Psalms 46 — PEV — Scriptura

God will help us

This is one of the songs of the Korah mob. It’s for the leader of music at God’s ceremony house.

46God is strong, and he is always ready to help us when we get trouble.He is like a safe place for us to hide.Whenever we get trouble,he is the one that can help us.^{Verse 2}So we will never get frightened.Even if there is a big earthquake,
and the mountains start to break up and fall into the sea,
even then we will not be frightened.^{Verse 3}Even if the waves in the sea get really big and loud,and if the mountains shake,
even then we will not be frightened.

^{Verse 4}There is a river in God’s city,and it makes the people there happy.That place is God’s home.He is the greatest one of all.^{Verse 5}God lives in that city.Nothing can ever knock it down.God will stop anybody from hurting the people in that city.He will look after them all the time,
right from the start of every day.^{Verse 6}You see, God is powerful,and he frightens the nations that don’t follow him.So they go wild and don’t think properly,and they get weak and useless.It’s like God just yells at those people and they finish up,like ice that melts in the hot sun.

^{Verse 7}God is the boss of everything,and he is with us and helps us.He is the God of us Israel people,and he will stop anyone from hurting us.

^{Verse 8}Come and look at what God does.He does things on the earth that will shock you.^{Verse 9}He stops wars all over the world.It’s like he breaks all the things that people use to fight with,like their spears and bows,and it’s like he burns all the shields with fire.^{Verse 10}God says, “Stop, you mob. Keep still, and think,and you will know that I am the only one that really is God.
The people in every nation will respect me.
People all over the world will respect me.”

^{Verse 11}God is the boss of everything,and he is with us and helps us.He is the God of us Israel people,and he will stop anyone from hurting us.

Commentary

(Heb.: 46:2-4) The congregation begins with a general declaration of that which God is to them. This declaration is the result of their experience. Luther, after the lxx and Vulg., renders it, "in the great distresses which have come upon us." As though נמצא could stand for הנּמצעות, and that this again could mean anything else but "at present existing," to which מאד is not at all appropriate. God Himself is called נמצא מאד as being one who allows Himself to be found in times of distress (Ch2 15:4, and frequently) exceedingly; i.e., to those who then seek Him He reveals Himself and verifies His word beyond all measure. Because God is such a God to them, the congregation or church does not fear though a still greater distress than that which they have just withstood, should break in upon them: if the earth should change, i.e., effect, enter upon, undergo or suffer a change (an inwardly transitive Hiphil, Ges. ֗53, 2); and if the mountains should sink down into the heart (בּלב exactly as in Eze 27:27; Jon 2:4) of the sea (ocean), i.e., even if these should sink back again into the waters out of which they appeared on the third day of the creation, so that consequently the old chaos should return. The church supposes the most extreme case, viz., the falling in of the universe which has been creatively set in order. We are no more to regard the language as being allegorical here (as Hengstenberg interprets it, the mountains being = the kingdoms of the world), than we would the language of Horace: si fractus illabatur orbis (Carm. iii. 3, 7). Since ימּים is not a numerical but amplificative plural, the singular suffixes in Psa 46:4 may the more readily refer back to it. גּאוה, pride, self-exaltation, used of the sea as in Psa 89:10 גּאוּת, and in Job 38:11 גּאון are used. The futures in Psa 46:4 do not continue the infinitive construction: if the waters thereof roar, foam, etc.; but they are, as their position and repetition indicate, intended to have a concessive sense. And this favours the supposition of Hupfeld and Ewald that the refrain, Psa 46:8, 12, which ought to form the apodosis of this concessive clause (cf. Psa 139:8-10; Job 20:24; Isa 40:30.) has accidentally fallen out here. In the text as it lies before us Psa 46:4 attaches itself to לא־נירא: (we do not fear), let its waters (i.e., the waters of the ocean) rage and foam continually; and, inasmuch as the sea rises high, towering beyond its shores, let the mountains threaten to topple in. The music, which here becomes forte, strengthens the believing confidence of the congregation, despite this wild excitement of the elements.

(Heb.: 46:5-8) Just as, according to Gen 2:10, a stream issued from Eden, to water the whole garden, so a stream makes Jerusalem as it were into another paradise: a river - whose streams make glad the city of Elohim (Psa 87:3; Psa 48:9, cf. Psa 101:8); פּלגיו (used of the windings and branches of the main-stream) is a second permutative subject (Psa 44:3). What is intended is the river of grace, which is also likened to a river of paradise in Psa 36:9. When the city of God is threatened and encompassed by foes, still she shall not hunger and thirst, nor fear and despair; for the river of grace and of her ordinances and promises flows with its rippling waves through the holy place, where the dwelling-place or tabernacle of the Most High is pitched. קדשׁ, Sanctum (cf. el-Ḳuds as a name of Jerusalem), as in Psa 65:5, Isa 57:15; גּדל, Exo 15:16. משׁכּני, dwellings, like משׁכּנות, Psa 43:3; Psa 84:2; Psa 132:5, Psa 132:7, equivalent to "a glorious dwelling." In Psa 46:6 in the place of the river we find Him from whom the river issues forth. Elohim helps her לפנותבּקר - there is only a night of trouble, the return of the morning is also the sunrise of speedy help. The preterites in Psa 46:7 are hypothetical: if peoples and kingdoms become enraged with enmity and totter, so that the church is in danger of being involved in this overthrow - all that God need to is to make a rumbling with His almighty voice of thunder (נתן בּקולו, as in Psa 68:34; Jer 12:8, cf. הרים בּמּטּה, to make a lifting with the rod, Exo 7:20), and forthwith the earth melts (muwg, as in Amo 9:5, Niph. Isa 14:31, and frequently), i.e., their titanic defiance becomes cowardice, the bonds of their confederation slacken, and the strength they have put forth is destroyed - it is manifest that Jahve Tsebaoth is with His people. This name of God is, so to speak, indigenous to the Korahitic Psalms, for it is the proper name of God belonging to the time of the kings (vid., on Psa 24:10; Psa 59:6), on the very verge of which it occurs first of all in the mouth of Hannah (Sa1 1:11), and the Korahitic Psalms have a royal impress upon them. In the God, at whose summons all created powers are obliged to marshal themselves like the hosts of war, Israel has a steep stronghold, משׂגּב, which cannot be scaled by any foe - the army of the confederate peoples and kingdoms, ere it has reached Jerusalem, is become a field of the dead.

(Heb.: 46:9-12) The mighty deeds of Jahve still lie visibly before them in their results, and those who are without the pale of the church are to see for themselves and be convinced. In a passage founded upon this, Psa 66:5, stands מפעלות אלהים; here, according to Targum and Masora (vid., Psalter, ii. 472), מפעלות יהוה. (Note: Nevertheless מפעלות אלהים is also found here as a various reading that goes back to the time of the Talmud. The oldest Hebrew Psalter of 1477 reads thus, vide Repertorium fr Bibl. und Morgenlnd. Liter. v. (1779), 148. Norzi decides in favour of it, and Biesenthal has also adopted it in his edition of the Psalter (1837), which in other respects is a reproduction of Heidenheim's text.) Even an Elohimic Psalm gives to the God of Israel in opposition to all the world no other name than יהוה. שׁמּות does not here signify stupenda (Jer 8:21), but in accordance with the phrase שׂוּם לשׁמּה, Isa 13:9, and frequently: devastations, viz., among the enemies who have kept the field against the city of God. The participle משׁבּית is designedly used in carrying forward the description. The annihilation of the worldly power which the church has just now experienced for its rescue, is a prelude to the ceasing of all war, Mic 4:3 (Isa 2:4). Unto the ends of the earth will Jahve make an end of waging war; and since He has no pleasure in war in general, much less in war waged against His own people, all the implements of war He in part breaks to pieces and in part consigns to the flames (cf. Isa 54:16.). Cease, cries He (Psa 46:10) to the nations, from making war upon my people, and know that I am God, the invincible One, - invincible both in Myself and in My people, - who will be acknowledged in My exaltation by all the world. A similar inferential admonition closes Psa 2:1-12. With this admonition, which is both warning and threatening at the same time, the nations are dismissed; but the church yet once more boasts that Jahve Tsebaoth is its God and its stronghold.

Open full in Library

Bible

Translations

Pentateuch

History

Wisdom

Minor Prophets

Gospels

Acts

Pauline Epistles

General Epistles

God will help us

Keyboard shortcuts