Psalms 46
What Happens in This Chapter
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.
God is our safe place and our strength. He is always there to help when trouble comes.
1God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
2So we will not be afraid, even if the earth itself is shaken apart, and even if the mountains slide down into the middle of the sea,
2Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
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.
3even if the waters of the sea roar and churn, and the mountains shake when it surges. Selah.
3Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.
"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.
4There is a river, and its streams bring joy to the city of God, the holy place where the Most High lives.
4There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.
"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.
5God is right there inside that city, so it will not be shaken. God will help it when morning comes.
5God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.
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.
6The nations were in an uproar, and kingdoms were shaken. God spoke out loud, and the earth melted away.
6The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.
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.
7The LORD of armies is with us. The God of Jacob is our safe place. Selah.
7The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
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.
8Come and look at the things the LORD has done, and at the ruin he has brought on the earth.
8Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth.
9He puts a stop to wars everywhere on earth. He breaks the bow, snaps the spear in two, and burns the chariots in the fire.
9He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.
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.
10"Be still, and know that I am God. I will be lifted high among the nations. I will be lifted high in the earth."
10Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
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.
11The LORD of armies is with us. The God of Jacob is our safe place. Selah.
11The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
← → to turn the page · P for plain English · click a verse to select it