Psalms 72, Solomon, and the Possibility of a Messianic Fulfillment

Psalms 72 is titled "A Psalm for Solomon" and contains language that, to later readers, sounds strongly messianic. The question is whether David himself may have viewed Solomon as a real candidate to fulfill the promises associated with the coming anointed king.

Several considerations support the idea that, from David's vantage point, Solomon could have been seen as the promised ruler.

1. Parental expectation and scriptural expectation There is a natural psychological element: parents often look at their children with high expectations. But in Scripture, this is not merely sentiment. We see repeated instances where parents and others legitimately wonder whether a particular child may be the promised one, based on the revelation they have received to that point. David lived at a stage in revelation where: beginitemize
2. The promised ruler was expected to arise from his own line (the Davidic covenant).
3. The timing of that ruler was not explicitly placed a thousand years in the future.
4. The concept of a virgin-born Messiah was, at best, not clearly revealed.

Up to this point, there is no unambiguous scriptural requirement that would exclude David's immediate son from being the promised king. item The naming and prophetic identification of Solomon

Solomon's birth and naming are significant. First Chronicles 22:9 records:

"Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about: for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days."

Second Samuel 7:12--13 says:

"When thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever."

These passages clearly point to a son of David (explicitly identified as Solomon in Chronicles) who will:

• Build the house (the Temple).
• Have a kingdom established.
• Be associated with peace and rest.
• Have language applied to him that speaks of an enduring throne.

These words can be legitimately read at two levels:

• An immediate, historical level: Solomon, the temple builder and king of peace.
• A typological or ultimate level: the greater Son of David, whose throne is truly everlasting.

From David's perspective, however, it would be entirely reasonable to see Solomon as at least a strong candidate for the ultimate fulfillment. item Language in Psalms 72 that appears messianic

Psalms 72 begins:

"Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's son. He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment. The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness."

The psalm continues with language such as:

"He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor." "In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust."

This sounds very much like descriptions of a universal, righteous reign---exactly the kind of imagery later associated with the Messiah.

However:

• The heading, "A Psalm for Solomon," connects these blessings directly with Solomon as the "king's son."
• The promise in the Davidic covenant about a son who will build a house and have an enduring throne supports the idea that David could legitimately apply these words to his immediate heir.
• Phrases such as "so long as the sun and moon endure" are poetic and may express hyperbolic blessing from David's viewpoint.

It is difficult to argue that David was consciously composing only and exclusively about a far-future Messiah, with no reference to Solomon, when the psalm explicitly names Solomon and when other texts have already bound the promise of a ruling son to him. item Prophetic contingency and David's perspective

Within a contingency framework, it is plausible that:

• The promises to David's house allowed for the possibility that a particular son could embody, in a more complete or less complete way, the promised rule.
• Solomon, as the God-appointed, prophetically named son of peace who would build the Temple, stood at a point where, from David's vantage, he could have been the one in whom the fullest realization would appear.

Later revelation and Solomon's own failures show that he did not, in fact, bring about the final, universal, righteous kingdom. But that does not mean David was wrong to see him as a live candidate within the prophetic possibilities available at that moment. item Typology and ultimate fulfillment

From the standpoint of completed canon, we recognize that:

• Solomon is a type of the Messiah: a son of David, a king of peace, a builder of the house, ruling in a time of glory.
• Many statements in Psalms 72 find a partial, imperfect realization in Solomon and an ultimate, perfect fulfillment in Christ.

Yet typology does not cancel historical expectation. It is entirely consistent to say:

• David wrote Psalms 72 for Solomon and about Solomon, genuinely praying and expecting that Solomon's reign might embody those promises.
• The Spirit, through David, also shaped the language so that it anticipated the greater Son of David, whose peaceful dominion and righteous judgment will indeed extend "from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth."

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Accordingly, Psalms 72 does suggest that, in David's understanding at the time, Solomon could have been the one to fulfill the messianic promises. The psalm is both an exalted prayer for Solomon's reign and a Spirit-inspired pointer to the greater, final reign of the Messiah.