Here’s another post in my continuing series on our Psalms for All Seasons Sunday school class. (Previous posts focused on Psalm 121, Psalm 122, and Psalms 2/99.)
Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to the king’s son; that he may rule your people righteously and the poor with justice; that the mountains may bring property to the people, and the hills, in righteousness.
Psalm 72:1-7 & 18-19 is assigned by the Revised Common Lectionary to the Second Sunday of Advent in Year A; we took up the psalm in our class on Sept. 15.
Psalm 72 is royal psalm, possibly written by David for Solomon. It concludes the Second Book of Psalms. According to Tate (2000):
Psalm 72 offers a glimpse of the ideal relationship among ruler, God, and people. The people pray for the empowerment of the king, who uses the gifts God gives, not for his own benefit or even for the benefit of the people, but for the least of all among the people.
The responsorial reading in Psalms for All Seasons is “In His Days Justice WIll Flourish” (PFAS #72C)
The Psalm 72 settings in Psalms for All Seasons and Lift Up Your Hearts feature three majestic tunes: ES FLOG EIN KLEINS WALDVÖGELEIN, DUKE STREET and CORONATION.
ES FLOG EIN KLEINS WALDVÖGELEIN is paired with “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed” (PFAS #72A/LUYH #109/PH87 #72/SNC #120/HFW #4)
Hail to the Lord’s Anointed, great David’s greater Son! Hail, in the time appointed, your reign on earth begun!
James Montgomery wrote eight stanzas for the hymn, of which the CRC hymnals use #1 (“Hail to the Lord’s anointed, great David’s greater son”), #2 (“He comes with rescue speedy to those who suffer wrong”), #3 (“He shall come down like showers upon the fruitful earth”) and #7 (“Kings shall fall down before you, and gold and incense bring”).
Looking through hymn’s page on hymnary.org, I noticed that some hymnals use #5 (“For Him shall prayer unceasing and daily vows ascent”) and/or #8 (“O’er every foe victorious, He on His throne shall rest”). I didn’t see any that used #4 (“Arabia’s desert-ranger to him shall bow the knee”) or #6 (“The heav’ns which now conceal Him in counsels deep and wise”)
I’d happily sing more than just four verses.
Most hymnals don’t use ES FLOG EIN KLEINS WALDVÖGELEIN for “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed” and the tune is used with several other hymns. It can be found in other CRC hymnals as the tune for “Song of Mary/My Soul Proclaims with Wonder” (SNC #102) and “Are You the One” (SNT #66), which is based on Matthew 11:1-6.
“Are you the one,” they asked him,“the one who is to come, or must we go on waiting for God’s own promised one?” He gave John’s friends an answer, so simple, yet profound. “See for yourself,” said Jesus, “the signs are all around.”
DUKE STREET is paired with Isaac Watt’s “Jesus Shall Reign Where’er the Sun” (PFAS #72B/LUYH #219/PH87 #412/PH57 #399/HFW #77), which first appeared in him hymnal Psalms of David, Imitated (1719). It is one of only 69 hymns to appear in all three Psalter Hymnals (1934, 1957 & 1987) and in Lift Up Your Hearts. The hymn draws upon vv. 5, 8 & 12-19 of Psalm 72 and makes Jesus the focus of the psalm.
Jesus shall reign where’er the sun does its successive journeys run, his kingdom stretch from shore to shore, till moons shall wax and wane no more.
DUKE STREET is also used in Lift Up Your Hearts for “I Know that My Redeemer Lives” (LUYH #193/HFW #108).
CORONATION is most closely associated with “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” (LUYH #601/PH87 #471), but it’s also the tune for “Now Blessed Be the Lord Our God” (LUYH #953/PH87 #603), which is a doxology based on Psalm 71:18-19.
In my notes from the class, I marked “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed” as our likely Psalm 72 hymn, but we ended up using Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19 as our assurance of pardon and “Jesus Shall Reign Where’er the Sun” immediately after as the song of response. “Now Blessed Be the Lord Our God” was our closing doxology.
The remaining Psalm 72 setting in PFAS is “Estan en tu mano/In Your Hand Alone” (PFAS #72D).
We didn’t sing any of the other Psalm settings in the Psalter Hymnals: “Christ is King and He Shall Reign” (PH87 #359), “Christ Shall Have Dominion” (PH87 #541/PH57 #135), “O God, to Thine Anointed King” (PH57 #133) and “His Wide Dominion Shall Endure” (PH57 #134). Each of these versifies part of Psalm 72.