Psalms 48:4

_FOR, LO, THE KINGS WERE ASSEMBLED, THEY PASSED BY TOGETHER._ For, lo, the kings were assembled, they passed by together - `they passed utterly and altogether away.' The object of their assembling is given in the parallel (Psalms 83:3; Psalms 83:12), "They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones. They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation etc. ... they are confederate against THEE (O God) ... who said, Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession." The forcible brevity implies how rapidly they vanished away....

4_For, behold! the kings assembled _Here that special deliverance of which I have spoken is touched upon. The prophet relates how, when the kings were assembled together to destroy Jerusalem, their efforts passed away without producing any effect, even as clouds in the atmosphere vanish away; yea, he tells us, that by a simple look at the city, they were defeated and undone, and that not after an ordinary manner, but like a woman who, when the hour of child-birth has come upon her, finds herself suddenly afflicted with pain and sorrow. We cannot affirm with certainty what particular part of Jewish history the prophet here speaks of; but the statements made suit very well both the time of Ahaz, and that of Hezekiah or Asa. It was indeed a wonderful work of God, when two very powerful kings — the king of Syria and the king of Israel, accompanied with an immense army — had smitten the city...

1-7 Jerusalem is the city of our God: none on earth render him due honour except the citizens of the spiritual Jerusalem. Happy the kingdom, the city, the family, the heart, in which God is great, in which he is all. There God is known. The clearer discoveries are made to us of the Lord and his greatness, the more it is expected that we should abound in his praises. The earth is, by sin, covered with deformity, therefore justly might that spot of ground, which was beautified with holiness, be called the joy of the whole earth; that which the whole earth has reason to rejoice in, that God would thus in very deed dwell with man upon the earth. The kings of the earth were afraid of it. Nothing in nature can more fitly represent the overthrow of heathenism by the Spirit of the gospel, than the wreck of a fleet in a storm. Both are by the mighty power of the Lord....

Verse Psalms 48:4. _FOR, LO, THE KINGS WERE ASSEMBLED_] Many of the neighbouring potentates, at different times, envied the prosperity of the Jewish nation, and coveted the riches of the temple; but they had no power against it till the cup of Jewish transgression was full. In vain did they _assemble _- confederate, and invade the land. _Saw it _- reconnoitered the place; _marvelled_ at its excellence and strength, for _they were troubled _- struck with fear; _hasted away_ for fear of destruction, for _fear took hold on them_ as pains seize on a _woman in travail_. Those who came to destroy were glad to make their own escape....

FOR, LO, THE KINGS WERE ASSEMBLED - There is evidently allusion here to some fact that had occurred; some gathering together of kings and their armies, with a view to besiege or attack Jerusalem. The kings referred to, if the allusion here is, as is supposed, to the time of Jehoshaphat, were the kings of Ammon and of Moab, and of Mount Seir, and perhaps others, not particularly mentioned, who came up against Jehoshaphat, 2 Chronicles 20:1, 2 Chronicles 20:10. THEY PASSED BY TOGETHER - That is, they were smitten with consternation; they were so impressed with the beauty, the majesty, the strength of the city, that they passed along without venturing to attack it. Or, perhaps, the meaning may be, that they were disc

EXPOSITION HERE we have another psalm of thanksgiving for a deliverance, but not apparently for the same deliverance as gave occasion for either of the two preceding psalms. Israel had now been delivered from a confederacy of kings (Psalms 48:4), who had come within sight of the city, but had then been seized with panic, and retreated, without making an attack (Psalms 48:5). After this, pain had come upon them, and they had been "broken," like "ships of Tarshish with an east wind" (Psalms 48:6, Psalms 48:7). The deliverance had been celebrated by a thanksgiving service held in the temple ...

FOR, LO, THE KINGS WERE ASSEMBLED,.... As the princes of the Philistines to seek for David, when in the strong hold of Zion, 2 Samuel 5:17; as the Ethiopians in the time of Asa, 2 Chronicles 14:9; and the Moabites and Ammonites in the times of Jehoshaphat, 2 Chronicles 20:1; and the kings of Syria and Israel in the times of Ahaz, Isaiah 7:1; and Sennacherib with his princes, who, in his esteem, were kings, in the times of Hezekiah, 2 Kings 18:17; which are instances of the kings, of the nations' gathering together against Zion, the city of

Psalms 48:1. _Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King. God is known in her palaces for a refuge._ It was so with the literal Jerusalem; and it is so now with the Church of Christ, of which «the city of the great King» was a type. God still dwelleth among men; his Spirit abides with his people; and his Church stands securely upon the rock of his eternal purposes, evermore the same. Psalms 48:4. _For, lo, the kings were assembled,_ The adversaries, who boasted that they would destroy Jerusalem: «the kings were assembled,»...

Psalms 48 The Judgment of the Nations and the Millennium _ 1. Jerusalem the city of the King (Psalms 48:1)_ 2. The confederated nations scattered (Psalms 48:4) 3. The millennium (Psalms 48:8) Jerusalem is now seen as the city of the great King. His glorious throne will there be established, and Mount Zion becomes the joy of the whole earth. Psalms 48:4 show what preceded the coming of the King. The nations had come against Jerusalem (Zecharia

XLVIII. A PSALM WHICH DESCRIBES THE IMPRESSION MADE ON A PILGRIM BY HIS VISIT TO ZION. Psalms 48:1 f. Praise of Zion. SIDES OF THE NORTH is hard to comprehend. It has been explained as contrasting Zion, the true mountain of the North, with the Oriental Olympus (Isaiah 14:13). The text, however, does not even hint at any such contrast. Mount Zion did indeed occupy the NE. corner of Jerusalem, but what of that? It has been suggested that the pilgrim came from the extreme S. of Egypt. But even then he must have known that there were mountains far further N. Really the text is unintelligible and probably corrupt. PSALMS 48:3. God's protection of His own city. The poet is thinking of Sennacherib's fate (s