Psalms 48 - Introduction

Heading.

‘A Song; a Psalm of the sons of Korah.'

For the sons of Korah see introduction to Part 2. Many of the temple singers were sons of Korah.

This psalm continues the theme of the Great King. Its aim is to exalt Him and describe the wonder of the place where He dwells. Israel were well aware that God was so great that even the Heaven of Heavens could not contain Him. In the words of the wise Solomon, ‘Behold Heaven, and the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain you. How much less this house that I have built' (1 Kings 8:27).

But they also knew that God had been pleased to establish on earth a place where He could be approached, a kind of doorway to Heaven. And that place was the Temple on Mount Zion, on which was centred the worship of the one true God. That was why they gloried in Mount Zion and Jerusalem, because they represented God's interest revealed on earth towards His people, and they pointed to, and drew men to, God. Today that Temple has been replaced by a greater Temple, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself (compare John 4:24). Thus all that is said here about the Temple and Jerusalem should now be focused on our Lord Jesus Christ Who has replaced the Temple as the centre of people's worship. It is now to Him that we should point, and to Whom we should give praise and glory.