Ps. 72.3 (creation unleashed)

May the mountains / bring well being / for the people
and he hills / righteousness. 

Thus far we have traced two themes in these opening verses: the king as mediator of God’s rule and how, in the king, God’s “people and poor” will be brought back to Him. We now come to see the emerging of a third theme: the bounty of the land. Importantly, this land-blessing follows the redemption of God’s people by and through the king. It is only with them established (or, in the words of Paul, ‘revealed’) that creation is now (in the words of Paul, “set free” from bondage) unleashed. The virility and power of the earth is explosive, but only after justice has been accomplished, only after God’s children have been redeemed by their ‘kinsman’, the king. Once they are established, however, the earth is now free to participate within the same power given over to the king—now the mountains bring “well being” and the hills “righteousness”. What had been handed over to the king is now being “brought forth” from the earth itself. It has ‘taken root’ and, importantly, is producing a harvest. This deserves some pause: were the earth to produce a bounty prior to the establishment of justice and righteousness it would partake of the exploitation inherent in ‘bounty’. Fist, the protection of justice and righteousness must be established within the king. The stage must be set. Then, when the earth produces its bounty it will be delivered into an arena that will already be safeguarded by the king. Although the king was the one through whom these dynamic powers of God would funnel into the world, the goal was for them, through the king, to become implanted, take root, and grow throughout the earth. The king would be like the storm cloud watering the earth. He was not to horde it; they were given to be given. And, just as in verse 2, the king immediately put them (God’s righteousness and justice) at the disposal of the people, so too now does the earth explode in well-being and righteousness “for the people”. God seeks not only to have his people ‘well-ordered’ by righteousness and justice, but also blessed in their life-giving and joyous power. The king ‘judges’ in righteousness and justice; the mountains and hills “bring them forth”. There is clearly the sense here that all of life, the totality of man’s existence, is one encompassed within these twin powers of God, both his social/public life as well as his material/biological life. All of these ‘grow’ according to the power of God’s concern for them as expressed in justice and righteousness.