Biblion Bible Commentary
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God Is Our Refuge and Strength
Psalms 46:1-11
1 For the Chief Musician. By the sons of Korah. According to Alamoth. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. · WEB
The world comes apart and a quiet river keeps running, and the psalm's famous instruction is not addressed to the anxious.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble Psalms 46:1.
The adjective in the third phrase means found, proven, available — a help that has been located rather than one that is theoretically on offer.
Therefore we won't be afraid, though the earth changes, though the mountains are shaken into the heart of the seas Psalms 46:2.
The scenario is the collapse of the most permanent things there are. Mountains falling into the sea is the ancient image for the undoing of creation itself, and the psalm's claim is not that this will not happen but that fear would still be misplaced if it did.
There is a river, the streams of which make the city of God glad Psalms 46:4.
Against the roaring sea, a river. Jerusalem has no river — it is the one thing the city conspicuously lacked, which is why the image is chosen. The waters that matter are not the ones on the map, and streams is a word for irrigation channels, water that has been directed rather than water running wild.
God is within her. She shall not be moved. God will help her at dawn Psalms 46:5.
The mountains were moved in verse two; the city is not, and the difference is stated as residence. Help at dawn is not a poetic flourish — the night attack was the standard military threat, and daybreak was when a besieged city found out whether it had survived.
The nations raged. The kingdoms were moved. He lifted his voice and the earth melted Psalms 46:6.
The same verb as the mountains. Empires are placed in the category of things that shake, and what unmakes them is a voice.
Come, see Yahweh's works, what desolations he has made on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow, and shatters the spear. He burns the chariots in the fire Psalms 46:8–9.
The desolations turn out to be the destruction of weapons. What is being smashed is the equipment of war rather than the people, and the psalm invites the reader to come and look at it.
"Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations" Psalms 46:10.
The most quoted line in the psalm and it is almost always applied to the wrong audience. It is not soothing counsel to an anxious believer; it is spoken by God, in a passage about broken bows and burned chariots, and the ones told to stop are the nations. The verb means to let go, to drop the hands — a command to belligerents to cease, and to know who is actually in charge of the outcome.
Yahweh of Armies is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge Psalms 46:11. The refrain closes the psalm as it closed the middle of it, and the title is military.
settled What this mark means