Psalms 48:2

Beautiful for situation Rather, as R.V., beautiful in elevation. Cp. Psalms 50:2. "Its elevation," writes Dean Stanley, "is remarkable; occasioned not from its being on the summit of one of the numerous hills of Judaea, like most of the towns and villages, but because it is on the edge of one of the highest tablelands of the country.… To the traveller approaching Jerusalem from the west or east, it must always have presented the appearance … of a mountain city; breathing, as compared with the plains of Jordan, a mountain air; enthroned, as compared with Jericho and Damascus, Gaza or Tyre, on a mountain fastness" (Sinai and Palestine: pp. 170, 171). May not the poet also have in mind that -ideal" elevation of which the prophets speak? e.g. Isaiah 2:2; Micah 4:1.

the joy of the whole earth Lamentations 2:15 combines this phrase with that of Psalms 50:2. "Is this the city that men called, The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?" Cp. Isaiah 60:15.

on the sides of the north Thus rendered, the words appear to be a topographical description of the situation of Mount Zion to the north of the city; or, if we render, on the sides of the north is the citadel of the great King, a description of the position of the Temple. But -Mount Zion" in this Psalm is not a part of the city but the whole city (Psalms 48:11); a merely topographical description would be frigid in the extreme; the rendering involves a doubtful construction; and it gives a very inadequate meaning to the phrase the sides of the north. This phrase occurs elsewhere in Isaiah 14:13; Ezekiel 38:6; Ezekiel 38:15; Ezekiel 39:2; and in all these passages it means the recesses or remotest quarters of the north. In Isaiah 14:13 "the uttermost parts of the north" (R.V.) are mentioned as the locality of the sacred mountain, which according to Asiatic mythology was the abode of the gods. This mountain, corresponding to the Olympus of the Greeks, was the Meruof the Indians, the Alborgof the Persians, the Arâluof the Assyrians and Babylonians. It would seem that the Psalmist boldly calls Mount Zion the uttermost parts of the northwith reference to this mythological idea. According to this interpretation Psalms 48:1 may be rendered as follows:

Great Is Jehovah, and exceeding worthy to be praised,

In the city of our God is his holy mountain.

Beautiful in elevation, a Joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion,

The uttermost parts of the north, the citadel of the great King.

The sacred mountain of our God is not in the remote recesses of the north, but in the very midst of the city of His choice. Zion is in reality all that the Assyrians claim for their fabled mount of the gods. Their king too may style himself -great," but Zion is the citadel of One Who is in truth the great King, for He is the King of all the earth (Psalms 47:2; Psalms 47:7). "The great king" was a title claimed by the king of Assyria (Isaiah 36:4); and the word for -great" is not that used in Psalms 48:1 (gâdôl) but rab, which corresponds to the Assyrian title sarru rabbu(Schrader, Cuneif. Inser. p. 320). -City" (citadel) is not the same word as in Psalms 48:1 (- îr), but ḳiryâh, a word which does not occur again in the Psalter, but is found several times in Isaiah (Isaiah 22:2; Isaiah 29:1; Isaiah 33:20). To many commentators it seems inconceivable that the Psalmist should allude to Assyrian mythology. But a writer of Isaiah's time might easily have become acquainted with the religious ideas of the Assyrians, and the author of the Book of Job does not hesitate to introduce popular mythological ideas. See Prof. Davidson's note on Job 26:12: and cp. Isaiah 27:1.