The psalmist turns for a moment from his prayer for the perpetuity of the king's rule, to linger upon the thought of its blessedness as set forth in the lovely image of ver. 6. Rain upon mown grass is no blessing, as every farmer knows; but what is meant is, not the grass which has already been mown, but the naked meadow from which it has been taken. It needs drenching showers, in order to sprout again and produce an aftermath. The poet's eye is caught by the contrast between the bare look of the field immediately after cutting and the rich growth that springs, as by magic, from the yellow roots after a plentiful shower. This king's gracious influences shall fall upon even what seems dead, and charm forth hidden life that will flush the plain with greenness. The psalmist dwells on the picture, reiterating the comparison in ver. 6 _b_, and using there an uncommon word, which seems best rendered as meaning a heavy rainfall. With such affluence of quickening powers will the righteous king bless his people. The "Mirror for Magistrates," which is held up in the lovely poem in 2 Sam. xxiii. 4, has a remarkable parallel in its description of the just ruler as resembling a "morning without clouds, when the tender grass springeth out of the earth through clear shining after rain"; but the psalmist heightens the metaphor by the introduction of the mown meadow as stimulated to new growth. This image of the rain lingers with him and shapes his prayer in ver. 7 _a_. A righteous king will insure prosperity to the righteous, and the number of such will increase. Both these ideas seem to be contained in the figure of their flourishing, which is literally _bud_ or _shoot_. And, as the people become more and more prevailingly righteous, they receive more abundant and unbroken peace. The psalmist had seen deeply into the conditions of national prosperity, as well as those of individual tranquillity, when he based these on rectitude.