Shake” is ra’ash, to rustle or quake: the ripe crop waving on the hills sounds like wind through the cedar forests of Lebanon. “They of the city” may also be read “from the city”, people spreading out like grass.

“Shall be continued” is yinnon, a verb found only here, meaning to sprout or put out shoots; later rabbis read Yinnon as one of the names of the Messiah (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 98b). “Men shall be blessed in him” echoes the promise to Abraham, “in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 22:18).

The same blessing formula, “Blessed be the LORD God of Israel”, closes the first book of the Psalms at 41:13 and the fourth at 106:48. “Wondrous things” is nifla’ot, the word God uses of the plagues in Egypt, “all my wonders which I will do” (Exodus 3:20), and “only” means that no king shares that work.

The wish repeats God’s own oath in Numbers 14:21, “as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD”, sworn after the spies’ report. “Amen, and Amen” doubles the Hebrew word for what is firm and sure; 41:13 and 89:52 close the same way.

“Son of Jesse” is how Saul named David when he meant to belittle him (1 Samuel 20:27; 22:7), and how David named himself in his last words (2 Samuel 23:1). “Ended” is kallu, finished, the verb used when God “ended his work” on the seventh day (Genesis 2:2).