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Psalm 48:1-14

The City of the Great King

Lyrics · Psalms

The City of the Great King

Psalm 48:1-14

Lyrics

About this song

About this song

This song belongs to the Psalms collection. One recording is available to play here, with the complete lyrics below.

Bible book
Psalms
Collection
Psalms
Musical styles
Acoustic
The Lord is large, and every word of praise is owed Him where our God has His town, on the hill He keeps holy. Lovely where it sits, the gladness of the whole world, that hill called Zion, along its northern shoulder, the town belonging to the King who is great. Inside those walls God is known as somewhere to run. Look at it: the kings assembled, they went by in a group. One look and they could not make sense of it; something went out of them and they left in a hurry. Terror got hold of them on the spot, and a pain like a woman going into labour. The trading fleets go to pieces when You send the east wind. What had only reached us as report, we have now looked at in the town of the Lord who commands heaven's armies, in the town of our God. God is going to leave it standing. We have gone back over Your kindness in our minds inside that temple of Yours. Your praise carries as far as Your name carries, right out to where the earth stops; Your right hand is full of what is straight. Let that hill be glad; let the towns of Judah be glad, because of how You settle a matter. Take a turn around Zion, all the way round the outside; put a number on her towers. Set your mind on her ramparts, walk through her halls, so you have something to hand the generation after this one. This God is the God we have, now and from here on; He is the one who will walk us all the way out.

Named in this songZion

About the passage

Psalms 48: The city that gives the next generation something to see

Psalm 48 praises Zion by first praising the Lord who makes Zion meaningful. The city is beautiful because it is “the city of the great King,” and God is known in its palaces as refuge. When hostile kings gather, their alliance dissolves almost as soon as they see the city; marvel becomes fear, pain, and retreat. The worshippers then make a crucial move from inherited report to personal witness: “As we have heard, so have we seen.” That experience is not allowed to remain private. They are told to walk around Zion, count its towers, mark its defenses, and consider its palaces so the next generation can be told. Stone becomes a visible aid to memory, not an object of confidence in itself. The final declaration points beyond the walls to the God who will guide his people “even unto death.”

Study Psalms 48 in depth