Psalms 48:5-14

5 [When] they saw [Mount Zion], they were astonished. They were terrified and ran away in fear.

6 Trembling seized them like the trembling that a woman experiences during labor.

7 With the east wind you smash the ships of Tarshish.

8 The things we had only heard about, we have now seen in the city of the LORD of Armies, in the city of our God. God makes Zion stand firm forever. Selah

9 Inside your temple we carefully reflect on your mercy, O God.

10 Like your name, O God, your praise [reaches] to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is filled with righteousness.

11 Let Mount Zion be glad and the cities of Judah rejoice because of your judgments.

12 Walk around Zion. Go around it. Count its towers.

13 Examine its embankments. Walk through its palaces. Then you can tell the next generation,

14 "This God is our God forever and ever. He will lead us beyond death."

Psalms 48:5-14 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.