Psalms 48
Big idea: A city psalm, and it does something unusual at the end: it sends you on a walk. Walk about Zion, and go around her. Number its towers. Notice her bulwarks. Consider her palaces — that you may tell it to the next generation. The instruction is a survey, and the reason for the survey is a story to be handed on. The middle of the psalm explains what there is to count: kings who came, looked, and left in a hurry, with the pains of a woman in labour.
Psalm 48 counts the towers of a city. Psalm 49 says none of it can buy anyone another day.
48:1–8 — They saw it, then they were amazed
A city psalm, and its central event is something the kings SAW. They assembled, they looked, and the poem gives their reaction in five short verbs — amazed, dismayed, hurried away, trembling, pain — without ever describing a battle. Nothing is reported as having been done to them. And verse 8 states the psalm's whole claim about experience: what we had only heard, we have now seen.
1 A Song. A Psalm by the sons of Korah. Great is Yahweh, 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 north sides, the city of the great King. 3 God has shown himself in her citadels as a refuge. 4 For, behold, the kings assembled themselves, they passed by together. 5 They saw it, then they were amazed. They were dismayed. They hurried away. 6 Trembling took hold of them there, pain, as of a woman in travail. 7 With the east wind, you break the ships of Tarshish. 8 As we have heard, so we have seen, in the city of Yahweh of Armies, in the city of our God. God will establish it forever. Selah.
48:9–14 — Walk about Zion, and number its towers
The second movement gives an instruction nobody expects from a hymn: go outside and count the towers. Walk the perimeter, notice the ramparts, look at the palaces — and the reason is given in the same breath: so you can TELL the next generation. The theology is being attached to something measurable, because the next generation will not have seen what verse 8 saw.
9 We have thought about your loving kindness, God, in the middle of your temple. 10 As is your name, God, so is your praise to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is full of righteousness. 11 Let Mount Zion be glad! Let the daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgments. 12 Walk about Zion, and go around her. Number its towers. 13 Notice her bulwarks. Consider her palaces, that you may tell it to the next generation. 14 For this God is our God forever and ever. He will be our guide even to death.
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).