Psalms 46: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm says God is a safe place and a source of strength when trouble comes, so the singers will not be afraid even if the earth is shaken apart and mountains fall into the sea. It turns to a city where God lives, gladdened by the streams of a river, which will not be shaken because God is inside it. It then points to what God has done on the earth: he ends wars and destroys weapons. The psalm closes with God speaking, telling people to be still and know who he is, and with a repeated line that the LORD of armies is with us.

Claim by Claim

1. 46:1
   • God is a refuge for us.
   • God is strength for us.
   • God is a help that is abundantly present in trouble.
2. 46:2
   • Because of this, we will not fear.
   • We will not fear even if the earth changes or gives way.
   • We will not fear even if the mountains are toppled into the heart of the sea.
3. 46:3
   • The waters of the sea roar.
   • The waters of the sea foam and are churned up.
   • The mountains quake at the swelling of the waters.
   • Selah.
4. 46:4
   • There is a river.
   • The streams of that river gladden the city of God.
   • The city of God is the holy dwelling place of the Most High.
5. 46:5
   • God is in the midst of the city.
   • The city will not be moved.
   • God will help the city.
   • God will help her at the turning of the morning.
6. 46:6
   • Nations raged.
   • Kingdoms were shaken.
   • He gave forth his voice.
   • The earth melted.
7. 46:7
   • The LORD of hosts is with us.
   • The God of Jacob is our high stronghold.
   • Selah.
8. 46:8
   • A command is given to come and look at the works of the LORD.
   • The LORD has set desolations in the earth.
9. 46:9
   • He makes wars cease to the end of the earth.
   • He breaks the bow.
   • He cuts the spear in pieces.
   • He burns in the fire what may be either wagons or shields.
10. 46:10
    • God commands: be still, or cease striving.
    • God commands: know that I am God.
    • God says he will be exalted among the nations.
    • God says he will be exalted in the earth.
11. 46:11
    • The LORD of hosts is with us.
    • The God of Jacob is our high stronghold.
    • Selah.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

46:1

"A very present help" does not mean "a big help." In 1611 English, "very present" meant right here, close by, not far off.

46:2

The Hebrew verb behind "shaken apart" literally means "changed" or "exchanged"; it pictures the solid ground giving way and turning into something else. The images in verses 2-3 are of the ordered world coming undone and returning to primeval chaos.

46:3

"Selah" is a direction that appears throughout the Psalms, most often at the end of a section. Its meaning was already uncertain in ancient times; it is usually taken as a musical or performance instruction, a pause, a change of volume, or an instrumental interlude. Translators leave it untranslated because nobody knows the word's sense.

46:4

"The city of God" is Jerusalem. The river is striking because Jerusalem had no river, only the Gihon spring feeding it through a tunnel. Great ancient capitals stood on rivers (Babylon on the Euphrates, Thebes on the Nile); the psalm claims for Jerusalem a water supply of another kind, and the quiet streams stand in deliberate contrast to the roaring sea of verses 2-3. "The Most High" (Hebrew *Elyon*) is an old title for God. The King James "tabernacles" is plural because the Hebrew word for a dwelling is plural here, a common Hebrew way of intensifying a word rather than counting several buildings.

46:5

A city in Hebrew takes feminine pronouns, which is why the King James says "her": it means the city, not a woman. "That right early" translates a Hebrew phrase meaning "at the turning of the morning," i.e. at daybreak. In ancient warfare dawn was the hour when an attack came or a siege was broken, so "when morning comes" carries the sense of help arriving at the decisive moment.

46:6

The King James "heathen" translates a Hebrew word simply meaning "nations", the peoples outside Israel. It carried no sense of "savage" or "irreligious" in 1611; that flavor developed later. "The earth melted" uses a verb applied to wax, to snow, and also to human courage draining away.

46:7

Where the King James prints "LORD" in capitals it is standing in for God's personal name in Hebrew, four consonants usually written YHWH, which Jewish readers did not pronounce aloud. "LORD of hosts" means commander of armies, the term covers both Israel's fighting men and the heavenly forces. "The God of Jacob" identifies him by the ancestor whose descendants became the nation of Israel; using the ancestor's name is a way of saying "the God who has been with this family from the beginning." This line, repeated in verse 11, works as a refrain.

46:8

"Desolations" translates a Hebrew word for devastation and ruin. Verse 9 says what has been devastated: not cities or people, but the weapons themselves.

46:9

Bow, spear and chariot are the standard equipment of an ancient army, so the list means the whole apparatus of war is destroyed, not just a few weapons. The last Hebrew word is disputed: it normally means "carts" or "wagons" (hence the King James "chariot"), but an ancient tradition read it as "shields," which some modern translations follow.

46:10

The Hebrew verb behind "Be still" means to let go, drop your hands, stop what you are doing, not primarily to be quiet. Because verse 6 has just described the nations in an uproar, it is not obvious whether these words are addressed to them (an order to stop fighting) or to God's own people (an order to stop struggling and watch); the Hebrew allows both, and translations differ.