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Psalm 48
Great is the Lord, and most worthy of praise, in the city of our God, his holy mountain. Beautiful in its loftiness, the joy of the whole earth, like the heights of Zaphon is Mount Zion, the city of the Great King. God is in her citadels; he has shown himself to be her fortress. When the kings joined forces, when they advanced together, they saw her and were astounded; they fled in terror. Trembling seized them there, pain like that of a woman in labor. You destroyed them like ships of Tarshish shattered by an east wind. As we have heard, so we have seen in the city of the Lord Almighty, in the city of our God: God makes her secure forever. Within your temple, O God, we meditate on your unfailing love. Like your name, O God, your praise reaches to the ends of the earth; your right hand is filled with righteousness. Mount Zion rejoices, the villages of Judah are glad because of your judgments. Walk about Zion, go around her, count her towers, consider well her ramparts, view her citadels, that you may tell of them to the next generation. For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end.

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By: The Rev. Prof. Stephen Noll

“Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion city of our God” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrHI3ATW9Co&feature=related).
Most hymns are addressed to God. Psalm 48, however, is offered to a place, to Zion. Zion is the central hill on which the city of Jerusalem was built. In particular, David desired to build a Temple, and his son Solomon completed it with great fanfare (2 Samuel 7; 1 Kings 8). The Temple on Zion was considered “the Lord’s house” and the seat of the Messiah, from which He reigned over the nations (Psalm 2:6).
While Zion is hardly the most noticeable feature of the world’s topography, Scripture portrays it as uniquely “beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth” (verse 2). Jerusalem and its kings were hardly the most powerful of their day. Indeed Sennacherib, the “Great King” of Assyria, mocked them, only to be routed by a plague (1 Kings 18:19-28). The Psalm describes all the kings of the earth drawn to Zion, “the city of the Great King,” only to be terrified and scattered to the winds (verses 4-7).

After the Temple mount was destroyed in 586 BC, Jews in exile mourned its loss, and in their imaginations they walked the streets of Zion and measured her dimensions. On the first Palm Sunday, the people of Jerusalem welcomed Jesus of Nazareth as their King, only to cry “Crucify Him” five days later. The city and its Temple were razed to the ground a generation later, and the central place of Zion is today occupied by a golden mosque.

Jews (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH8gtdDA5x0&feature=related) and Christians (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBOvNZJz4r0&feature=related) pray for the peace of Jerusalem and look forward to a new Jerusalem the Golden where we shall experience the ultimate fulfillment of the psalm: “This is our God forever, He will guide us unto death.”