What does “The psalms of David are ended” refer to?

Question

Psalm 72 ends with the words:

The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.

Yet after this a number of Psalms, especially many of the Psalms of Ascent are attributed to David (I think eighteen in all). Perhaps more strangely, Psalm 72 itself is marked as "Of Solomon", so it would seem an unusual place to mark the end of the psalms of David.

What is this line referring to? Is this merely evidence of a later scribe messing up the overall compilation of the Psalms? (It would still seem strange that the line would end up after a psalm of Solomon.) Are there other proposed explanations?

Answer 1

My understanding of the Psalm is that it is prayer of David, with the "of Solomon" in the Psalm's title meaning the Psalm is concerning Solomon, rather than authored by Solomon. The content of the Psalms supports this - it is the prayers of David for his son, prophesying what his son should do, and will do as king.

This leads us to the epilogue in verse 20:

The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.

Verse 20 does not refer to all of the preceding Psalms, but the prayers of the Psalm 72 by David concerning Solomon.