Psalm 48 The Glory of God in Zion
A Song. A Psalm of the sons of Korah. 1 of 2
1 Great is Jehovah and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in His holy mountain. 2 Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great King. 3 God is in her palaces; He is known as her refuge. 4 For behold, the kings assembled, they passed by together. 5 They saw it, and so they marveled; they were troubled, they hastened away. 6 Fear took hold of them there, and pain, as of a woman in birth pangs, 7 as when You break the ships of Tarshish with an east wind. 8 As we have heard, so we have seen in the city of Jehovah of hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish it forever. Selah
After the millennium, the Throne is established in Jerusalem. And Mount Zion becomes the joy of the earth. “It may be asked, why this circumstance is mentioned as an encomium upon the hill of Sion, that Jerusalem lay on the north of it: The answer is, that it is mentioned as a proof of its greater security; for the hill of Sion was almost inaccessible on any other side, than towards the north; and here it was defended by Jerusalem, which was exceedingly strong: But though the psalmist mentions this as a material circumstance, he shews that it was not in the strength of it that he confided, but in the presence and protection of God; God is known in her palaces for a refuge.” (Thomas Coke)
The nations with their kings come against the walled city. “And there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts in that day.”(Zech 14:21b) They will perish. “For behold, the kings assembled, they passed by together. They saw it, and so they marveled; they were troubled, they hastened away. Fear took hold of them there, and pain, as of a woman in birth pangs, as when You break the ships of Tarshish with an east wind,’ etc. or, like the east wind, which in a moment dasheth in pieces the ships of Tarshish. Green. ‘I have added’, says Green, ‘in a moment, because the east wind in those parts is remarkably violent, (cp. Job 27:21. Jeremiah 18:17. Isaiah 27:8. Habakkuk 1:9.) and because it more easily conveys to the reader in what point of comparison it lies; namely, in the suddenness of the king's being seized with trembling and fear.'” (Thomas Coke) “The allusion to these ships here may have been to illustrate the power of God; the ease with which he destroys that which man has made. The ships so strong - the ships made to navigate distant seas, and to encounter waves and storms - are broken to pieces with infinite ease when God causes the wind to sweep over the ocean. With so much ease God overthrows the most mighty armies.” (Albert Barnes) —
“As we have heard, so we have seen’ etc. The writer, “speaking in the name of true believers, declares that the same power which God in the days of old had displayed in delivering their fathers, he now exercised towards their posterity. They had heard from the mouth of their fathers, and had learned from sacred history, how God in his great mercy and fatherly goodness had succoured his Church; but now they affirm that they can bear testimony to this not only from their having heard it spoken about, but also from having seen it.” (John Calvin)
“Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.” (Revelation 20:7-9) "A final attack on Jerusalem by the hostile nations is one of the standard pictures of the last times in Jewish thought. We find it especially in Daniel 11:1-45 and in Zechariah 14:1-11. The Sibylline Orders (3: 663-672) tell how the kings of the nations shall throw themselves against the land in troops, only to be ultimately destroyed by God. But here we come on a picture which etched itself deeply, if mysteriously, on Jewish thought, the picture of Gog and Magog. We find it first in Ezekiel 38:1-23; Ezekiel 39:1-29. There Gog of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and of Tubal, is to launch the great attack upon Israel [that is God’s Israel- the church] and is to be in the end utterly destroyed. It may be that originally Gog was connected with the Scythians whose invasions--all men feared.
As time went on, in Jewish thought Gog (Heb. #1463; Gr. #1136) and Magog (Heb. #4031; Gr. #3098) came to stand for everything that is against God. The rabbis taught that Gog and Magog would assemble themselves and their forces against Jerusalem, and would fall by the hand of the Messiah. [Thus] The hostile armies under the devil's leadership come up against the camp of God's people and against the beloved city, that is, [heavenly] Jerusalem; the hosts are consumed with fire from heaven, the devil is cast into the lake of fire and brimstone to share the fate of the beast and of the false prophet, and the triumph of God is complete.” (William Barclay on Revelation) Selah
Psalm 48 The Glory of God in Zion
A Song. A Psalm of the sons of Korah. 2 of 2- 9 We have thought, O God, on Your lovingkindness, in the midst of Your temple. 10 According to Your name, O God, so is Your praise to the ends of the earth; Your right hand is full of righteousness. 11 Let Mount Zion rejoice, let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of Your judgments. 12 Walk about Zion, and go all around her. Count her towers; 13 mark well her bulwarks; consider her palaces; that you may tell it to the generation following. 14 For this is God, our God forever and ever; He will be our guide even to death.
“’We have thought of thy loving-kindness, O God’ - They had ‘compared’ in their own minds what they had heard from their fathers with what they had now seen; they had called all these things up to their remembrance, and had compared the one with the other… ’in the midst of thy temple.’” (Albert Barnes) — when they had been worshipping in His temple. “For when the priests were offering incense or sacrifice, the religious people exercised themselves in holy meditation or secret prayer to God, as may be gathered from Luke 1:10…” (Matthew Poole)
“‘According to Your name, O God, so is Your praise to the ends of the earth;’— Thou art acknowledged, and evidently proved, to be such a one as thou hast affirmed thyself to be in thy Word, God Almighty, or All-sufficient, Jehovah of hosts, the King of thy church and people, a Strong Tower to all that trust in thee; and whatever else thou art said to be in Scripture. None of thy names are empty titles, but all of them are fully answered by honourable and praiseworthy works.” (Joseph Benson) “‘Thy right hand is full of righteousness.’ Thy sceptre and thy sword, thy government and thy vengeance, are altogether just. Thy hand is never empty, but full of energy, of bounty, and of equity. Neither saint nor sinner shall find the Lord to be an empty handed God; he will in both cases deal out righteousness to the full: to the one, through Jesus, he will be just to forgive, to the other just to condemn.” (Treasury of David)
“’Let Mount Zion rejoice,’ The glory of Jehovah's exploits overleaps the boundaries of earth; angels behold with wonder, and from every star delighted intelligences proclaim his fame beyond the ends of the earth.... What if men are silent, yet the woods, and seas, and MOUNTAINS with all their countless tribes, and all the unseen spirits that walk them, are full of the divine praise. As in a shell we listen to the murmurs of the sea, so in the convolutions of creation we hear the praises of God.” (Treasury of David) “‘Let the daughters of Judah,’ that is the remnant of Israel— the people in the land of the living, “‘be glad’—because of thy judgments upon thy and their enemies…. Just so, the church and all her children ought to rejoice with joy unspeakable, on account of the manifestation of divine power on her behalf against her enemies. Thus, at the fall of mystic Babylon, it is said, ‘Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets, for God hath avenged you on her, Revelation 18:20.’” (Horn) ” (Joseph Benson)
“‘Walk about Sion, and tell the towers thereof’— Are they not still the same and as many as they were before the approach of the enemy? is anything diminished or defaced by the late stage or assault? ‘Mark ye well her bulwarks’— Not at all impaired.“ (John Trapp)
There is no “ruin, or want, or misery. No! Zion still flourisheth, and must flourish, and be a perfection of beauty. Her ordinances, her courts, her palaces; these are her bulwarks and ramparts; and above all Jesus her King is in her.” (Hawker's Poor Man's Commentary)
”For this is God, our God forever and ever.’ - Jesus, that is our God and Saviour now, that hath been our fathers’ Saviour; is ours, and will be to the generation following, and to every generation of His seed forever and ever.” (Hawker's Poor Man's Comm)- “'He will be our guide even to death,' or as some explain it, at death, i.e., he will save us from it; others, over death, beyond it. But the most obvious explanation, and the one most agreeable to usage, is that which makes the phrase mean even to the end of life, or as long as we live. The idea of a future state, though not expressed, is not excluded.” (J. A. Alexander) “Till death is to us over.” (Andrew A. Bonar) “The landlord cannot say of his fields, these are mine for ever and ever. The king cannot say of his crown, this is mine for ever and ever. These possessions shall soon change masters; these possessors shall soon mingle with the dust, and even the graves they shall occupy may not long be theirs; but it is the singular, the supreme happiness of every Christian to say, or have a right to say, ‘This glorious God with all His divine perfections is my God, for ever and ever, and even death itself shall not separate me from His love.’" (George Burder)