Yea, all kings shall fall down before him.”
No glory is here supposed to be derivable from a woman, and an inventor would probably have merely devised a saga on the last of the lines just quoted, which is adapted in 1 Kings iv. 34, to Solomon’s wisdom, or he would have imagined some instance of a particularly illustrious monarch coming to pay homage to Solomon. That the only example particularized is that of a woman carries some signs of reality.
Assuming that there was ever any King Solomon at all, this Psalm lxxii., whose Hebrew title is “Of Solomon,” might have been written in the height of his reign. The title of “God” given him in Psalm xlv. is here approximated in the opening line, “Give the King thy judgments, O Elohim,” and in the ascription to him of such virtues and such beneficent dominion, “from the river (Euphrates) to the ends of the earth,” without any further reference to God, that an indignant Jahvist expands the doxology (18, 19) to include a reclamation for Jahveh. The ancient lyric closes with verse 17, which says of Solomon:
“His name shall endure forever;
His name shall have emanations as long as the sun;
Men shall bless themselves in him;
All nations shall call him The Happy.”
The Jahvist answers:
“Blessed be Jahveh Elohim, the Elohim of Israel,
Who alone doeth wondrous things,