Psalms 48:1-8

1 God majestic, praise abounds in our God-city! His sacred mountain,

2 breathtaking in its heights - earth's joy. Zion Mountain looms in the North, city of the world-King.

3 God in his citadel peaks impregnable.

4 The kings got together, they united and came.

5 They took one look and shook their heads, they scattered and ran away.

6 They doubled up in pain like a woman having a baby.

7 You smashed the ships of Tarshish with a storm out of the East.

8 We heard about it, then we saw it with our eyes - In God's city of angel armies, in the city our God Set on firm foundations, firm forever.

Psalms 48:1-8 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 48

\\<>\\. This psalm is entitled a "song psalm", a psalm to be sung vocally; or "a song and psalm" to be sung both vocally and instrumentally; and is one of the spiritual songs the apostle speaks of, Eph 5:19; It was occasioned, as some think, by David's spoiling the Philistines, 2Sa 5:17-21; or, as others, by the deliverance of the people from the Moabites and Ammonites in the times of Jehoshaphat, 2Ch 20:27,28; or, as others, by the deliverance of the inhabitants of Jerusalem from Sennacherib in the times of Hezekiah, 2Ki 19:34,35; though as Kimchi, a celebrated Jewish commentator, owns, it belongs to the times of the Messiah, as the other preceding psalms; and treats of his greatness, and of the praise and glory due to him, and gives large encomiums of his church.