Psalms 48:2 - Exposition

Beautiful for situation ; literally, for elevation ; i.e. in respect of its lofty position. "Jerusalem, above all other great capitals," says Professor Cheyne, "is a mountain city." "It is a glorious burst," says Canon Tristram, "as the traveller rounds the shoulder of Mount Olivet, and the Haram wall starts up before him from the deep gorge of the Kedron, with its domes and crescents sparkling in the sunlight—a royal city". The joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion (comp. Romans 2:15 ). The psalmist writes as a devout Israelite. To him there is nothing in the world so lovely, nothing so gladdening, as Mount Zion and the holy city seated on it. He does not mean to say that all the earth felt as he did; though he may have thought that, if men were wise, they would so feel. On the sides of the north . Professor Cheyne regards this clause as a gloss which has crept into the text. Others give a mystical interpretation founded on Isaiah 14:15 . But the simplest explanation seems to be the best. Zion, the city of David, lay to the north of the temple, and abutted on the city's northern wall. The city of the great King (comp. Isaiah 14:1 , "the city of our God").