Psalms 48:14

14. For this God is our God Glorious confession! to which the astonished people are led by their inspection and circuit of the city walls.

For ever and ever Two of the strongest Hebrew words for endless duration.

Even unto death This certainly cannot be the idea of the original, for besides that it is a great falling off from the previous sentence, it is against the connexion. The point of the argument is to show the Church or Zion indestructible. We must either drop the Makkeph, and change the vowel points so as to read עלמות , ( to eternity,) instead of על מות , ( unto death,) (and so the Septuagint, εις τους αιωνας , for evermore, Vulgate, in soecula, which agree with the context and scope;) or, accepting the Masoretic or common text, take the preposition על , ( ‘al,) not in the sense of unto, as in the common Version, but of after, through, over, against, and read, “he will be our guide after, through, over, or against death.” Either of these renderings would be entirely according to the usage of the proposition, and would sustain the sense and harmonize with the connexion, which assumes that God will never resign the leadership of his people. Death is not a goal to be reached, as unto would imply, but an enemy or terror now vanquished, surmounted, or removed, so as to offer no impediment. The outlook is not upon an earthly future, but an immortality. The stability and endless prosperity belong not to the material Zion, but to the mystic, the Church in her spiritual and evangelical inheritance. “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Psalms 68:20; Matthew 16:18.