Shirley H Wife, mother, veteran in the spiritual war we all face!

Genesis 15:18: On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, 'I will give this land to your offspring, from the Brook of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates River."

The Euphrates at one time was a distant and significant waterway that the Israelites hoped would become the extent of their kingdom.

Exodus 23:31: "I will set your borders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea and from the wilderness to the Euphrates River."

Numbers 34:1-15 gives the borders that God declared for His people.

Deuteronomy 1:7,8 tells us which people were occupying the land at this time.

Deuteronomy 2:25: God said, "I put fear and dread of you everywhere." (Speaking of his chosen Israel)

Deuteronomy 7:23: The Lord God will give them (those who occupy this land) over to you.

Deuteronomy 11:24: Every place the sole of your foot treads will be yours. Your territory will extend from the wilderness to Lebanon and from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea.

Genesis 15:18-21: The "River" refers to the Euphrates.

2 Kings 24:7: The King of Babylon took over everything that belonged to the King of Egypt.

Babylon and Egypt are descriptions of the world.

Psalm 72:10: The "Coming King" of glory will extend His territory to the ends of the earth. 

Psalm 72:11: "Yes, all kings shall fall down before Him. All nations shall serve Him." No one will escape the power of His reign. Even those in the wilderness will "lick dust" referring to the kings who visited King Solomon, meaning that they bowed to Solomon.

But I believe that the capitalization of the word "River" indicates the coming reign of Our Lord and Savior and His reign as Messiah.

Psalm 72:13,14 emphasizes the work of the King on behalf of the poor and the needy. Their blood is precious in His sight. This points to the blood that Jesus shed on the cross. (Hebrews 12:24)

I believe this "River" has quite a story to tell us.

“The kings shall fall down before Him, ALL nations shall serve Him."

July 25 2022 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report

Tim Maas Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

As indicated on the biblehub.com website, not all translations of the cited verse capitalize the words "sea" and "river". I would say that those translations that DO capitalize them are doing so on the belief or assumption that the psalmist is referring specifically to the Mediterranean Sea and the Euphrates River. (Joshua 1:4, for example, is one of multiple possible texts that appears to support that interpretation.)

I personally read the psalm as referring to Israel, with no special messianic significance (despite the employment of an expression such as "son of man", which, by my reading, is referring in this case only to an ordinary human being, despite the future use of the same title by Jesus). (See the commentary at https://biblehub.com/commentaries/psalms/80-17.htm)

July 20 2022 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report

Jack Gutknecht ABC/DTS graduate, guitar music ministry Baptist church

Good question, Valerie. I believe the word, "river," is capitalized because it is referring to the important river in the Bible, the Euphrates River. This is what my Life Application Study Bible says. See Euphrates (Rev 9:14).

"The boundaries of the nation reached from the hill country in the south to the mighty cedars of Lebanon in the north, from the Mediterranean Sea on the west to the Euphrates on the east–and beyond (Ps 72:8; Ex. 23:31; Deut. 11:24; 2 Sam. 8:6; 1 Kings 4:24)." Warren Wiersbe 

I think, Valerie, that Tim Maas was right. The “sea” refers here to the Mediterranean Sea.

“to [the] river:” "The 'river' is the Euphrates River in Mesopotamia. Israel expanded both to the West and to the East." Bible.org 

I.e. to the west, that is, the Mediterranean Sea, and to the east, the Euphrates River.

April 11 2023 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report