Psalm 48:9 God's Temple

Psalm 48:9 Within your temple, O God, we meditate on your unfailing love.

In Psalm 48, A song. A psalm of the Sons of Korah the psalmist, as he puts it in verse 9, meditates on God's unfailing love within God's Temple. He begins with praise to God, rejoicing in Jerusalem, where the Temple is found. He says that the LORD is Great ... and most worthy of praise, in the city of our God, his holy mountain. He then goes on to speak of how wonderful that city is, the reason being that (3) God is in her citadels; he has shown himself to be her fortress. In verses 4-7 a specific instance of God defending his people seems to be given. Though kings joined forces and advanced together nevertheless they fled in terror as God destroyed them like ships of Tarshish shattered by an east wind. He concludes (8) As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the LORD Almighty, in the city of our God: God makes her secure for ever. It is God then that he praises but in the context of Mount Zion and Jerusalem and indeed the villages of Judah. He ends the psalm by urging us (12, 13) to Walk about Zion, go round her, count her towers, consider well her ramparts, view her citadels, that you may tell of them to the next generation. It is not the place itself that he is drawing attention to as such but the fact that (14) this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end. In a similar way a study of church history and its great characters, for example, is a way of meditating on God's unfailing love and reassuring ourselves of his continued guidance.