Psalm 46

Psalms 46:1-3

The Hebrew title, which this page's text does not show, ascribes the psalm to the sons of Korah, for a choir or setting called Alamoth. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble opens the psalm with a confidence tested at once by the worst images available, the earth removed and the mountains carried into the sea, language of creation itself coming undone. This psalm stands behind Martin Luther's hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, an association named by the commentators rather than a claim the psalm makes about itself.

Psalms 46:4-5

There is a river: Against the roaring, troubled waters of verse 3 the psalm sets there is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, a quiet contrast placed deliberately after the cosmic upheaval. Jerusalem had no navigable river, so Gill and Henry read the line as figurative of God's own presence flowing through the city rather than a report of its geography, an image the prophets later widen at Ezek 47's river from the temple. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved answers the removed mountains of verse 2 with the one thing in the psalm that cannot be shaken.

Psalms 46:6-7

The threat shifts from nature to nations, the heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved, he uttered his voice, the earth melted, a single word from God undoing what armies could not. The refrain follows, the Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge, pairing the covenant name of hosts with the personal name of Jacob, might and nearness held together in one line, and it will return unchanged to close the psalm at verse 11. Barnes notes that the same voice that made the earth melt here is the ground of the confidence stated at the opening, judgment and refuge coming from the same source.

Psalms 46:8-9

Come, behold the works of the Lord invites the reader to see what the raging of verse 6 has come to, desolations that end in enforced peace, he maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth. The breaking of the bow, the cutting of the spear, and the burning of the chariot picture disarmament rather than mere victory, weapons destroyed rather than captured, and Spurgeon reads the list as a peace so complete that the instruments of war are made useless for good. Henry sets the verse beside the later hope of Isa 2:4, named as the tradition that reads this peace forward to its fuller day.

Psalms 46:10-11

Be still, and know that I am God: Be still, and know that I am God follows directly on the raging nations of verse 6, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the command in that setting as addressed first to the hostile kingdoms, cease your striving, rather than as private devotional counsel, while the line has long carried a second and widely used reading as personal instruction to quiet trust; both stand without one erasing the other. I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth carries the nations theme to its close, and the refrain returns unchanged, the Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge, ending the psalm exactly where its middle had already rested.