The closing verses are addressed, not to the bride, but to the king, and can only in a very modified way and partially be supposed to pass beyond the Jewish monarch and refer to the true King. Hopes that he might be blessed with fortunate issue of the marriage were quite in place in an epithalamion, and the delicacy of the light touch with which this closing note is struck is noteworthy, especially in contrast with the tone of many famous secular songs of similar import. But much straining is needed to extract a spiritual sense from the words. Perowne truly says that it is "wiser to acknowledge at once the mixed character" of the psalm, and he quotes a sagacious saying of Calvin's to the effect that it is not necessary that every detail should be carefully fitted to Christ. The psalm had a historical basis; and it has also a prophetic meaning, because the king of Israel was himself a type, and Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of the ideal never realised by its successive occupants. Both views of its nature must be kept in view in its interpretation; and it need cause no surprise if, at some points, the rind of prose fact is, so to speak, thicker than at others, or if certain features absolutely refuse to lend themselves to the spiritual interpretation.
1 God is a refuge and stronghold for us, A help in troubles most readily to be found. 2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth do change, And the mountains reel into the heart of the sea. 3 Let its waters roar and foam; Let mountains shake at its pride. Selah. [Jehovah of hosts is with us; A high tower for us is Jacob's God.]
4 [There is] a river--its branches make glad the city of God The sanctuary of the tabernacles of the Most High. 5 God is in her midst; she shall not be moved: God shall help her at the morning dawn. 6 Nations roared, kingdoms were moved: He gave forth His voice, the earth melts. 7 Jehovah of hosts is with us; A high tower for us is Jacob's God. Selah.
8 Come, behold the deeds of Jehovah, Who has made desolations in the earth. 9 Quelling wars to the end of the earth: The bow He breaks, and hews the spear in splinters; The chariots He burns in the fire. 10 "Desist, and know that I am God: I will be exalted in the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." 11 Jehovah of hosts is with us; A high tower for us is Jacob's God. Selah.
There are two events, one or other of which probably supplies the historical basis of this and the two following psalms. One is Jehoshaphat's deliverance from the combined forces of the bordering nations (2 Chron. xx.). Delitzsch adopts this as the occasion of the psalm. But the other more usually accepted reference to the destruction of Sennacherib's army is more probable. Psalms xlvi. and xlviii. have remarkable parallelisms with Isaiah. The noble contrast of the quiet river which makes glad the city of God with a tossing, earth-shaking sea resembles the prophet's threatening that the effect of refusing the "waters of Shiloah which go softly" would be inundation by the strong and mighty river, the Assyrian power. And the emblem is expanded in the striking language of Isa. xxxiii. 21: "The glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars." Encircled by the flashing links of that broad moat, Jerusalem sits secure. Again, the central thought of the refrain in the psalm, "The Lord of hosts is with us," is closely allied to the symbolic name which Isaiah gave as a pledge of deliverance, "Immanuel, God with us."
The structure is simple. The three strophes into which the psalm falls set forth substantially the same thought, that God's presence is safety and peace, whatever storms may roar. This general theme is exhibited in the first strophe (vv. 1-3) in reference to natural convulsions; in the second (vv. 4-7) in reference to the rage of hostile kingdoms; and in the third (vv. 8-11) men are summoned to behold a recent example of God's delivering might, which establishes the truth of the preceding utterances and has occasioned the psalm. The grand refrain which closes the second and third strophes should probably be restored at the end of ver. 3.