Psalms 72:8

8. In the preceding verses are set forth the character and duration of Messiah’s kingdom; Psalms 72:8-11 chiefly describe the extent of his dominion. The words from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth, are nowhere used to describe Palestine, or the political dominion of David or Solomon. Outside of Palestine the Hebrews, at this period, were acquainted with no seas but the Mediterranean and Red Seas.

These are specifically named in bounding the Hebrew dominion. Thus, in Exodus 23:31, God says: “I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea, even unto the Sea of the Philistines, [Mediterranean,] and from the Desert [of Arabia] unto the River” [Euphrates]. These are definite geographical limits, and this extent of dominion was literally attained and enjoyed under both David and Solomon. But very different from this is the language of the text. “From the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines,” is not the same as “from sea to sea;” and “from the Desert [of Arabia] to the River [Euphrates,]” bears no comparison with the all-comprehensive language, “from the River [Euphrates] to the ends of the earth.” No allowance for the oriental imagination can make them equal, or interpret the latter as less than universal, beginning, as it does, at the utmost limit of Solomon’s dominion, and carrying that of Messiah “to the ends of the earth.” And to this sense the connexion agrees. Psalms 72:9-11; Psalms 72:15. These words of the psalmist are quoted (Zechariah 9:10) in a passage confessedly Messianic, to describe the extent of the dominion of “Zion’s king.”