Psalms 72:8

He shall have dominion also Render, And may he have dominion. The form of the verb here is decisive in favour of rendering as a wish or prayer, and governs the meaning of the verbs in Psalms 72:9, which should all be similarly rendered.

from sea to sea&c. The words are a poetical generalisation of the promise to Israel in Exodus 23:31, "I will set thy border from the Red Sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness unto the River"; and of the language in which Solomon's empire is described, 1 Kings 4:21; 1 Kings 4:24 (where note the use of the same word to have dominion). If any definite seas are intended, they would be the Mediterranean on the West, and the Red Sea or the Indian Ocean on the East; but more probably the phrase is quite general, meaning, -as far as the land extends" (Amos 8:12; Micah 7:12). The River(rightly spelt in R.V. with a capital, as denoting the River par excellence) is the Euphrates: the ends of the earth(the same words as the uttermost parts of the earthin Psalms 2:8) are the remotest parts of the known world. Extension, not limit, is the idea conveyed. The world belongs to God: may He confer upon His representative a world-wide dominion! a hope to be realised only in the universal kingdom of Christ. Almost the same words recur in Zechariah 9:10, and the son of Sirach combines them with the promise to Abraham in Sir 44:21.