The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"great," Hebrew gadol (גָּדוֹל). The psalm opens praising a city, but look closely at where the greatness is placed: "Great is the LORD... in the city of our God." The greatness belongs to the LORD, and the city is only where it is displayed.

"greatly to be praised," mehullal me'od (מְהֻלָּל מְאֹד). The praise is measured to match the greatness. What is great in the highest degree is to be praised in the highest degree.

"city of our God," ir eloheinu (עִיר אֱלֹהֵינוּ). Zion is beautiful, but her true glory is her Guest. She is named not by her founder or her king but by the God who dwells in her.

"beautiful for situation," yefeh nof (יְפֵה נוֹף), lovely in elevation, fair in its height. Her loveliness is the loveliness of a city set high. Yet even her elevation is borrowed light; she is lovely because God is in her.

"joy of the whole earth," mesos kol ha'aretz (מְשׂוֹשׂ כָּל־הָאָרֶץ). The gladness she gives is not local but reaches to the whole earth -- a claim no city could make on the strength of her own walls.

"the great King," melekh rav (מֶלֶךְ רָב). She is "the city of the great King", and that King is the LORD Himself. All her beauty, her elevation, her joy, comes from the one who reigns in her.

Explanation

There is a quiet sleight of hand in these opening lines, and it is the whole theology of the psalm. The song appears to be a piece of civic pride, a hymn to a beautiful city, "beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion." Yet read the grammar again: the very first thing praised is not the city but the LORD, "Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised", and only then "in the city of our God." The city is not the subject of the praise; she is the place of it. Everything glorious said about Zion is on loan. She is "the joy of the whole earth" only because God is joy; she is a "refuge" (v3) only because God is refuge; she is "the city of the great King" only because the great King has chosen to dwell there. Strip God out of Zion and she is just another hill with walls. This is why the psalm can move so easily, as it will, from the stones of the city to the character of God, "we have thought of thy lovingkindness, O God, in the midst of thy temple" (v9): the walls were never the point. The place matters because of the Presence.

Gospel Focus

"The city of the great King", the Lord Jesus took this very title on His own lips. Teaching us not to swear by Jerusalem, He called it "the city of the great King" (Matthew 5:35), quietly claiming the psalm's language for Himself, for He is that great King. And the New Testament lifts the whole vision of Zion above the earthly city to the church and the heavenly Jerusalem: "ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem" (Hebrews 12:22); "Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all" (Galatians 4:26). The true city of God is not made of stones but of a people in whom God dwells, "ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house" (1 Peter 2:5), and her beauty, like Zion's, is entirely borrowed, she is glorious because Christ is in her midst. The One who is "great," "greatly to be praised," is Jesus Christ the Lord, God manifest in flesh, and where He dwells is the city of God. So the church's whole glory is her King; her joy, her refuge, her beauty are all found in Him, the great King who has made her His dwelling place.

Word Study

"heard," Hebrew shama'nu (שָׁמַעְנוּ). The worshippers testify: "As we have heard, so have we seen." First there were the stories of God's faithfulness that they had been told, handed down from those who went before.

"seen," ra'inu (רָאִינוּ). And now they have witnessed the same thing with their own eyes. The kings had gathered against the city (vv4-6), but they "marvelled... were troubled, and hasted away"; God broke them like the ships of Tarshish in an east wind (v7). The reports were true.

"LORD of hosts," YHWH tzeva'ot (יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת), the LORD of armies. The God whose faithfulness they had heard of and now seen is the LORD of armies -- which is precisely why the assembled kings could not stand before Him.

"establish," yekonneneha (יְכוֹנְנֶהָ), make firm, set fast. And the conclusion is sure: "God will establish it." What He has defended once, He will set fast.

"for ever," ad olam (עַד־עוֹלָם). The establishing has no end date. The city that survived one siege is promised a permanence that no siege can touch.

Explanation

This one line marks a precious moment in the life of faith: the day the hearing becomes seeing. "As we have heard, so have we seen." Every believer begins with hearing, "faith cometh by hearing" (Romans 10:17), the promises of God received on the testimony of others, the fathers' stories, the Scriptures, the reports of what God has done. For a long time faith rests on what it has only heard. But there come moments when God acts, and the thing so often heard is suddenly witnessed, the promise steps out of the story and into your own experience, and you can say, "so have we seen." Notice the psalm does not say "as we have heard, so have we hoped," but "so have we seen." God had let them live through a deliverance that turned secondhand faith into firsthand sight. Yet mark where their eyes then travel, not to their own strong walls, but forward and upward: "God will establish it for ever." Having seen God keep His word once, they trust Him for the "for ever" they have not yet seen. This is how faith grows: each thing seen becomes fresh ground for trusting the greater things still only heard.

Gospel Focus

"As we have heard, so have we seen", this is the very shape of the gospel's coming. For long ages the people of God heard the promise of a Redeemer, the prophets telling of Him whom they had not yet seen; and then, in the fulness of time, hearing became sight: "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory)" (John 1:14). The apostles testified, "which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes... of the Word of life" (1 John 1:1); what saints had longed to see, they saw in Jesus Christ. And the promise "God will establish it for ever" is sure in Him, for the city He builds cannot be shaken, His church, against which "the gates of hell shall not prevail" (Matthew 16:18), and the kingdom that "cannot be moved" (Hebrews 12:28). We who now walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7) still live between the hearing and the seeing, trusting the promises reported to us; but we too have seen enough of Christ's faithfulness to trust Him for the rest, and one day faith shall be sight altogether, when "we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2), in the city God will establish for ever.

Word Study

"walk about," Hebrew sobbu (סֹבּוּ), go around, encircle. The psalm ends with a walking tour and a testimony. "Walk about Zion" -- go round her, take her in from every side, the way the besieging kings had done, but now in peace.

"tell," sifru (סִפְרוּ), count, number. "Tell the towers thereof." The word is not first to narrate but to count: take an inventory of the city's defences.

"bulwarks," chelah (חֵילָה), her rampart. "Mark ye well her bulwarks." Count the defences, take stock of the city -- but the counting is for a purpose beyond itself.

"generation following," dor acharon (דּוֹר אַחֲרוֹן), the last, coming generation. The purpose is this: "that ye may tell it to the generation following." The survey is taken so that it can be handed on to those not yet born.

"our guide," yenahagenu (יְנַהֲגֵנוּ), he will lead us, guide us. And the message to pass on is not about the strength of the walls but the faithfulness of God: "For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide."

"even unto death," al-mut (עַל־מוּת). The guidance runs the whole length of the road. God leads His people not to the edge of death but right up to it, and the towers and ramparts of Zion were only ever a picture of that keeping.

Explanation

The psalm ends by sending you on a walk, and there is a lovely irony in where the walk leads. "Walk about Zion... tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces." Go count the towers, inspect the ramparts, take the full measure of the city's defences. You might expect such a survey to end in a boast about strong walls. Instead it ends in a confession about God: "For this God is our God for ever and ever." The towers were only ever a visible reminder of the invisible Defender; counting them is meant to make you say not "how strong our walls are" but "how faithful our God is." And notice the purpose of the whole tour, "that ye may tell it to the generation following." Faith is never meant to stop with the people who see; it is to be counted, recorded, and handed on to children who did not see, so that the next generation may hear what this generation witnessed. The psalm that began with hearing (v8, "as we have heard") ends by commissioning the hearers to become the tellers. And the single truth to be handed down is the sweetest line in the psalm: this same God, the God of the towers and the deliverance, "will be our guide even unto death." He does not merely defend the city; He walks with His people, leading them all the way home, and not even death breaks the escort.

Gospel Focus

"This God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death", these closing words are fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the Shepherd who leads His people all the way home. "This God is our God", and He has made Himself ours in Christ, who is "God with us" (Matthew 1:23); the God of Zion has come near, "Immanuel." He is our guide, "the good shepherd" who "goeth before them, and the sheep follow him" (John 10:11, 4), leading us through this life, and "even unto death" He does not leave us, for "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me" (Psalm 23:4). Indeed Christ has gone through death ahead of us and out the other side, so that He guides us not only up to death but through it, "I am the resurrection, and the life" (John 11:25). The great King who dwells in the city is the same Lord who takes each of His people by the hand and leads them, faithful "for ever and ever," never letting go, until He brings them safely into the city that shall be established for ever. Tell it to the generation following: this God, Jesus Christ, is our God, and He will be our guide even unto death, and beyond it, for ever.