Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised. Psalm 48 A song of deliverance A. Maclaren, D. D. The psalm has manifestly some historical basis. What is it? The psalm gives these points — a formidable muster before Jerusalem of hostile people under confederate kings with the purpose of laying siege to the city — some mysterious cheek which arrests them before a sword is drawn, as if some panic fear had shot from its towers and shaken their hearts — and a flight in wild confusion from the impregnable dwelling-place of the Lord of hosts. Now, there is only one event in Jewish history which corresponds, point for point, to these details — the crushing destruction of the Assyrian army under Sennacherib. The psalm falls into three portions. I. THERE IS THE GLORY OF ZION (vers. 1, 2). Those words are something more than merely patriotic feeling. The Jew's glory in Jerusalem was a different thing altogether from the Roman's pride in Rome. For, to the devout Jew, there was one thing, and one thing only, that made Zion glorious — that in it God abode. The name even of that earthly Zion was "Jehovah-Shammah, the Lord is there." They celebrate concerning it that it is His city, the mountain of His holiness. This is its glory. And it is no spiritualizing or forcing a New Testament meaning into these words when we see in them the eternal truth, that the living God abides, and energizes by His Spirit and by His Son in the souls of them that believe upon Him. It is that presence which makes His Church fair as it is, that presence which keeps her safe. It is God in her, not anything of her own, that constitutes her "the joy of the whole earth." II. THE DELIVERANCE OF ZION. The psalm recounts with wonderful power and vigour the process of this deliverance (vers. 4-8). Mark the dramatic vigour of the description of the deliverance. There is, first, the mustering of the armies. "The kings were assembled" — we see them gathering their far-reaching and motley army, mustered from all corners of that gigantic empire. They advance together against the rocky fortress that towers above its girdling valleys. "They saw it, they marvelled" — in wonder, perhaps, at its beauty, as they first catch sight of its glittering whiteness from some hill crest on their march — or, perhaps, stricken by some strange amazement, as if, basilisk-like, its beauty were deadly, and a beam from the Shechinah had shot a nameless awe into their souls — "they were troubled, they hasted away." The abruptness of the language in this powerful description reminds us of the well-known words, "I came, I saw, I conquered," only that here we have to do with swift defeat — they came, they saw, they were conquered. In their scornful emphasis of triumph they are like Isaiah's description of the end of Sennacherib's invasion, "So Sennacherib, King of Assyria, departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh." "The trumpet spake not the armed throng, But kings sat still, with awful eye, As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by."One image is all that is given to explain the whole process of the deliverance, "Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind." The metaphor is that of a ship like a great unwieldy galleon caught in a tempest — compare the destruction of the Spanish Armada. However strong for fight, it is not fit for sailing. And so this huge assailant of Israel, this great "galley with oars," washing about there in the trough of the sea, as it were — God broke it in two with the tempest which is His breath. You remember how on the medal that commemorated the destruction of the Spanish Armada — our English deliverance — there were written the words of Scripture: "God blew upon them and they were scattered." What was there true, literally, is here true in figure. And then mark how from this drastic description there rises a loftier thought still. The deliverance thus described links the present with the past. "As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God." And with all the future — "God will establish it for ever." God will establish Zion; or, as the word might be translated, God will hold it erect, as if with a strong hand grasping some pole or banner-staff that else would totter and fall — He will keep it up, standing there firm and stedfast. If it had been possible to destroy the Church of the living God it had been gone long, long ago. Its own weakness and sin, the ever-new corruptions of its belief and paring of its creed, the imperfections of its life and the worldliness of its heart, the abounding evils that lie around it and the actual hostility of many that look upon it and say, Raze it, even to the ground, would have smitten it to the dust long since. It lives, it has lived in spite of all, and therefore it shall live. "God will establish it for ever." In almost every land there is some fortress or other which the pride of the inhabitants calls "the maiden fortress," and whereof the legend is that it has never been taken, and is inexpugnable by any foe. It is true about the tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter of Zion. The grand words of Isaiah about this very Assyrian invader are our answer to all fears within and foes without, "Say unto him, the virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn." III. ZION'S CONSEQUENT GRATEFUL PRAISE AND GLAD TRUST. The deliverance deepens their glad meditation on God's favour and defence. "We have thought of Thy lovingkindness in the midst of Thy temple." And it spreads God's fame throughout the world (ver. 10). ( A. Maclaren, D. D. ) Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion. Psalm 48:2, 3 Spiritual nationality J. McDougall. I. A REHEARSAL OF JEWISH HISTORY. This is necessary in order to understand the inner meaning of this psalm. Israel's history begins with Abraham. His life nomadic, wandering, a wilderness life. And so with Israel for centuries it was a forced desert experience. II. THE DIVINE PHILOSOPHY OF IT. It was to make up the longing for rest, for a settled habitation and a national life. They had learned enough to know that cities enable men to unite, to concentrate for great material purposes. Cities not only symbolized but secured possession, fixity, safety, growth, nationality. Hence their joy in Jerusalem of which this psalm is an utterance. III. AND TO ALL THIS THE CHRISTIAN LIFE CORRESPENDS. God's call separates, but ultimately unites. Let us anticipate our future in "the city of habitation." ( J. McDougall. ) The charm of Zion G. Hawker. (with Psalm 12 ): — There is comfort for us in the thought that Zion's beauty was spiritual; there is also warning. Wanting spiritual power, certain churches would have something left, a remaining charm. Their architectural monuments, their imposing ceremonies would still command a measure of deference and support, But wanting spiritual power, we are destitute indeed. Our Churches consist of persons who have made deliberate profession of faith in Christ; faith whereby they enter into spiritual union with Him. He is their Head, they are His members. I. Charm in our church life must therefore ever be dependent, first, upon the actualizing of this relation, by REAL COMMUNION WITH CHRIST. The unreal has no charm for God, and He purposes that it should have none for man. The Bible makes this clear, and experience echoes Bible teaching. Real communion with Christ is not sentiment. It is the surrender and reinforcement of the will. It is obedience, love, self-sacrifice supernaturally sustained. It is sharing the spirit and life of Jesus. II. Another essential to charm in the Church is SYMPATHY. The New Testament incites to brotherly love, bearing one another's burdens, looking on the things of others, and such like. In the first age, before the art of sublimating precepts into metaphors was discovered, these incitements found response; love was patent, sympathy flowed freely. The stream of sympathy flows still, but its course is often blocked by boulder-like conventionalities; and, where communion with Christ is defective, it fails at the spring. The social meeting, not unknown among us, merits study and development: the meeting in which our members get to know one another, discover that Christian fellowship is compatible with social friendship, and find opportunity for quiet natural speech upon the things of God. III. This brings me to another matter which must contribute charm to our Church life, namely, THE DISCLOSURE OF JOY IN GOD. Our recoil from cant has silenced the sincere. Yet, doubtless, every Christian should reveal, in look and word, the wealth of joy he has discovered in the Gospel. Of course, it is "bad form" to be demonstrative; to advertise one's emotions. It may be. But the stony immobility that never calls attention with enthusiasm to marvels of nature or miracles of grace is insulting to God; a fraudulent witholding of His due praise. IV. Something should be added about AGGRESSIVE ACTIVITY. If the Church is to maintain and increase her charm she must make it clear that she holds no truce with the giant wrongs under which men suffer. In warring against these the Church has done, and is doing, nobly. We claim, too, that she has supplied inspiration for' humanitarian enterprise effected under other auspices. When our best men take their seats in Town Council, the Church is present in their persons, and is a good councillor. Yet her watchword must be "Forward." The dullest scorner must be left without excuse for echoing the stupid libel that our churches are Pullman cars for heaven, the passengers caring only for their travelling comforts and safe arrival. ( G. Hawker. ) The beauty of Christ's Church W. M. Thomson, D. D. The situation (of Mount Zion) is, indeed, eminently adapted to be the platform of a magnificent citadel. Rising high above the deep Valley of Gihon and Hinnom on the West and South, and the scarcely less deep one of the Cheesemongers on the East, it could only be assailed from the Northwest; and then "on the side of the North" it was magnificently beautiful, and fortified by walls, towers and bulwarks, the wonder and terror of the nations. Alas her towers have long since fallen to the ground, her bulwarks have been overthrown, her palaces have crumbled to the dust, and we who now walk about Zion can tell no other story than this to the generation following. There is another Zion, however, whose towers are still more glorious and shall never be overthrown. ( W. M. Thomson, D. D. ) God is known in her palaces for a refuge. Psalm 48:3 The secret of national greatness Homilist. It is not the nation makes the people, but the people make the nation. On the rulers depends the nation's prosperity. When God is honoured in the palace He will be worshipped in the cottage. When Atheists make laws, sedition will be the offspring. I. INFLUENCE ALWAYS DESCENDS. It is like the rain and dew. The less follow the great. Great power, great wealthy, great minds always lead. II. THE GREAT AFFECT THE GREAT. The kings of the earth saw and were troubled. Palace religion is more displayed than that of the cottage. God has His own work for the insignificant, but the great have also their higher sphere. III. NATIONAL RELIGION IS NATIONAL PRESERVATION. The kings hasted away. Their hostility was vain in the presence of Him who was the Refuge of the palace. ( Homilist. ) God known as a refuge W. Arnot. Even false worship argues a constitutional capacity for the true. I. THE CONCEPTION OF GOD IS THE GREATEST THING IN MAN. In proportion as it is lost or distorted, human dignity decays, and the race sinks nearer the level of inferior creatures. The mould on which he was made is the cause of man's original greatness; but when he ceases to lay himself habitually back upon his origin, his being shrinks down again into the dimensions of a lower species. II. GOD IS. This is the first proposition in the inspired confession of faith ( Hebrews 11:6 ). An atheist may reason against the existence of God, and a worldly man may keep God out of all his thoughts, but neither the one nor the other can blot God out of being. Although we practically banish God out of our little spot of time, He will meet us when we enter His great eternity. III. GOD IS KNOWN. Observe Paul's method in reasoning with the Athenians regarding the altar which they had dedicated to the unknown God, and the cognate argument which he addressed to the idolaters at Lystra ( Acts 14:15-17 ; Acts 17:22-29 ). This is an inspired recognition of natural religion. The revelation which has been imprinted on earth and sky does not go far enough for the necessities of the fallen; but it is true as far as it goes. Men ought both to perceive its meaning and trust in its truth. IV. GOD IS KNOWN IN HER. "God is known," may be taken as the motto of natural, "God is known in her," as the motto of revealed religion. Wherever Christ is admitted King into a believing heart, there are the thrones of the house of David, there the temple stands, and thence sweet incense rises morning and evening to Heaven. Wherever many such believers are congregated, there is the city of the great King; wherever there are believing men and women, there is a peopled Jerusalem; and of that city it is the distinction still that God is known in her. V. GOD IS KNOWN IN HER PALACES. The psalm commemorates a revival in high places ( 2 Chronicles 17 .-20.). When grace was poured into the heart of the king, all ranks felt the benefit. The human skull, where the material organ of thought resides, has been called the palace of the soul. The princely spirit that dwells beneath that stately dome counts and keeps the whole world its tributary. In a princely way this king of the creatures has caught and tamed the powers of nature, and yoked them to his chariot. At the door of that regal residence a Stranger stands and knocks. Hear His voice, "If any man open, I will come in." This is God our Saviour. When He is admitted, God will be known in that palace; for, "He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father." Not Christ in heaven, but Christ in you, is the hope of glory. VI. GOD IS KNOWN IN HER PALACES FOR A REFUGE. The idea, the existence, the knowledge of God, whether among rich or poor, become for us all or nothing, according as we recognize Him as our refuge, or fear Him as our foe. For poor, blind, guilty, dying creatures, such as we are, there are only two ways open — we must either flee from God, or flee to Him. To those no good can happen, to these no evil. One thing is needful; and this is the meaning of a Gospel ministry, "Be ye reconciled to God." Make Him your refuge, and you will find the way is open, the welcome prepared; all things will work together for your good. ( W. Arnot. ) As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of Hosts, in the city of our God. Psalm 48:8-14 "As we have heard, so have we seen This is seldom true. In many places we see what we have not heard, and what we have heard we do not see. But when you come into "the city of the Lord of hosts," the reports about it are true, and the truth exceeds the report. I. IT IS MOST IMPORTANT THAT WE LISTEN TO TRUE WITNESSES; for, else, we shall not be able to say, "As we have heard, so have we seen." It is of the first importance to you all that you should hear the Word of God, and receive the truth as it is in Jesus; so that, both in the throng of life, and when you stand upon the borders of death, and in the changeless state of eternity, you may be able to say, "We thank God for the Gospel which we heard; for what we heard with our ears has been verified in our lives." II. GOOD HEARING LEADS ON TO SEEING — "As we have heard, so have we seen." Some of you have heard, and heard, but have never yet seen. The man who is content with one inlet to his mind, namely, his ears, but never uses his eyes, must imagine that God has made a mistake, and has given him more senses than he needs. Surely this argues a want of sense. "O taste and see that the Lord is good." You will ask how can a hearer of the Gospel become a seer of it? 1. He can do this by examining the facts which lie hears stated, and judging whether they are really so. The Scripture tells you that your heart is deceitful — see whether it be net so. It tells you that there is a natural inclination in man towards evil — study yourself, and see whether this is not the case. 2. We further see what we hear when we obey the commands and receive the blessings promised upon obedience. "if we confess our sins," etc. "Come unto Me," etc. 3. We also turn hearing into sight when, receiving the blessings which are promised to faith, we enter into a new life. III. SEEING WONDERFULLY CONFIRMS THE TRUTH OF WHAT WE HEAR. I am sure I can appeal to those of you who have seen the Lord in His glory, so as to abhor yourselves in dust and ashes, and to those of you who have seen yourselves, so that you have been ashamed and confounded at your own ways. I say, I can appeal to you to confirm the most solemn statements of Holy Scripture. However much its denunciations may make you shudder, your inmost soul consents to the truth of them. Brighter things, however, have we heard and seen. We heard that there is a calling of God, whereby He separates His chosen from the rest of mankind. We heard, too, that if we came to Jesus as we were, He would receive us; and He did receive us. Then we heard that there was such a thing as regeneration. "Ye must be born again." Many of you know the great and radical change, because you have experienced it. Further, to show you how experience supports the Word of God, we were told many times over that God hears prayer. We were reminded of the Saviour's words, "Ask, and it shall be given you," etc. Have you not prayed yourselves out of the dark into the sunlight; prayed yourselves out of the depths of despair up to the throne of God? IV. WHEN HEARING TURNS TO SEEING, AND IS CONFIRMED BY IT, THEN IT LEADS TO WITNESSING. So many are decrying the truth, that, if in your heart and conscience you have proved it true, you are bound to give to the Lord the testimony of even a stammerer. Your mouth is as God made it: use it as best you can, and speak up for His name and cause. Oh, for more of the missionary spirit, more telling out to the ends of the earth of what the Lord has done I What were the stars, if they did not shine? What were the sun, if He did not make our day? What were the rivers, if they did not water the lands? What were the sea itself, if it did not act as the pulsing heart of the world? What are Christians, if they do not shine as lights? Piety bottled up is dead. Religion put into a tin and hermetically sealed is useless. V. HEARING, SEEING, WITNESSING, GOD WILL GIVE YOU A YET FULLER ASSURANCE THAN YOU HAVE AS YET. "God will establish it for ever." That is the conclusion which the saint comes to, when he has tried the truth for himself, and borne witness to the result of his trial. God will never leave His Church. God will never forfeit His word. God will never desert His Gospel. His honour is bound up in the whole enterprise that Christ undertook, He must go through with it, and He must arrive at a glorious conclusion. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) "As we have heard, so have we seen A. Maclaren, D. D. The psalmist not only rejoices because of deliverance, but because that deliverance has proved that the commonplace present is as full of God as was the miraculous past, and has turned tradition into experience. The miracles of the Exodus have been repeated before the eyes of the psalmist's generation. "As we have heard, so have we seen," etc. And because the present has been the repetition of the past, the future shall be the continuation of the present. "God will establish it for ever." I. THE PLEDGE OF SECURITY IN THE NAME OF THE CITY. "The city of the Lord of hosts" — what does that great name for God mean? It means, I take it, very much the same thing as Jesus Christ praised the Roman-centurion for having groped his way to discover; that all the universe is like an embattled legion, subject to the command of one authoritative Imperator, or Emperor, the Lord of hosts. Well, then, if the city is His, who is going to take it? What about Sennacherib? He may muster his hosts as he likes, but "in the morning they were all dead corpses," and Sennacherib went away back to Assyria to pray to his god. Much he made of that; for whilst he was praying his sons cut his throat; and that was the end of the worship that is given to "the hosts," and not to the Lord of "the hosts." But that is not all. The city is "the city of our God." He is Lord of the hosts, but there is a relation more tender and blessed between us and Him than there is between them and Him, for he is "Our God." And how does He come to be our God? By what He has done, and by what we have done. The relation is reciprocal; His side of it is His taking us for His and telling us that He has done so; our side of it is our taking Him for ours by faith, love and obedience, and by our hearts' speech saying to Him, "Thou art my God." Then we may rest secure, if "the Lord of hosts is with us," etc. II. How ALL THE WONDERS OF THE PAST ARE REPEATED TODAY. That sounds paradoxical. "The age of miracles is past," say many sad hearts. We do not "see" as "we have heard," and we sometimes begin to doubt whether we have heard aright, just because we do not see what has been told us. Well, for all that, the triumphant word of my text is true to-day, as true as it was in regard to those who saw the miracle of the dead Assyrian hosts. My life is as full of God, if I like to make it so, as ever was the life of any patriarch or prophet or apostle of them all. Earth is as much crammed with God as it used to be. Not only is the reality of this working the same, but I venture to say the manner in which He now does His great things for us is an advance on the manner in which He did them of old. It is better to have a Christ in the heart than a Christ working miracles beside us; better to be guided by the Divine Spirit that dwells in us than by the pillar of fire and cloud. It is better to be committed to the responsibility of our own judgments, and our own purified hearts, than it is to hear a voice from heaven saying to us in articulate syllables what we ought to do. And they who are, or, if they will, may be, "strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man," do not need to envy those of old to whose palsied limbs the hands of the Saviour gave power, or to whose blind eyes he gave sight. III. THE CONFIDENCE FOR THE FUTURE WHICH SPRINGS FROM EXPERIENCE. It is always safe to reckon on God's future, and to infer what it will be, from God's past. You cannot do that with men, you can do it with Him; because He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. We get tired of helping people, and say, "I have done it so often that I really cannot do it any more." God says, "I have done it so often that I will not cease doing it." Men's purposes change; His do not. Men's resources get exhausted; His never. If we are trusting to Him we can boldly say, "Tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant." It is always safe to reckon on God's future being of a piece with God's past. Therefore, the city and the citizens, each one of whom has a personal relation to God, must live for ever, in order that they may possess all that God can give them. That is a plain way of putting what can be put in more graceful language, by saying that the experience of communion with God here is the best proof, to any of us, of immortal life hereafter. Because God has given us what He has given, and been to us what He has been, and done for us what He has done, it is impossible to believe that there can come an end to the relation between Him and us, and that the man who has clasped God's hand can ever die." He shall establish it for ever." ( A. Maclaren, D. D. ) Testimony confirmed by experience H. Melvill, B. D. 1. The Church, like a parent of a family, gives a volume into the hands of those who join her communion, bidding them receive it as Divine, and study it as the word which can alone guide them to glory. And her members, like the children of the household, have no better reason, at first, for receiving the Bible as inspired, than because they have heard so in the city of the Lord. They yield so much of respect to the directions of their authorized teachers, or to the impressions which have been graven on them from infancy, as to give their homage to a volume which is presumed to bear so lofty a character. But then, though it may thus be on hearsay that they first receive the Bible as inspired, it is not on hearsay that they continue to receive it. We speak of those in whom the Word has "wrought effectually"; and we confidently affirm of them, that, though at one time they believed in the inspiration of the canonical Scriptures, because their parents taught it, or their ministers maintained it, yet now are they in possession of a personal experimental evidence, which is thoroughly conclusive on this fundamental point. 2. But there is yet a more obvious application of the words of our text. It is said of God by Solomon that He "requireth that which is past." He seeks again that which is past, recalling, as it were, the proceedings, whether in judgment or mercy, of departed ages, and repeating them to the present generation. And it is on this account that there is such value in the registered experience of the believers of other days, so that the biography of the righteous is among the best treasures possessed by a church. It is, in one sense at least, a vast advantage to us that we live late in the world. We have all the benefit of the spiritual experience of many centuries, which has been bequeathed to us as a legacy of more worth than large wealth or far-spreading empire. We have not, therefore, to tread a path in which we have had but few precursors. Far as the eye can reach, the road we have to traverse is crowded with beckoning forms, as though the sepulchres gave up their host of worthies that we might be animated by the view of the victorious throng. And this is an advantage which it is hardly possible to overrate. You have only to add to this an acquaintance with the unchangeableness of God, and there seems all that can be needed to the encouragement and. confidence of the righteous. 3. If there be one passage of Scripture which we venture to put into the lips of redeemed men in glory, it is our text; in tiffs instance we may be confident that the change from earth to heaven will not have made the language of the one unsuited to the other. Oh, as the shining company take the circuit of the celestial city; as they "walk about Zion, and go round about her," telling the towers thereof, marking well her bulwarks, and considering her palaces; who can doubt that they say one to another, "as we have heard, so have we seen in the city of our God"? We heard that here "the wicked cease from troubling," and now we behold the deep rich calm. We heard that here we should be with the Lord, and now we see Him face to face. We heard that here we should know, and now the ample page of universal truth is open to our inspection. We heard that here, with the crown on the head, and the harp in the hand, we should execute the will and hymn the praises of our God, and now we wear the diadem, and wake the melody. ( H. Melvill, B. D. ) We have thought of Thy lovingkindness, O God, in the midst of Thy temple. Psalm 48:9 Thought -- its highest theme and material aid J. C. Gallaway, M. A. Three points stand out distinctly in the text, all of which are closely connected. I. THE MENTAL ART IS THOUGHT. "We have thought." It is you that think, not your body. But all mental acts are not thought. Memory, consciousness, sensations, emotions, are not thought, though they may be productive of it. Thought is judgment. We think when we analyze, compare, classify. Now, this faculty has certain properties, as — 1. Power; for it is the mightiest of all forces. The entire universe is the outcome of the thought of God. 2. Pleasantness, which rises at times to ecstasy. Pleasure is connected with the use of all our faculties, and not least with this of thought. 3. Universality. All can think. This is a thinking age, but it can never get beyond Jesus Christ, for He is the wisdom of God and the light of the world. II. THE THEME OF THOUGHT — God's lovingkindness. Yes, perhaps, some of you say, a noble and inspiring subject of thought, truly. But is there not a prior question? Is it a fact that God exists and that He loves? We live in a perplexing world, and strange and bold theories are afloat. How shall we know that God is, and that He loves? Begin with the fact nearest you, and which you do not and cannot question — your own personal existence. Each of you can say, "I am." Equally certain is it you did not make yourself. You come from a source adequate to such a result, and that source we call God, by which word we mean one equal to such a workmanship as you are. And now, admitting you had a Creator, what is there in you that indicates His heart towards you? What is there that shows love? Look at yourself fairly, beginning with your body, and take part after part. Your eye; what would you have lost if born blind, and what have you gained by seeing? Your ear; what do you owe for that? Your hands; what have they done for you? Is speech worth having? Any benevolent meaning in putting your palate at the entrance of food into your body? — in protecting the drum of the ear? — in giving you a curtain for the eye? — in covering the brain with a helmet of bone? Work without sleep would bring on madness, and at night the curtain is drawn, and you get your needed rest. What as to yourself, viewed as distinct from this wonderful framework? You have consciousness, sensation, memory, judgment. Can any calculation adequately convey to you the value of these endowments? You have, moreover, a moral sense, a heart, a will. And for these moral capabilities and cravings there is an abundant response in the hearts around you, and the proofs of a supreme moral Ruler — proofs which remain such, whatever your disposition towards them, and your ignoring of their voice. Having studied this personal Bible — yourself, extend the same thoughts to your nearest of kin, your household, your neighbourhood, your nation, your race — think of mankind in all generations. Add to these data all other living beings that do and have existed from the beginning as far as your imagination can give them room, and then ask, Did all the good and enjoyment embraced within this whole come out of indifference, malevolence or love? III. MATERIAL AID. We do not need the particular help which the ancient Jews had; but we can no more dispense with material appliances in our religious services than we can cease here to be clothed with flesh and be denizens of a material globe. We have God's own original temple — the house in which Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, Christ worshipped, a house the marvellous Divine teachings of which science is every day unconsciously unfolding to the eye of faith — a house big enough and free enough to hold all men at all hours, without money and without price, a house in which we "all live, and move, and have our being." Here we can all think on the Divine love, and pray. Nor, whatever you may specifically and religiously do in things material, would we ever have you despise or neglect this really Divine temple with all its marvellous aids to religious thought. But, while doing that, you can and ought to do the other thing also. You ought, out of the stones and clay of this inexhaustible storehouse, go and make other buildings specially adapted to the purpose of religious thought and worship, and not only build them, but use them, and induce all you can to avail themselves of their help. ( J. C. Gallaway, M. A. ) A worthy theme for thought Who were these people who declared to the Lord that they had thought of His lovingkindness in the midst of His temple? According to the title of the psalm, they were the sons of Korah — the singers in the house of the Lord. I think it is suggestive that they did not say, "We have sung of Thy lovingkindness." They had done that; but they said, "We have thought"; and there are some singers who have not done that, for they have sung solemn words thoughtlessly, caring only for the music, and not for the meaning. I. THEIR OCCUPATION WAS GRACIOUS. "We have thought of Thy lovingkindness, O God." 1. Thought is a noble faculty; the power to exercise

Benson Commentary Psalm 48:1 A Song and Psalm for the sons of Korah. Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Psalm 48:1 . Great is the Lord, &c. — Great is the majesty and the power of Jehovah; who is therefore to be celebrated with the highest praises; in the city of our God — Especially in his own city Jerusalem, and by the inhabitants of it; in the mountain of his holiness — In that mountain which he hath long ago set apart for the place of his worship, and hath now so marvellously defended. Psalm 48:2 Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King. Psalm 48:2 . Beautiful for situation is mount Zion — A beautiful place it is, which he hath chosen for his habitation; and that which especially renders it beautiful is, that it is the mountain of God’s holiness, the place where, in infinite wisdom, he hath fixed his sanctuary. The joy of the whole earth — For the law was to go forth out of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem; the joyful doctrine of the gospel, the glad tidings of salvation, were to go out from thence unto all nations. The words however may be rendered, The joy of the, or this, whole land: for God’s sanctuary, the solemn feasts kept there, and the vast multitudes of people who from time to time assembled at them, rendered it a most desirable place. On the sides of the north — It lies on the north side of Jerusalem; the city of the great King — Of Jehovah, the King of heaven and earth. Zion, however, is thought by some to have been situated on the south side of the mountain; but the temple stood on the north side of it, and was its peculiar honour and distinction. Psalm 48:3 God is known in her palaces for a refuge. Psalm 48:3 . God is known — To his people, by sensible and long experience; in her palaces — In the habitations of the city, and not only in the cottages, or meaner dwellings, but in the palaces: the princes and great men have recourse to God, and seek help from him. Possibly he may point at the king’s palace and the temple, which was the palace of the King of heaven; which two palaces God did in a singular manner protect, and, by protecting them, protected the whole city and people. For a refuge — Under whose shadow his people are more safe and secure than other cities are with their great rivers and impregnable fortifications. “Thus the great Founder of the church is also her protector and defender. The dependance of the new Jerusalem, like that of the old, is not in man, or in the arm of flesh, but in God, who resideth in the midst of her. For, surely, unless he kept the city, the watchmen in the towers would wake but in vain.” — Horne. Psalm 48:4 For, lo, the kings were assembled, they passed by together. Psalm 48:4-6 . For lo, the kings were assembled — The neighbouring princes confederate against Jerusalem: see the contents. They passed by — In their march toward Jerusalem. They advanced, and marched on, not doubting but they should presently make themselves masters of the city. Or, they passed away together — Departed without the success which they desired and expected. They saw it — They only looked upon it, but did not enter it, nor shoot an arrow there, nor cast a bank against it, as was said upon this or the like occasion, 2 Kings 19:32 . They marvelled — Not so much at the structure or strength of the city, as at the wonderful works wrought by God on its behalf. They were troubled, and hasted away — God impressed such terrors upon their minds as made them retire with precipitation. If he refer to the invasion by Sennacherib, he may allude to the fear he and his army were put into by tidings of Tirhakah’s coming against them; or to that terrible slaughter of them, mentioned 2 Kings 19:35 . Thus “the potentates of the world saw the miracles of the apostles, the courage and constancy of the martyrs, and the daily increase of the church, notwithstanding all their persecutions; they beheld, with astonishment, the rapid progress of the faith through the Roman empire; they called upon their gods, but their gods could not help themselves. Idolatry expired at the foot of the victorious cross, and the power which supported it became Christian.” — Horne. Psalm 48:5 They saw it, and so they marvelled; they were troubled, and hasted away. Psalm 48:6 Fear took hold upon them there, and pain, as of a woman in travail. Psalm 48:7 Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind. Psalm 48:7 . Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish, &c. — Thou didst no less violently and suddenly destroy these raging enemies of Jerusalem, than sometimes thou destroyest the ships at sea with a fierce and vehement wind, such as the eastern winds were in those parts. Psalm 48:8 As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the LORD of hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish it for ever. Selah. Psalm 48:8-9 . As we have heard, so have we seen — The predictions of the prophets have been verified by the events. Or, we have had late and fresh experience of such wonderful works of God, as before we only heard of by the report of our fathers. God will establish it for ever — God will defend her in all succeeding ages. And so God would have done, if Jerusalem had not forsaken him, and forfeited his protection. We have thought of thy loving-kindness — It hath been the matter of our serious and deep meditation, when we have been worshipping in thy temple. For when the priests were offering incense, or sacrifices, the religious people were wont to exercise themselves in holy meditation and secret prayer to God, Luke 1:10 . Or, we have silently, or patiently waited for thy loving- kindness, as ????? ????? , dim-minu chasdecha, more properly signifies, and some ancient and other interpreters render it. A consideration of the wondrous works which God has wrought for us tends to produce faith in his promises, and resignation to his will: “and he,” says Dr. Horne, “that with these dispositions waits for God’s mercies, in God’s house, shall not wait in vain.” Psalm 48:9 We have thought of thy lovingkindness, O God, in the midst of thy temple. Psalm 48:10 According to thy name, O God, so is thy praise unto the ends of the earth: thy right hand is full of righteousness. Psalm 48:10 . According to thy name, so is thy praise — 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, the Lord 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. Thy right hand is full of righteousness — That is, of righteous actions, by which thou discoverest thy truth, justice, and holiness, in destroying the wicked and incorrigible enemies of thy people, and in fulfilling thy promises made to thy church. Psalm 48:11 Let mount Zion rejoice, let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of thy judgments. Psalm 48:11 . Let mount Zion rejoice — That is, Jerusalem; let the daughters of Judah — The other lesser cities, towns, and villages; be glad, because of thy judgments — Upon thy and their enemies. Let the mother city give an example of joy and thankfulness to all the smaller places, and to the whole kingdom, and let them unanimously join together, with the greatest gladness, to express how sensible they are of thy power and goodness in the wonderful deliverance granted them. 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 .” — Horne. Psalm 48:12 Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof. Psalm 48:12-13 . Walk about Zion, &c. — He speaks probably to the people of the city and kingdom, who had been eye-witnesses of the glorious work God had wrought for their deliverance. Bishop Patrick thus paraphrases the words: “Make a solemn procession, and go round about the city, blessing and praising God, with thankful hearts, who hath preserved you from being begirt by the enemy. Tell all the towers as you go along, and see if there be so much as one wanting, or the least hurt done to any of them.” Some commentators, however, think that he speaks to the hostile kings and their armies, who had come up against Jerusalem, and had gone round her to reconnoitre her strength, in order to take her, but who were now fled away; and that he calls upon them to return, and go round her again, and see how entire her fortifications were; and bids them tell the next generation, that it would be in vain to attempt any thing against her while she had Jehovah for her protector. Psalm 48:13 Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it to the generation following. Psalm 48:14 For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death. Psalm 48:14 . This God, &c. — Who hath done this great work for us; is our God — Who alone can protect us, and will be our defender, if we depend upon him, for ever and ever. He will be our guide even unto death — While we have a being. He will not content himself with having delivered and preserved us once; but will be our conductor, and will exercise a most tender care over us, such as a shepherd doth over his sheep, all the days of our life. Birth and life, and the several ages of life and death, are often ascribed to churches and commonwealths, both in the Scriptures and in other authors. This promise was made to the old and earthly Jerusalem, upon condition of their obedience, in which, as they grossly failed, they lost the benefit of it; but it is absolutely made good to the new and heavenly Jerusalem, the church of Christ, and all the true members thereof. Observe, reader, if Jehovah be our God, he will be our guide, our faithful, constant guide, to show us our way to true happiness here and hereafter, and to lead us in it; he will be so even unto death, which will be the period of our way, and will bring us to our rest. He will conduct us safe to felicity and immortality on the other side of death, to a life most blessed, in which there shall be no more death nor suffering. If we take the Lord for our God, he will convey us safe to death, through death, and beyond death; down to death, and up again to glory. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Psalm 48:1 A Song and Psalm for the sons of Korah. Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Psalm 48:1-14 THE situation seems the same as in Psalm 46:1-11 , with which this psalm has many points of contact. In both we have the same triumph, the same proud affection for the holy city and sanctuary, the same confidence in God’s dwelling there, the same vivid picturing of the mustering of enemies and their rapid dispersion, the same swift movement of style in describing that overthrow, the same thought of the diffusion of God’s praise in the world as its consequence, the same closing summons to look upon the tokens of deliverance, with the difference that, in the former psalm, these are the shattered weapons of the defeated foe, and in this the unharmed battlements and palaces of the delivered city. The emphatic word of the refrain in Psalm 46:1-11 also reappears here in Psalm 48:3 . The psalm falls into three parts, of which the first ( Psalm 48:1-2 ) is introductory, celebrating the glory of Zion as the city of God; the second ( Psalm 48:3-8 ) recounts in glowing words the deliverance of Zion; and the third tells of the consequent praise and trust of the inhabitants of Zion ( Psalm 48:9-14 ). The general sense of the first part is plain, but Psalm 48:2 is difficult. "Mount Zion" is obviously subject, and "lovely in loftiness" and "joy of all the earth" predicates; but the grammatical connection of the two last clauses is obscure. Further, the meaning of "the sides of the north" has not been satisfactorily ascertained. The supposition that there is an allusion in the phrase to the mythological mountain of the gods, with which Zion is compared, is surely most unnatural. Would a Hebrew psalmist be likely to introduce such a parallel, even in order to assert the superiority of Zion? Nor is the grammatical objection to the supposition less serious. It requires a good deal. of stretching and inserting to twist the two words "the sides of the north" into a comparison. It is more probable that the clause is topographical, describing some part of the city, but what part is far from clear. The accents make all the verse after "earth" the subject of the two preceding predicates, and place a minor division at "north," implying that "the sides of the north" is more closely connected with "Mount Zion" than with the "city of the great King," or than that last clause is. Following these indications, Stier renders "Mount Zion [and] the northern side ( i.e. , the lower city, on the north of Zion), which together make the city," etc. Others see here "the Holy City regarded from three points of view"- viz ., "the Mount Zion" (the city of David), "the sides of the north" (Mount Moriah and the Temple), "the city of the great King" (Jerusalem proper). So Perowne and others. Delitzsch takes Zion to be the Temple hill, and "the sides of the north" to be in apposition. "The Temple hill, or Zion, in the narrower sense, actually formed the northeastern corner of ancient Jerusalem," says he, and thus regards the subject of the whole sentence as really twofold, not threefold, as appears at first-Zion on the north, which is the palace temple, and Jerusalem at its feet, which is "the city of the great King." But it must be admitted that no interpretation runs quite smoothly, though the summary ejection of the troublesome words "the sides of the north" from the text is too violent a remedy. But the main thought of this first part is independent of such minute difficulties. It is that the one thing which made Zion-Jerusalem glorious was God’s presence in it. It was beautiful in its elevation; it was safely isolated from invaders by precipitous ravines, inclosing the angle of the plateau on which it stood. But it was because God dwelt there and manifested Himself there that it was "a joy for all the earth." The name by which even the earthly Zion is called is "Jehovah-Shammah, The Lord is there." We are not forcing New Testament ideas into Old Testament words when we see in the psalm an eternal truth. An idea is one thing; the fact which more or less perfectly embodies it is another. The idea of God’s dwelling with men had its less perfect embodiment in the presence of the Shechinah in the Temple, its more perfect in the dwelling of God in the Church, and will have its complete when the city "having the glory of God" shall appear, and He will dwell with men and be their God. God in her, not anything of her own, makes Zion lovely and gladdening. "Thy beauty was perfect through My comeliness which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord." The second part pictures Zion’s deliverance with picturesque vigour ( Psalm 48:3-8 ). Psalm 48:3 sums up the whole as the act of God, by which He has made Himself known as that which the refrain of Psalm 46:1-11 declared Him to be-a refuge, or, literally, a high tower. Then follows the muster of the hosts. "The kings were assembled." That phrase need not be called exaggeration, nor throw doubt on the reference to Sennacherib’s army, if we remember the policy of Eastern conquerors in raising their armies from their conquests, and the boast which Isaiah puts into the mouth of the Assyrian: "Are not my princes altogether kings?" They advance against the city. "They saw,"-no need to say what. Immediately they "were amazed." The sight of the city broke on them from some hillcrest on their march. Basilisk-like, its beauty was paralysing, and shot a nameless awe into their hearts. "They were terror-struck: they fled." As in Psalm 46:6 , the clauses, piled up without cement of connecting particles convey an impression of hurry, culminating in the rush of panic-struck fugitives. As has been often noticed, they recall Caesar’s Veni, vidi, vici ; but these kings came, saw, were conquered. No cause for the rout is named. No weapons were drawn in the city. An unseen hand "smites once, and smites no more"; for once is enough. The process of deliverance is not told; for a hymn of victory is not a chronicle. One image explains it all, and signalises the Divine breath as the sole agent. "Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind" is not history, but metaphor. The unwieldy, huge vessel, however strong for fight, is unfit for storms, and, caught in a gale, rolls heavily in the trough of the sea, and is driven on a lee shore and ground to pieces on its rocks. "God blew upon them, and they were scattered," as the medal struck on the defeat of the Armada had it. In the companion psalm God’s uttered voice did all. Here the breath of the tempest, which is the breath of His lips, is the sole agent. The past, of which the nation had heard from its fathers, lives again in their own history; and that verification of traditional belief by experience is to a devout soul the chief blessing of its deliverances. There is rapture in the thought that "As we have heard, so have we seen." The present ever seems commonplace. The sky is farthest from earth right overhead, but touches the ground on the horizon behind and before. Miracles were in the past; God will be manifestly in the far-off future, but the present is apt to seem empty of Him. But if we rightly mark His dealings with us, we shall learn that nothing in His past has so passed that it is not present. As the companion psalm says, The God of Jacob is our refuge," this exclaims, "As we have heard, so have we seen." But not only does the deliverance link the present with the past, but it flings a steady light into the future. "God shall establish her forever." The city is truly "the eternal city," because God dwells in it. The psalmist was thinking of the duration of the actual Jerusalem, the imperfect embodiment of a great idea. But whatever may be its fate, the heart of his confidence is no false vision; for God’s city will outlast the world. Like the "maiden fortresses," of which there is one in almost every land, fondly believed never to have been taken by enemies, that city is inexpugnable, and the confident answer to every threatening assailant is, "The virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee." "God will establish her forever." The pledges of that stability are the deliverances of the past and present. The third part ( Psalm 48:9-14 ) deals with the praise and trust of the inhabitants of Zion. Deliverance leads to thankful meditation on the lovingkindness which it so signally displayed, and the ransomed people first gather in the Temple, which was the scene of God’s manifestation of His grace, and therefore is the fitting place for them to ponder it. The world wide consequences of the great act of lovingkindness almost shut out of sight for the moment its bearing on the worshippers. It is a lofty height to which the song climbs, when it regards national deliverance chiefly as an occasion for wider diffusion of God’s praise. His "name" is the manifestation of His character in act. The psalmist is sure that wherever that character is declared praise will follow, because he is sure that that character is perfectly and purely good, and that God cannot act but in such a way as to magnify Himself. That great sea will cast up nothing but pearls. The words carry also a lesson for recipients of Divine lovingkindness, teaching them that they misapprehend the purpose of their blessings, if they confine these to their own well-being and lose sight of the higher object-that men may learn to know and love Him. But the deliverance not only produces grateful meditation and widespread praise; it sets the mother city and her daughter villages astir, like Miriam and her maidens, with timbrel and dance, and ringing songs which celebrate "Thy judgments," terrible as they were. That dead host was an awful sight, and hymns of praise seem heartless for its dirge. But it is not savage glee nor fierce hatred which underlies the psalmist’s summons, and still less is it selfish joy. "Thy judgments" are to be hymned when they smite some giant evil; and when systems and their upholders that array themselves against God are drowned in some Red Sea, it is fitting that on its banks should echo, "Sing ye to Jehovah, for He hath triumphed gloriously." The close of this part may be slightly separated from Psalm 48:9-11 . The citizens who have been cooped up by the siege are bidden to come forth, and, free from fear, to compass the city without and pass between its palaces within, and so see how untouched they are. The towers and bulwark or rampart remain unharmed, with not a Stone smitten from its place. Within, the palaces stand without a trace of damage to their beauty. Whatever perishes in any assaults, that which is of God will abide; and, after all musterings of the enemy, the uncaptured walls will rise in undiminished strength, and the fair palaces which they guard glitter in untarnished splendour. And this complete exemption from harm is to be told to the generation following, that they may learn what a God this God is, and how safely and well He will guide all generations. The last word in the Hebrew text, which the A.V. and R.V. render "even unto death," can scarcely have that meaning. Many attempts have been made to find a signification appropriate to the close of such a triumphal hymn as this, but the simplest and most probable course is to regard the words as a musical note, which is either attached abnormally to the close of the psalm, or has strayed hither from the superscription of Psalm 49:1-20 . It is found in the superscription of Psalm 9:1-20 (" Al-Muth ") as a musical direction, and has in all likelihood the same meaning here. If it is removed, the psalm ends abruptly, but a slight transposition of words and change of the main division of the verse remove that difficulty by bringing "forever and aye" from the first half. The change improves both halves, laying the stress of the first exclusively on the thought that this God is such a God (or, by another rendering, "is here," i.e. , in the city), without bringing in reference to the eternity of His protection, and completing the second half worthily, with the thought of His eternal guidance of the people among whom He dwells. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.