“May prayer be made for Him continually, and blessings invoked for Him all the day!” ~Psalm 72.15b
This Psalm bears the superscription “Of Solomon.” Whether ‘of Solomon’ means that David or some other Divinely-inspired author wrote this Psalm ‘of,’ about, or concerning Solomon with Solomon as the subject; or ‘of Solomon’ means that Solomon is the author himself – it is a prayer and appeal for God’s pleasure and blessings upon Solomon’s rule and reign over God’s kingdom. It is throughout a passionate appeal to God to bring to full fruition the covenant promises He had made to David and to his royal kingly descendants forever:
‘May they fear You while the sun endures, and as long as the moon, throughout all generations! May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth! In his days may the righteous flourish, and peace abound, till the moon be no more!’ ~verses 5-7 ff
All of these desired and prayed-for blessings are just re-echoes from the covenant promises God gave to David in 2 Samuel, chapters 7 and 23.
“And now, O LORD God, confirm forever the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house, and DO AS YOU HAVE SPOKEN!” ~2 Samuel 7.25
Without a doubt, as David recognized, these promises go far beyond any of David’s merely human descendants [2 Samuel 7.18-29]. These covenant promises were made concerning Christ [compare Psalm 72.8 with Luke 2.32-33], and they were made TO Christ Himself [Galatians 3.15-16]!
That being so, I have always been intrigued by verse 15b, “May prayer be made FOR Him continually, and blessings invoked FOR Him continually.”
We are used to singing in the second stanza of the beloved Isaac Watts hymn ‘Jesus shall reign where’er the sun…’, ‘FOR Him shall endless prayer be made, and praises throng to crown His head…’ Except that, in most of our later adaptations, it was changed to sing ‘TO Him shall endless prayer be made…’
Yes, it is true that we shall make our endless prayers TO Him; but the Psalmist said that ‘May prayer be made FOR Him continually…’ I have asked myself, ‘How do pray FOR Christ?’ He is not needy. He is not poor or deficient in any way to need us to pray FOR Him to receive or have anything. These covenant promises and blessings have been given to Him, and He shall every one of them in full!
But we do pray FOR Him! We pray FOR Him when we pray for Him to receive every covenant promise He Himself prayed to the Father to give Him when He prayed FOR Himself – like, in John 17, for example. He prayed to the Father FOR the covenant blessings the Father had promised and given Him ‘before the world existed.’
So, when we pray FOR Christ, we are praying FOR:
- His Kingdom
- His Name
- His worship
- His praise
- His Word
- His Gospel
- His people
- His Glory
Read the Psalm! Note the requests that the psalmist petitions God FOR the king. These are just some of the covenant blessings that the Psalmist prayed that God would ‘Give the king [verse 1]’ when he prayed FOR Him.
These are same petitions we pray to be fully given to Jesus Christ when we pray FOR Him continually! Let’s all join together and pray in unison and concert FOR Christ to receive them all fully!
~Dave Parks 