Psalm 46
PSALM FORTY-SIX
For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. According to alamoth. A song.
1 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. Selah
4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
7 The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah
8 Come and see the works of the LORD, the desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the shields with fire.
10 "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."
11 The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah
The subscript ascribes this psalm to the sons of Korah, and adds the words: "According to alamoth." This last word has puzzled the experts. It is often translated as "virgins." A footnote in the NIV says: "Probably a musical term." In his Biblical Commentary on the Psalms, Delitzsch believes that it may indicate a high musical setting, or being sung by soprano voices. Strongs Definitions describes Alamoth as: "girls, i.e. soprano or female voice, perhaps falsetto."
There is often a strong suggestion in these subscripts that they have a deeper meaning than a mere indication of the tune on which the poem is to be sung. It could be that this title wants to connect this psalm to the preceding one. Psalm 45 was "To the tune of 'Lilies.' " A lily is a flower of virgin beauty, and this psalm was to be sung to the tune of the virgins.
The theme of this psalm, however, speaks of violence, earthquakes, floods, and revolutions. It seems to deal with a violation of the virgin beauty of God's creation. In the midst of this uproar stands, in undefiled rest and peace of God's shekinah, the city of God, which is His bride. In the Word Biblical Commentary, Peter Craigie sees a connection between this psalm and the contrast between chaos and order in the creation story in Genesis.1 This contrast is elaborated upon in this psalm, both on a natural, and a political level. We should, however, not take this theme as only dealing with impersonal elements. Satan shows his power in the chaos, and God demonstrates His might in the order of creation and in redemption.
I am inclined to believe the "gap theory" which states that the chaos that is mentioned in the creation account was the immediate result of the fall of Lucifer, to whom had been given authority over our planet, and who dragged God's handiwork with him in his fall. The creation record, therefore, could be a record of recreation and establishment of order in the midst of upheaval. If we look at this psalm in that way, it acquires a much deeper meaning. In the verses 2 and 3 we find elements of this original chaos, as well as of the flood in Noah's days, and of the earthquake in the days of Amos,2 although this would be an anachronism. It is possible that this psalm was written by the Korahites in connection with a great natural disaster.
In our comments on Psalm 29, we mentioned that God is not the Creator of natural disasters. The fact that He may reveal His glory in those manifestations, is a different matter. James assures us that: "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."3 The disturbance of the balance God created is always a direct, or an indirect, result of sin. In this psalm also, God is not in the chaos, and destruction, although He uses them to His advantage. He is a refuge and strength for those who want to escape those disasters.
"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble." Upon this phrase, Martin Luther based his hymn "A mighty fortress is our God." He who does not flee the disasters to come, and who thinks he can hold his own in the chaos, is a fool. We do better to fear the manifestations of the powers of darkness, and to run from them. God even uses this fright to save our lives. He is our refuge, which means that we have to flee towards Him.
The theme of salvation through flight is repeated often in the Book of Psalms. The person who thinks himself to be a hero, because he does not take flight, is a stupid person. There was no place for fear in God's original plan for man. When God created Adam and Eve, He stimulated Adam's natural desire for fellowship, first by causing a male and a female to be attracted to each other, but ultimately to draw man into fellowship with Himself. After the fall, fear began to dominate man's life, and now God uses our fears and feelings of insecurity, our being weary and burdened to woo us unto His rest and protection. The way God dealt with Adam and Eve, in drawing them to each other, was a pleasant experience. Our natural desires for satisfaction are always agreeable to us. The panic, caused by the menace of life, is highly unpleasant. We cannot blame God for this. The world in which we are born is the world that is distorted by sin. In the midst of this chaos and corruption stands God's salvation as a fortress, a stronghold, a bunker, a shelter. As Noah's ark was during the flood, so is Jesus Christ for us the ark of salvation.
The British atheist C. H. Wells poked fun at the opening words of this psalm, by saying that he saw no reason to conclude that prayer to God made any difference in difficult circumstances. We have no reason to believe that Mr. Wells ever fled to God for protection. It is only if we flee that we discover that God is our refuge and strength. The Hebrew words are machaceh, shelter, and `oz, strength. The latter is sometimes used in connection with protection, as in Judges: "Inside the city, however, was a strong tower, to which all the men and women-- all the people of the city-- fled. They locked themselves in and climbed up on the tower roof."4
The suggestion found here is that we find ourselves in a place that is under attack by the enemy, and that needs to be defended. As Christians, we are called not to lose terrain, but to hold that which we have. We are not required to conquer death, or to defeat the enemy in maneuvers of attack; God has done that already for us in Jesus Christ. It is our task to stand, and not to give up what has been given to us. Gideon did not gain the victory over the Midianites when he pursued them, but the victory came when he blew the trumpet and broke the jars of clay to let the torches shine. This principle has not changed in the course of the ages. We may still stand under God's protection, and see how the weapons of the enemy, that were aimed at us, are rendered ineffective. Our victory consists in our standing in God's victory; so we turn from refugees into victors.
The phrase: "an ever-present help in trouble," as the NIV renders it, or "a very present help in trouble"(KJV), indicates an experience of God's help. TLB reads: "a tested help in times of trouble." The Hebrew words used are nimtsaa' ma'od, which are derived from me` od, meaning "vehemence, i.e. (with or without preposition) vehemently; by implication, wholly, speedily," and matsa': "to come forth to, i.e. appear or exist; transitively, to attain, i.e. find or acquire; figuratively, to occur, meet or be present." The experience of others who have tried to flee to God for protection, proves the reliability of the experiment. We could say that this phrase puts our faith on a scientific basis. After all, science is nothing more than the drawing of conclusions on the basis of experiments. It is a proven fact that God is a reliable source of help for those who fled to Him in their anguish. Faith is based on reliable facts.
If a man flees to God because he is driven by fear, his fear is healed in the process. Only in fellowship with God can one look down, without fear, upon the chaos that surrounds and threatens him. The world in which we live is like a man performing a balancing act on a thin rope; without God there is no guarantee that the situation of today will still exist tomorrow. There are threats of natural disasters and wars, "Acts of God," and man-made catastrophes. Nobody believed in the flood while Noah prepared the ark, and we know that a universal nuclear war can break out any moment. It is against these kinds of demonic threats that the psalmist says: "Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging."
Yet, Christians can become victims of such events, in the same way as atheists. The difference between the two is in the protection from fear. Jesus tells His disciples: "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul."5 And demons cannot even kill the body! That is the reason they try to persuade their victims to commit suicide. In John's Gospel, Jesus says: "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."6 There is a solid basis for the confidence of the psalmist. He can look down upon the chaos from above, from the vantage point of fellowship of God, and under His protection.
In the second stanza (verses 4-7), we find the same elements as before, but the tone is quite different. The water is not an uncontrollable flood, but a river flowing between its banks. Water brings both death and life. This river is God's river, the artery of the Holy City.
The historical background of this phrase is, probably, the water supply of the city of Jerusalem, which was already in existence in the times of the Jebusites. This conduit was renovated in the days of King Hezekiah.7 We may assume that this aqueduct was functioning when the Korahites wrote this psalm. In this psalm this water supply line is seen as symbolic of the heavenly reality. Ezekiel picks up the image in his vision of the temple brook,8 and in Revelation, John describes the completion of these prophecies with the words: "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb."9
Water symbolizes a spiritual reality. The chaotic waters represent the powers of evil, and the river of the water of life stands for the Holy Spirit. We find both in the opening verses of Genesis: "Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."10 The universal testimony of the Bible also points in this direction. God had chosen Jerusalem as the place of His revelation on earth. The Holy Spirit testifies to this truth in an uninterrupted stream of refreshment and renewal. It is marvelous to realize that the Korahites could walk the streets of Jerusalem and drink water from the wells that were fed by the river, knowing all the time that they performed more than only the physical act of drinking. This psalm proves that they had insight in the spiritual significance of things on earth. The Holy Spirit also speaks here about the church, but the understanding of the Korahites themselves had not reached that far.
The place of God's revelation on earth is called in the NIV: "the holy place where the Most High dwells." The KJV reads: "the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High." There had been other places where God had shown Himself to people. Jacob encountered God at Bethel,11 and Moses saw God's glory from the cleft of the rock in the desert.12 We could see in this traces of what Don Richardson calls, "Redemptive Analogies."13 But it was in Jerusalem only that God's glory was present above the atonement cover of the ark. All this is fulfilled in the New Jerusalem, the bride of the Lamb, which is filled with the glory of God.14 The city of the Korahites was an image of the church. This world is in uproar, and the nations are like a raging sea, but this prophecy states that the church of Jesus Christ will not fall victim to any onslaught. The dawn of God's salvation will break upon her. This will be at dawn on the first day of the week, on the day of resurrection. Whether this means that the church will pass through the great tribulation or not, is not an issue that can be determined on the basis of this verse.
"She will not fall," or as most older translations read: "She shall not be moved" has, of course, a spiritual connotation. It does not mean that there will be victims in the physical or emotional sense of the word. The Flemish poet Guido Gezelle wrote: "We will be shaken, and we often incur deep and painful wounds." In that sense, our Lord Jesus Christ, the builder of the city, was shaken and wounded more than anyone else. But the gates of Hades will not overcome it.15 This is the position of the church on earth. It is also true that Jerusalem was never conquered as long as the presence of the Lord was there. The prophet Ezekiel saw in his visions that the glory of the Lord had left the city.16 Only after that had happened could the troops of Nebuchadnezzar take the city and burn it. The actual meaning of it all is that God is in the midst of the city, as is stated in Revelation, where John says: "I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp."17
The image expresses the position of those who live in fellowship with God in the midst of the oppression of the world. These words will, undoubtedly, become a source of comfort for those who will go through the Great Tribulation, whoever they may be.
There is another parallel between this psalm and the Book of Revelation, in that it shows the three principles of the effects of the sin of men. First of all: man will, ultimately, annihilate the human race himself by wars and destruction, which is expressed in Revelation under the image of the Seven Seals. Secondly, demonic powers will manipulate man, and push him to self-destruct. This is seen in Revelation under the image of the Seven Trumpets. Finally, everything man does to himself is the result of God's judgment upon him, as expressed in Revelation under the image of the Seven Bowls of Wrath.
The uproar of the nations, and the falling of kingdoms, in vs. 6, represent more than a poetical parallel of the roaring and foaming of the waters, and the quaking of the mountains in vs. 3, although they happen simultaneously. The designs of sinful man and of the powers of darkness will flow together in the same bed, but they are not identical. They influence each other because God has withdrawn His hand of protection from man, since man has withdrawn himself from God's protection. There will come a time, however, when God will lift His voice, and the earth will melt. God did this once by means of the water of the flood, and He will do it again through fire. The Apostle Peter says: "But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men."18 And just as Noah was saved in the flood, so will the church of Jesus Christ be saved in the last judgment.
The NIV says: "The LORD Almighty is with us." Most other translations stick to the more literal translation: "The LORD of hosts is with us." God is the supreme commander of the heavenly armies. This is real power by which nothing else can be compared; certainly not Mao Dze Dung's "Power from the barrel of a gun." God is The LORD Almighty, the Potentate of all potentates, as William of Orange called Him. He is our refuge, and in Him we are perfectly safe. Isaiah's prophecy: "Immanuel,"19 "God with us," has been completely fulfilled in Jesus Christ. He is the fortress in which we have taken refuge. This is what we mean when we say that we are "in Christ." This makes us completely immune to the attacks of the Evil One.
In this context, God is called "the God of Jacob." There is a suggestion of confession of sin and of forgiveness in this title. Jacob was the who tripped people, who wrestled with God and asked for grace before he became Israel.20 He who protected Jacob against himself, and made him a new creature by means of the atonement, is also our God.
It seems strange to us that the psalmist ascribes the "desolation" which takes place on earth to YHWH. This seems to contradict the fact that, in the words of James, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights."21 The Hebrew word, translated with "desolation" is shamowt, which is a form of shammah, defined by Strongs with "ruin; by implication, consternation." The KJV renders it with: "astonishment, desolate, or desolation, waste, wonderful thing." The context of this psalm, however, suggests a negative connotation. The ruin of the earth is the result of the breaking of the bond of fellowship with God by man. We cannot live without the life of the Holy Spirit within us, neither can our planet exist without our fellowship with God. When death comes, decomposition also enters. Jesus said: "Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather."22 Punishment for is something that is built-in in creation; decay begins when life leaves the body. We cannot hold God responsible for the broken bond. The principle of self-destruction of that which is dead is, not only, a necessary safety precaution, it is also a blessing. How else would God's holiness continue in creation if that which died would be allowed to continue to be there. The senseless murder of all human being will cease when all have fallen. There are two ways in which wars cease: either the number of victims on both sides becomes too great, or one of the two warring parties comes to itself and turns to God. The tribal warfare in Irian Jaya ceased when the Gospel got a hold of the people. It was the Gospel of Jesus Christ that put an end to the invasion of the Norse in the lower countries of Europe at the end of the first millenium.
So we can say that the work of God shows two facets: there is the desolation on earth, which means that God leaves the godless man to fend for himself, so that man, entering into a bond with the devil, destroys himself; then there is the ceasing of wars, caused by man's conversion and man's destruction of the weapons of war. Isaiah prophesied that "They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore."23 This beating swords into plowshares is something man will have to do himself. He will do this because he realizes that the power of sin over man has been broken, and consequently the weapons of war will no longer be needed. If every man on earth bows before the Lord Jesus Christ and acknowledges that He has all power in heaven and on earth, his conduct will change radically. No disarmament will ever be possible without a total renewal of inter-human relations.
"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." This is the voice of God Himself speaking. This world is in the power of the Evil One. God pronounces here a prophecy regarding the future. At present, people do not acknowledge the superiority of the Almighty. The facts, however, are not dependant upon our opinion. Jesus Christ does have all power, whether we want to admit that or not. Our faith, or the lack of it does not change the facts, but it changes us. This pronouncements, therefore, is a call for consideration of our present condition. If a person understands reality, he will denounce violence and murder.
The psalm ends with the refrain we saw already in vs. 7, and which is the theme that opened the psalm. After the voice of God Himself is heard, we hear the voice of the church. "The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come!' "24
1
See Gen. 1:22
See Amos 1:1; Zech. 14:5
3
James 1:17
4
Judg. 9:51
5
Matt. 10:28
6
John 16:33
7
See II Kings 20:20
8
See Ezek. 47:1-12
9
Rev. 22:1
10
Gen. 1:2
11
See Gen. 28:16-19
12
Ex. 33:19-34:9
13
Peace Child by Don Richardson
14
See Rev. 21:9-11
15
See Matt. 16:18
16
Matt. 16:18
17
Rev. 21:22,23
18
II Pet. 3:5-7
19
See Isa. 7:14
20
See Hos. 12:4
21
James 1:17
22
Matt. 24:28
23
Isa. 2:4
24
Rev. 22:17
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