Psalms 47:5

PROPHETIC PORTION OF THE PSALM

"God is gone up with a shout,

Jehovah with the sound of a trumpet.

Sing praises to God, sing praises:

Sing praises unto our King, sing praises.

For God is the King of all the earth:

Sing ye praises with understanding.

God reigneth over the nations:

God sitteth upon his holy throne.

The princes of the peoples are gathered together

To be the people of the God of Abraham;

For the shields of the earth belong unto God:

He is greatly exalted."

"God is gone up with a shout" (Psalms 47:5). This positively does not mean that, "An earthly king `goes up' to the high place where his palace is located."[8] This is merely a deduction based upon the nonsense of a `cultic' interpretation. What earthly king was ever entitled to be called, "God?"

Then, there is the view that God had, in a sense, "come down" to rescue his people; and after he had done so, of course, he went up to heaven; but this is the utmost abuse of the anthropomorphism inherent in certain Biblical statements that God "came down," as in Genesis 11:5. Never for one moment did God actually leave heaven and come down to earth either to inspect men's works, or to thwart them. It seems to us that even simple, uneducated people should certainly know a basic truth like that.

Note that the text says nothing of God's "coming down" to destroy Sennacherib; it is only the `interpreters' who come up with statements like that; and we wish to affirm that God did not come down from heaven in order to deliver the Jews from Assyria. He did not need to come down, nor did he do so. Therefore God's "going up" is no reference whatever to his going back to heaven after coming down to help the Jews.

In the history of mankind, God literally came down from heaven to this earth, only once, and that was in the person of His beloved Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. He, alone, was the Day Spring who visited us from "On High."

"God went up" (Psalms 47:5). Our text states that "God went up," and as Delitzsch stated it, "The ascent of God presupposes a previous descent."[9] No doubt Delitzsch followed the wisdom of the apostle Paul in this, for that apostle made exactly the same argument, speaking of the ascension of Christ, he wrote: "Now this, He ascended, what is it but that he also descended" (Ephesians 4:9)?

Note that in the apostolic usage of this terminology that it was a literal "coming down to earth" and "going up to heaven" that was meant. There was no anthropomorphism whatever. For these reasons, we hold that God's "going up" in this passage is a prophetic reference to the Ascension to heaven of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the reason that Christian scholars for centuries have called this "One of the Ascension Psalms." Moreover, "The traditional use of this Psalm in the historical Church is for `The Festival of the Ascension.'"[10]

"Sing praises" (Psalms 47:6-7). This command occurs no less than five times in these two verses, indicating that something far more important, even, than the deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib, is indicated in the words just spoken, that "God is gone up," implying, as it does, that he had also come down. What could that super-important event be? Only the visitation of Christ in the Incarnation and his exaltation at the right hand of God could be meant.

Kidner tells us that in the Hebrew, there is only a single word which is here repeatedly rendered, "Sing praises."[11]

"God reigneth over the nations; God sitteth upon his holy throne" (Psalms 47:8). This verse enables us to know the identity of "God" who went up (Psalms 47:5). He is the God who rules over the Gentiles (the `nations') in his kingdom, and who during that time is `sitting upon his holy throne.' The special application of this terminology to Jesus Christ is well known to every Christian, the same being a strong indication that Psalms 47:5 is indeed a prophecy of Christ's ascension.

We noted that one reason, perhaps, for the Spirit of God's inclusion of this prophecy in proximity to the Jewish boast of trampling the Gentiles under their feet in the first section, was for the purpose of rebuking that selfish and egoistic principle that apparently dominated the Jewish mind.

"The princes of the peoples are gathered together to be the people of the God of Abraham" (Psalms 47:9). The `peoples' here are the `nations,' `the Gentiles,' who are said to be gathered together for the purpose of "becoming" the people of the God of Abraham. In all the Bible there is not a clearer prophecy of God's converting the Gentiles and of bringing them into the kingdom of God, alongside the Jews, than we have here. Paul stated that:

There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be no male and female; for ye are all one man in Christ Jesus; and if ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. - Galatians 3:28-29.

Thus, as several writers have pointed out, we have the fulfilment here of what God promised Abraham, that through him "all the families of the earth would be blessed" (Genesis 12:3, and Genesis 17:4).

"The shields of the earth" (Psalms 47:9). Dummelow gave the meaning of this as "the princes of the earth."[12] Apparently the meaning here relates to the rulers of all the Gentile nations. God's ownership and his kingship over all things and all men are effectively stated here,

The very fact of God, in some meaningful sense, ruling over all nations and all men is a truth that identifies the Kingdom of God on earth. Thus there are three tremendous prophecies in these five verses: (1) the Incarnation of Christ, certified by his ascension, (2) the establishment of God's kingdom on earth, and (3) the union of both Gentiles and Jews in the Messianic phase of God's kingdom.

In these last verses, "All peoples and nations are called upon to desist from opposing God, and to accept him as their exalted Sovereign."[13]

When all nations shall submit to Christ, and all the peoples of mankind bow down before him, and when rebellion and resistance to his will have ceased, then shall come to pass what is written:

"THE KINGDOM OF THE WORLD IS BECOME THE

KINGDOM OF OUR LORD AND OF HIS CHRIST; AND

HE SHALL REIGN FOREVER AND EVER."

- Revelation 11:15