Psalm 48:11














In this psalm, which is both song and psalm, and is one of those "for the sons of Korah," there is a general theme, illustrated by a reference to some historic event. The general theme is the loving-kindness and care of God over his Church. The specific historic illustration it is not possible to fix with certainty, although the preponderance of opinion, and also the largest amount of probability, seems to incline towards the wondrous repulse of Edom, Ammon, Moab, and ethers, in answer to Jehoshaphat's prayer, without Israel having to fight in the battle (see 2 Chronicles 20.). We see from the narrative of the Chronicles that the children of the Korahites sang a song of praise on the occasion of that signal interposition of God, although it is not likely that the song then sang was the forty-eighth psalm; for the reference in ver. 7 is against that; and at first it is not easy to see how "ships of Tarshish" should come to be mentioned in this song, if prepared with reference to the event of which we have made mention. Ezekiel (Ezekiel 27:25, 26) makes mention of ships of Tarshish which belonged to Tyro, being "broken" by the east wind; and it is possible that the psalm may have an allusion thereto. But, singularly enough, the chapter that records Jehoshaphat's prayer and deliverance records also his defection and its punishment; and we are told that his ships were broken so that they were not able to go to Tarshish (2 Chronicles 20:35-37). If this be the reference in the song before us, its significance would be very striking; in that case, it would mean that Jehovah, Israel's God, who put the heathen to flight for Israel's sake, put even Israel to shame when her people or her kings left the straight path of reliance on and obedience to God alone; and that this was among the "judgments" of him whose right hand is full of righteousness; showing us that God's care for his Church is just as marked when he rebukes her for her sins as when he delivers her from her foes; and that both for his faithful chastisement as for his mighty interposition, his loving-kindness is rehearsed in his temple with gratitude and song. And there is a holy pride in rehearsing the privileges of Zion as far outweighing those of the nations around - a pride, however, which refers all the honour and glory of Zion to God, and to God alone. Interesting, however, as these historic allusions are to the student, the higher spiritual bearing of the psalm is far more interesting, and far more important, as it sets before us this theme - the privilege and honour of the Church of God. We need not here argue the point that the Christian Church is the successor to the honours and privileges of the Jewish Church. A comparison of Exodus 19:6 with 1 Peter 2:9 will show this. The Christian Church, in its largest sense, is made up of all believers in our Lord Jesus Christ. The organization of distinct and definite communities as Churches is a necessity for the time now present, but no such organizations include all believers; many believers, moreover, are in no such organization at all; only "the Lord knoweth them that are his;" and over all such his care is exercised: in their totality as including all regenerated souls, they make up the Church of God. Of this Church as a unity we have now to speak.

I. GOD'S DWELLING-PLACE IS IN HIS CHURCH, (Vers. 1, 2.) It is quite possible that, after what we have just said about the Church in its entirety and vastness, and about the impossibility of its being scanned by any human eye, that it may be said, "But if the Church is thus undefinable by us as to its limits, we cannot conceive of it as a dwelling-place." This we can easily understand. But the demur has, in reality, no force. For it is quite clear from the New Testament that as there is "the Church" in the highest spiritual sense, so there are local and organized Churches in the geographical sense. Of this the epistles to the seven Churches of Asia are immediate and sufficient proof. And wherever a Church is faithful to its Lord, since whatever is true of the whole Church is true of any part of it, the believers in Jesus who belong to any local and faithful Church may apply to themselves that which Paul declared of the Ephesian converts when he wrote, "Ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit." Thus no Christian need hesitate to apply the words to the fellowship of believers to which he belongs; he may say," God is known in our palaces for a Refuge. This Church is a city of the great King. And the real presence of a living Saviour among us is our honour, our joy, our life (Matthew 18:20; Matthew 28:20).

II. GOD HIMSELF IS THE REFUGE OF THE CHURCH. (Ver. 3.) It is the privilege of the individual believer, in all times of trial, sorrow, and care, to betake himself to his God and Saviour as to an unfailing Friend. But this privilege rises to sublimity when a whole company of believers, encompassed with peril and threatened by foes from without, can all rush to their Saviour in faith and prayer, as to a Refuge from the gathering storm!

III. GOD'S LOVING-KINDNESS IS THE THEME OF THE CHURCH. (Ver. 9.) How much fuller and sweeter is this theme for meditation now than of old! Then it was gained through prophets; now from him before whose presence lawgiver and prophet retire, as stars are concealed in the brightness of the sun! How incomparably does Romans 8. surpass aught in the Old Testament! And what was there in the olden time so tender as Luke 15.? Verily such a theme lifts the soul heavenward, tunes the lips to song, and speeds the feet to run the race set before us.

IV. GOD'S DELIVERANCES MARK THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH. (Vers. 4-8.) The effect of this vivid description is pictorial. We can almost see the kings eyeing Jerusalem with envy, plotting her capture, seized with panic and hurrying away as for very life. The psalmist says that he had heard of such deliverances in times past, and now had seen them. And any student of Church history who has been withal for fifty years a close observer of Church life, can say the same. That God is the perpetual Deliverer of his Church is the story of the past and the testimony of the present. Nor may we forget the double kind of deliverance:

(1) from foes without;

(2) from mischief within.

If the view given above of ver. 7 is correct, the verse suggests that the Church owes quite as much to God's chastening love in correcting her for her sins, as to his rescuing power in spoiling her foes. That he will do this is part of the covenant (Psalm 89:28-33).

V. THE HONOUR OF GOD'S NAME IS HIS OWN PLEDGE TO THE CHURCH. (Vers. 10,11.) In the attribute of God's righteousness is the Church's repose and glory. Through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, faithfulness, justice, righteousness, can be the supports of sinful men. This is the supreme wonder of redeeming grace. Think of it! Sinful people rejoicing that God's right hand is full of righteousness!

VI. GOD'S GRACIOUS RELATIONS ARE THE GUARANTEE OF THE PERPETUITY OF THE CHURCH. (Vers. 12-14.) We omit the italic "it in ver. 13 (Authorized Version), and translate the first word in ver. 14 that." The psalmist incites to a study of Zion's towers, bulwarks, palaces, privileges, that it may be declared to the generation following, that "this God is our God for ever and ever." And when we study the redemption in Christ which has founded the Church, the spiritual power which is building up the Church, the watchful providence which has for eighteen centuries guarded the Church, the story which we have to hand down to the coming generation is the same, but told with vaster emphasis, surer faith, and more rapturous joy. "This God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our Guide above death, and beyond it!" "Happy is the people that is in such a case! yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord!" - C.

Thy right hand is full of righteousness.
In the classic pictures of the gods, some held in the right hand an olive branch, some a sceptre, Neptune a trident, Apollo arrows, Mercury a wand, Minerva a scroll, Venus a golden apple. It is a proof of superiority in this picture from the psalmist that his Deity seemed to reach forth a right hand full of righteousness. The word "right" comes through all the civilized languages, without much change, from an old classic radical, signifying straight or true to a rule. When the old mason found his work answering to the plumb-line, he said rectus; or answering to his level, or to his model, he said rectus. Hence righteousness signifies abounding in, conformity to a moral ideal, full of correspondence to some perfect rule of action or being. Religion has a less clear significance. When we have said that it is a spiritual binding of man to God, we have said all we know about the world's primitive significance. The relation between man and man is called society; between man and country, patriotism; between man and God, religion. Religion aspires to an ideal — that which it sees in God. Righteousness and religion must, therefore, be closely related. And to see this more clearly think of man's unrighteous conduct — what a history that is. No ancient sword was ever stayed while it had power to kill, or victim to be killed. Julius Caesar is said to have slain one million, two hundred thousand human beings; and the conquerors of Jerusalem put to death three million. Man has been a worse foe to man than have all the beasts of the forest, and all the storms or plagues of nature. Unrighteousness is the great foe of the human race. If one will sit down with this black history open before him, how beautiful upon its background will all deeds of righteousness appear, deeds that conformed to infinite right of neighbour. Whether you recall all the tenderness there has been in the world between parents and children, between friends, between rulers and subjects, and the justice of law and of the courts, each fact will reveal at once the divineness of righteousness, its whiteness, its sweetness. In estimating the worth of right, it is a great mistake if you limit this righteousness to the obedience of statute or common laws. Such limitation gives an honest man or a law-abiding citizen, but not a righteous man; for righteous means abounding in right, in fitting, in appropriate action. When you watch by the bedside of the sick, or teach the ignorant, or comfort the sorrowful, or give to the helpless poor, you are acting righteously, because there are unwritten laws of humanity; there is an ideal law out of the statute, and above the statute, to which the deed conforms, and from which secures its title of righteousness. Whether there could be high and correct action without religion I am unable to say. I know of no data from which to draw a conclusion. The world has never made the experiment, for religion has always rushed to the field so early in all national life, that man has never been able to know what he might have done without that element. Blair, long ago, said, "You may discover tribes of men without policy, or laws, or cities, or arts, but not without religion." Plutarch had said the same. Hence it seems that the nature of man is such that it will never give science an opportunity to learn how perfect a righteousness there might be without the influence of a God. But how is it to be explained that a sense of righteousness and a belief in God appears simultaneously and invariably in higher forms of society? It is no accident any more than the simultaneity of the harvest field and the warm sunshine. God's right hand is full of righteousness, and the right hand of righteousness is full of God. As a fact, all those who have been the students or servants of right have been believers in God. It is the man of science that generally moves away from the idea of God. Atheism has always been a camp-follower of the naturalist. From Lucretius to Huxley it has been so. But all the toilers in the domain of right, from Justinian to Webster, from Plato to Grotius, from Solomon to Franklin, have been near and firm in their friendship for the Divine idea. "True religion is the foundation of society." This is not from Huxley, but from Edmund Burke. "Religion is a necessary element in any great human character." This is not from Darwin, but from Webster. We mean no insult to the students of science, but mean that, as a fact, the study of law has always led the mind toward the Deity, and has thus revealed the casual connection between right and God. The inferences from this dependence of human purity upon God must be these —(1) Christ, in unfolding the character of God, in tearing down all idols, and in filling the universe with one spirit, infinite and blessed, has done a work that should bind Him upon the forehead and heart of man.(2) If God is the ideal of justice, it becomes the Christian world to see to it that His character is so painted that the human mind can look up to Him and feel the grandeur of the ideal, not to be repelled, but charmed and conquered. The blessed name must be freed from the whole terrific associations of ages of cruelty and brute force, and so set before mankind in the spotless robes of justice, that the human heart may ever gladly and securely rest therein.

(David Swing.)

People
Korah, Psalmist, Tarshish
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Daughters, Decisions, Glad, Joy, Joyful, Judah, Judgments, Mount, Mountain, Rejoice, Rejoices, Sake, Villages, Wise, Zion
Outline
1. The ornaments and privileges of the church

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 48:1-14

     7271   Zion, as symbol

Library
A Song of Deliverance
'Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness. 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. 3. God is known in her palaces for a refuge. 4. For, lo, the kings were assembled, they passed by together. 5. They saw it, and so they marvelled; they were troubled, and hasted away. 6. Fear took hold upon them there, and pain, as of a woman in travail. 7. Thou breakest
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Mystery
Of the Two Witnesses prophesying in Sackcloth. Two witnesses or prophets sent by God, clothed in sackcloth, are to preach, while the Gentiles are treading under foot the court of the people of God, or the holy city. These are the interpreters and assertors of Divine truth, who should deplore that foul and lamentable contamination of the Church of Christ, by continual complaints, and whom God would raise up as unceasing monitors to the Christian world, committing whoredom with the Gentiles, and as
Joseph Mede—A Key to the Apocalypse

Sermon on the Mount Continued Its Woes in Strict Agreement with the Creator's Disposition. Many Quotations Out of the Old Testament in Proof of This.
"In the like manner," says He, [3982] "did their fathers unto the prophets." What a turncoat [3983] is Marcion's Christ! Now the destroyer, now the advocate of the prophets! He destroyed them as their rival, by converting their disciples; he took up their cause as their friend, by stigmatizing [3984] their persecutors. But, [3985] in as far as the defence of the prophets could not be consistent in the Christ of Marcion, who came to destroy them; in so far is it becoming to the Creator's Christ that
Tertullian—The Five Books Against Marcion

But I Marvel, If, as it is Allowed to Put Away a Wife Who...
7. But I marvel, if, as it is allowed to put away a wife who is an adulteress, so it be allowed, having put her away, to marry another. For holy Scripture causes a hard knot in this matter, in that the Apostle says, that, by commandment of the Lord, the wife ought not to depart from her husband, but, in case she shall have departed, to remain unmarried, or to be reconciled to her husband; [1950] whereas surely she ought not to depart and remain unmarried, save from an husband that is an adulterer,
St. Augustine—On the Good of Marriage

St. Malachy's Apostolic Labours, Praises and Miracles.
[Sidenote: 1140, October] 42. (23). Malachy embarked in a ship, and after a prosperous voyage landed at his monastery of Bangor,[576] so that his first sons might receive the first benefit.[577] In what state of mind do you suppose they were when they received their father--and such a father--in good health from so long a journey? No wonder if their whole heart gave itself over to joy at his return, when swift rumour soon brought incredible gladness even to the tribes[578] outside round about them.
H. J. Lawlor—St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh

Departure from Ireland. Death and Burial at Clairvaux.
[Sidenote: 1148, May (?)] 67. (30). Being asked once, in what place, if a choice were given him, he would prefer to spend his last day--for on this subject the brothers used to ask one another what place each would select for himself--he hesitated, and made no reply. But when they insisted, he said, "If I take my departure hence[821] I shall do so nowhere more gladly than whence I may rise together with our Apostle"[822]--he referred to St. Patrick; "but if it behoves me to make a pilgrimage, and
H. J. Lawlor—St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh

'He Uttered his Voice, the Earth Melted'
'Then Isaiah the son of Amos sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, That which thou hast prayed to Me against Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard. 21. This is the word that the Lord hath spoken concerning him; The virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee. 22. Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Of Love to God
I proceed to the second general branch of the text. The persons interested in this privilege. They are lovers of God. "All things work together for good, to them that love God." Despisers and haters of God have no lot or part in this privilege. It is children's bread, it belongs only to them that love God. Because love is the very heart and spirit of religion, I shall the more fully treat upon this; and for the further discussion of it, let us notice these five things concerning love to God. 1. The
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

The Eternity of Heaven's Happiness.
Having endeavored, in the foregoing pages, to form to ourselves some idea of the glorious happiness reserved for us in heaven, there still remains to say something of its crowning glory--the eternity of its duration. This is not only its crowning glory, but it is, moreover, an essential constituent of that unspeakable joy which now inebriates the souls of the blessed. A moment's reflection will make this evident. Let us suppose, for the sake of illustration, that on the last day, God should thus
F. J. Boudreaux—The Happiness of Heaven

Epistle ii. To Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch.
To Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch. Gregory to Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch. I have received the letters of your most sweet Blessedness, which flowed with tears for words. For I saw in them a cloud flying aloft as clouds do; but, though it carried with it a darkness of sorrow, I could not easily discover at its commencement whence it came or whither it was going, since by reason of the darkness I speak of I did not fully understand its origin. Yet it becomes you, most holy ones, ever to recall
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

Notes on the Third Century
Page 161. Line 1. He must be born again, &c. This is a compound citation from John iii. 3, and Mark x. 15, in the order named. Page 182. Line 17. For all things should work together, &c. See Romans viii. 28. Page 184. Lines 10-11. Being Satan is able, &c. 2 Corinthians xi. 14. Page 184. Last line. Like a sparrow, &c. Psalm cii. Page 187. Line 1. Mechanisms. This word is, in the original MS., mechanicismes.' Page 187. Line 7. Like the King's daughter, &c. Psalm xlv. 14. Page 188. Med. 39. The best
Thomas Traherne—Centuries of Meditations

Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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