to see · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
marvelled
תָּמָ֑הוּta.Ma.hu
H8539
to be in consternation · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
troubled
נִבְהֲל֥וּniv.ha.Lu
H926
to tremble inwardly (or palpitate) · verb, niphal perfect, 3rd person common plural
away
נֶחְפָּֽזוּnech.Pa.zu
H2648
properly · verb, niphal perfect, 3rd person common plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Exodus 14:25 And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the LO…
2 Kings 7:6-7 For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they s…
2 Kings 19:35-37 And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five th…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 48:1-7
The psalmist is designing to praise Jerusalem and to set forth the grandeur of that city; but he begins with the praises of God and his greatness (Psa 48:1), and ends with the praises of God and his goodness, Psa 48:14. For, whatever is the subject of our praises, God must be both the Alpha and Omega of them. And, particularly, whatever is said to the honour of the church must redound to the honour of the church's God.
What is here said to the honour of Jerusalem is,
I. That the King of heaven owns it: it is the city of our God (Psa 48:1), which he chose out of all the cities of Israel to put his name there. Of Zion he said kinder things than ever he said of place upon earth. This is my rest…
For--The reason is given. Though the kings (perhaps of Moab and Ammon, compare Psa 83:3-5) combined, a conviction of God's presence with His people, evinced by the unusual courage with which the prophets (compare Ch2 20:12-20) had inspired them, seized on their minds, and smitten with sudden and intense alarm, they fled astonished.
John Gill on Psalms 48:5
They saw it,.... Either the city or the power of God, as Aben Ezra; or, as Jarchi, God himself going forth to fight against the nations. This refers to the power Christ will take to himself, and show forth, by reigning in his church, and protecting it, which will not only be visible to the saints, but to the nations of the world; and to the brightness of Christ's coming in his spiritual reign, with the lustre of which antichrist will be destroyed, Revelation 11:17; and to the glorious state of the church, signified by the rising of the witnesses, and their standing on their feet, and ascending to heaven, which will be seen by their enemies, Revelation 11:11; and to the destruction of Rome, t…
Psalm 48:4-7
4. For, behold! the kings assembled, they passed away together. 5. They saw, so they marvelled; they were frightened, they fled precipitately. 6. Fear [192] seized upon them there, and pain as of a woman in travail. 7. By the east wind thou breakest in pieces the ships of Tarshish.
4 For, behold! the kings assembled Here that special deliverance of which I have spoken is touched upon. The prophet relates how, when the kings were assembled together to destroy Jerusalem, their efforts passed away without producing any effect, even as clouds in the atmosphere vanish away; yea, he tells us, that by a simple look at the city, they were defeated and undone, and that not after an ord…
The Church Fathers
As he is recognized, the kings of the earth are disturbed.
This, I say, is man's real death, when souls that know not God shall be consumed in long-protracted torment with raging fire, into which certain fiercely cruel beings shall cast them, who were unknown before Christ and brought to light only by his wisdom.
"They saw it, and so they marvelled" [Psalm 48:4]. After their marvelling at the miracles and glory of Christ, what followed? "They were troubled, they were moved" [Psalm 48:5], "trembling took hold upon them." Whence took trembling hold upon them, but from the consciousness of sins? Let them run then, king after a king; kings, let them acknowledge the King. Therefore says He elsewhere, "Yet have I been set by Him a King upon His holy hill of Sion."...A King then was heard of, set up in Sion, to Him were delivered possessions even to the uttermost parts of the earth. Kings behooved to fear lest they should lose the kingdom, lest the kingdom be taken from them. As wretched Herod feared, and for the Child slew the children. [Matthew 2:16] But fearing to lose his kingdom, he deserved not to know the King. Would that he too had adored the King with the Magi: not by ill-seeking the kingdom, slain the Innocents, and perished guilty. For as concerning him, he destroyed the Innocents: but as for Christ, even a Child, the children dying for Him did He crown. Therefore behooved kings to fear when it was said, "Yet have I been set a King by Him upon His holy hill of Sion," and inheritance to the uttermost parts of the earth shall He give Him, who set Him up King....Thence also this is said to them, "Understand now therefore, O you kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice unto Him with trembling." And what did they? "There pains as of a woman in travail." What are the pains "as of a woman in travail," but the pangs of a penitent? See the same conception of pain and travail: "Of Your fear" (says Isaiah) "we have conceived, we have travailed of the Spirit of salvation." [Isaiah 26:17-18] So then the kings conceived from the fear of Christ, that by travailing they brought forth salvation by believing on Him whom they had feared. "There pains as of a woman in travail:" when of travail you hear, expect a birth. The old man travails, but the new man is born.
(Heb.: 48:2-9) Viewed as to the nature of its subject-matter, the Psalm divides itself into three parts. We begin by considering the three strophes of the first part. The middle strophe presents an instance of the rising and falling caesural schema. Because Jahve has most marvellously delivered Jerusalem, the poet begins with the praise of the great King and of His Holy City. Great and praised according to His due (מהלּל as in Psa 18:4) is He in her, is He upon His holy mountain, which there is His habitation. Next follow, in Psa 48:3, two predicates of a threefold, or fundamentally only twofold, subject; for ירכּתי צפון, in whatever way it may be understood, is in apposition to הר־ציּון. Th…
God dwells in Zion to protect it from all enemies (see 46:5).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 48:5
They saw it, and so they marvelled; they were troubled, and hasted away.
They saw it, and so they marvelled. They came, they saw, but they did not conquer. There was no veni, vidi, vici for them. No sooner did they perceive that the Lord was in the Holy City, than they took to their heels. Before the Lord came to blows with them, they were faint hearted, and beat a retreat. They were troubled and hasted away. The troublers were troubled. Their haste in coming was nothing to their hurry in going. Panic seized them, horses were not fleet enough; they would have borrowed the wings of the wind. They fled ignominiously, like children in a fright. Glory be to God, it shall be even thus with the f…
