Rain on Mown Grass

In 2010, a massive earthquake leveled much of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, killing over 200,000 people. Amid the chaos, a quiet Haitian judge named Jean-Pierre Brice refused to abandon his post. While others fled, he set up an improvised court beneath a tarp, settling land disputes between neighbors whose property lines had literally shifted overnight. He prioritized widows and orphans — people who had no one to advocate for them. No bribes. No favoritism. Just steady, careful justice handed down in the dust.

Reporters asked why he bothered. His courthouse was rubble. His salary had stopped. He said simply, "When the ground shakes, the poorest lose the most. If I leave, who speaks for them?"

That is the vision the psalmist paints in Psalm 72 — a reign where justice rolls downhill toward the vulnerable, where righteousness falls "like rain on mown grass, like showers watering the earth." The ideal king doesn't hoard power; he bends it toward the afflicted. He doesn't crush the weak; he crushes the oppressor.

And the psalmist knows this kind of justice doesn't originate in any human heart. It comes from God alone. That is why the psalm ends not with praise for the king, but with praise for Yahweh — "blessed be His glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with His glory."

Every act of true justice is a whisper of that coming kingdom.