Psalms 48:9-11

Having Meditated On What Has Happened, God's People Now Declare Their Confidence in God (Psalms 48:9).

Psalms 48:9

‘We have thought on your covenant love, O God,

In the midst of your temple.

As is your name, O God,

So is your praise to the ends of the earth,

Your right hand is full of righteousness,

Let mount Zion be glad,

Let the daughters of Judah rejoice,

Because of your judgments.

What they have seen has turned their thoughts towards God's lovingkindness (His covenant love), as they come to worship in His Temple, and they acknowledge gladly that what His Name (His nature and activity) means to them, has also become known to other nations so that they also praise Him. Many nations had in fact cause to be grateful for the humiliating of Assyria, and would give praise to Israel's God for His deliverance.

For they recognise that God has acted in righteous deliverance by the might of His right hand, and will therefore, they are sure, continue to do so. Thus Mount Zion herself could rejoice, and so could all the neighbouring towns (her ‘daughters' - compare Numbers 21:25; Joshua 17:11; Joshua 17:16) who had suffered so terribly under the Assyrian invasion. All could now rest secure in the judgments and decisions of their mighty God.

What they later forgot was that His righteous deliverance was only for the righteous. Thus once they had virtually forsaken Him (in the time of Jeremiah Jerusalem was almost totally unfaithful to YHWH - Jeremiah 5:1 ff.), His protection no longer applied. The promise of His protection applies to all who are faithful to God, but only if they are looking to Him and trusting in Him. When they are they can ever be sure that His right hand will finally vindicate them, and that His judgments will be carried out on their behalf.