'There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of
God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. 5. God is
in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and
that right early. 6. The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: He
uttered His voice, the earth melted. 7. The Lord of hosts is with
us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.'--PSALM xlvi 4-7.
There are two remarkable events in the history of Israel, one or other
of which most probably supplied the historical basis upon which this
psalm rests. One is that wonderful deliverance of the armies of
Jehoshaphat from the attacking forces of the bordering nations, which is
recorded in the twentieth chapter of the Book of Chronicles. There you
will find that, by a singular arrangement, the sons of Korah, members of
the priestly order, were not only in the van of the battle, but
celebrated the victory by hymns of gladness. It is possible that this
may be one of those hymns; but I think rather that the more ordinary
reference is the correct one, which sees in this psalm and in the two
succeeding ones, echoes of that supernatural deliverance of Israel in
the time of Hezekiah, when
'The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold,'
and Sennacherib and all his army were, by the blast of the breath of His
nostrils, swept into swift destruction.
The reasons for that historical reference may be briefly stated. We
find, for instance, a number of remarkable correspondences between these
three psalms and portions of the Book of the prophet Isaiah, who, as we
know, lived in the period of that deliverance. The comparison, for
example, which is here drawn with such lofty, poetic force between the
quiet river which 'makes glad the city of God,' and the tumultuous
billows of the troubled sea, which shakes the mountain and moves the
earth, is drawn by Isaiah in regard to the Assyrian invasion, when he
speaks of Israel refusing 'the waters of Shiloah, which go softly,' and,
therefore, having brought upon them the waters of the river--the power
of Assyria--'which shall fill the breadth of Thy land, O Immanuel!'
Notice, too, that the very same consolation which was given to Isaiah,
by the revelation of that significant appellation, 'Immanuel, God with
us,' appears in this psalm as a kind of refrain, and is the foundation
of all its confident gladness, 'The Lord of Hosts is with us.' Besides
these obvious parallelisms, there are others to which I need not refer,
which, taken together, seem to render it at least probable that we have
in this psalm the devotional echo of the great deliverance of Israel
from Assyria in the time of Hezekiah.
Now, these verses are the cardinal central portion of the song. We may
call them The Hymn of the Defence and Deliverance of the City of God. We
cannot expect to find in poetry the same kind of logical accuracy in the
process of thought which we require in treatises; but the lofty emotion
of devout song obeys laws of its own: and it is well to surrender
ourselves to the flow, and to try to see with the Psalmist's eyes for a
moment his sources of consolation and strength.
I take the four points which seem to be the main turning-points of these
verses--first, the gladdening river; second, the indwelling Helper;
third, the conquering voice; and fourth, the alliance of ourselves by
faith with the safe dwellers in the city of God.
I. First, we have the gladdening river--an emblem of many great and
joyous truths.
The figure is occasioned by, or at all events derives much of its
significance from, a geographical peculiarity of Jerusalem. Alone among
the great cities and historical centres of the world, it stood upon no
broad river. One little perennial stream, or rather rill of living
water, was all which it had; but Siloam was mightier and more blessed
for the dwellers in the rocky fortress of the Jebusites than the
Euphrates, Nile, or Tiber for the historical cities which stood upon
their banks. One can see the Psalmist looking over the plain eastward,
and beholding in vision the mighty forces which came against them,
symbolised and expressed by the breadth and depth and swiftness of the
great river upon which Nineveh sat as a queen, and then thinking upon
the little tiny thread of living water that flowed past the base of the
rock upon which the temple was perched. It seems small and
unconspicuous--nothing compared to the dash of the waves and the rise of
the floods of those mighty secular empires, still, 'There is a river the
streams whereof shall make glad the city of God.' Its waters shall never
fail, and thirst shall flee whithersoever this river comes.
It is also to be remembered that the psalm is running in the track of a
certain constant symbolism that pervades all Scripture. From the first
book of Genesis down to the last chapter of Revelation, you can hear the
dashing of the waters of the river. 'It went out from the garden and
parted into four heads.' 'Thou makest them drink of the river of Thy
pleasures.' 'Behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the
house eastward,' and 'everything shall live whithersoever the river
cometh.' 'He that believeth on me, out of His belly shall flow rivers of
living water.' 'And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as
crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.' Isaiah,
who has already afforded some remarkable parallels to the words of our
psalm, gives another very striking one to the image now under
consideration, when he says, 'The glorious Lord will be unto us a place
of broad rivers and streams, wherein shall go no galley with oars.' The
picture in that metaphor is of a stream lying round Jerusalem, like the
moated rivers which girdle some of the cities in the plains of Italy,
and are the defence of those who dwell enclosed in their flashing links.
Guided, then, by the physical peculiarity of situation which I have
referred to, and by the constant meaning of Scriptural symbolism, I
think we must conclude that this river, 'the streams whereof make glad
the city of God,' is God Himself in the outflow and self-communication
of His own grace to the soul. The stream is the fountain in flow. The
gift of God, which is living water, is God Himself, considered as the
ever-imparting Source of all refreshment, of all strength, of all
blessedness. 'This spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe
should receive.'
We must dwell for a moment or two still further upon these words, and
mark how this metaphor, in a most simple and natural way, sets forth
very grand and blessed spiritual truths with regard to this
communication of God's grace to them that love Him and trust Him. First,
I think we may see here a very beautiful suggestion of the manner, and
then of the variety, and then of the effects of that communication of
the divine love and grace.
We have only to read the previous verses to see what I mean. 'God is our
refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not
we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be
carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be
troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.' There
you can hear the wild waves dashing round the base of the firm hills,
sapping their strength, and toppling their crests down in the bubbling,
yeasty foam. Remember how, not only in Scripture but in all poetry, the
sea has been the emblem of endless unrest. Its waters, those barren,
wandering fields of foam, going moaning round the world with
unprofitable labour, how they have been the emblem of unbridled power,
of tumult and strife, and anarchy and rebellion! Then mark how our text
brings into sharpest contrast with all that hurly-burly of the tempest,
and the dash and roar of the troubled waters, the gentle, quiet flow of
the river, 'the streams whereof make glad the city of God'; the
translucent little ripples purling along beds of golden pebbles, and the
enamelled meadows drinking the pure stream as it steals by them. Thus,
says our psalm, not with noise, not with tumult, not with conspicuous
and destructive energy, but in silent, secret underground communication,
God's grace, God's love, His peace, His power, His almighty and gentle
Self flow into men's souls. Quietness and confidence on our sides
correspond to the quietness and serenity with which He glides into the
heart. Instead of all the noise of the sea you have within the quiet
impartations of the voice that is still and small, wherein God dwells.
The extremest power is silent. The mightiest force in all the universe
is the force which has neither speech nor language. The parent of all
physical force, as astronomers seem to be more and more teaching us, is
the great central sun which moveth all things, which operates all
physical changes, whose beams are all but omnipotent, and yet fall so
quietly that they do not disturb the motes that dance in their path.
Thunder and lightning are child's play compared with the energy that
goes to make the falling dews and quiet rains. The power of the sunshine
is the root power of all force which works in material things. And so we
turn, with the symbol in our hands, to the throne of God, and when He
says, 'Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit,' we are aware of an
energy, the signature of whose might is its quietness, which is
omnipotent because it is gentle and silent. The seas may roar and be
troubled, the tiny thread of the river is mightier than them all.
And then, still further, in this first part of our text there is also
set forth very distinctly the number and the variety of the gifts of
God. 'The streams whereof,' literally, 'the divisions whereof,'--that is
to say, going back to Eastern ideas, the broad river is broken up into
canals that are led off into every man's little bit of garden ground;
coming down to modern ideas, the water is carried by pipes into every
man's household and chamber. The stream has its divisions; listen to
words that are a commentary upon the meaning of this verse, 'All these
worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing unto every man
severally as He will'--an infinite variety, an endless diversity,
according to all the petty wants of each that is supplied thereby. As
you can divide water all but infinitely, and it will take the shape of
every containing vessel, so into every soul according to its capacities,
according to its shape, according to its needs, this great gift, this
blessed presence of the God of our strength, will come. The varieties of
His gifts are as much the mark of His omnipotence as the gentleness and
stillness of them.
And then I need only touch upon the last thought, the effects of this
communicated God. 'The streams make glad'--with the gladness which comes
from refreshment, with the gladness which comes from the satisfying of
all thirsty desires, with the gladness which comes from the contact of
the spirit with absolute completeness; of the will, with perfect
authority; of the heart, with changeless love; of the understanding,
with pure incarnate truth; of the conscience, with infinite peace; of
the child, with the Father; of my emptiness, with His fulness; of my
changeableness, with His immutability; of my incompleteness, with His
perfectness. They to whom this stream passes shall know no thirst; they
who possess it from them it shall come. Out of him 'shall flow rivers of
living water.' That all-sufficient Spirit not only becomes to its
possessor the source of individual refreshment, and slakes his own
thirst, but flows out from him for the gladdening of others.
'The least flower with a brimming cup may stand,
And share its dew-drop with another near.'
The city thus supplied may laugh at besieging hosts. With the deep
reservoir in its central fortress, the foe may do as they list to all
surface streams, its water shall be sure, and no raging thirst shall
ever drive it to surrender. The river breaks from the threshold of the
Temple, within its walls, and when all beyond that safe enclosure is
cracked and parched in the fierce heat, and no green thing can be seen
in the dry and thirsty land, that stream shall 'make glad the city of
our God,' and 'everything shall live whithersoever the river cometh.'
'Thou shalt be as a well-watered garden, and as a river whose streams
fail not.'
II. Then notice, secondly, substantially the same general thought, but
modified and put in plain words--the indwelling Helper.
'God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved: God shall help her,
_and that_ right early,' or, as the latter clause had better be
translated, as it is given in the margin of some of our Bibles, 'God
shall help her at the appearance of the morning.' There are two promises
here: first of all, the constant presence; and second, help at the right
time. Whether there be actual help or no, there is always with us the
potential help of God, and it flashes into energy at the moment that He
knows to be the right one. The 'appearing of the morning' He determines;
not you or I. Therefore, we may be confident that we have God ever by
our sides. Not that that Presence is meant to avert outward or inward
trouble and trial, and painfulness and weariness; but in the midst of
these, and while they last, here is the assurance, 'She shall not be
moved'; and that it will not always last, here is the ground of the
confidence, 'God shall help her when the morning dawns.'
I need not point out to you the contrast here between the tranquillity
of the city which has for its central Inhabitant and Governor the
omnipotent God, and the tumult of all that turbulent earth. The waves of
the troubled waters break everywhere,--they run over the flat plains and
sweep over the mountains of secular strength and outward might, and
worldly kingdoms, and human polities and earthly institutions, acting on
them all either by slow corrosive action at the base, or by the tossing
floods swirling against them, until they shall be lost in the ocean of
time. For 'the history of the world is the judgment of the world.' When
He wills the plains are covered and mountains disappear, but one rock
stands fast--'The mountain of the Lord's house is exalted above the top
of the mountains'; and when everything is rocking and swaying in the
tempests, here is fixity and tranquillity. 'She shall not be moved.'
Why? Because of her citizens? No. Because of her guards and gates? No!
Because of her polity? No! Because of her orthodoxy? No! But because God
is in her, and she is safe, and where He dwells no evil can come. 'Thou
carriest Caesar and his fortunes.' The ship of Christ carries the Lord
and His fortunes; and, therefore, whatsoever becomes of the other little
ships in the wild dash of the tempest, this with the Lord on board
arrives at its desired haven--'God is in the midst of her, she shall not
be moved.'
Then, still further, that Presence which is always the pledge of
stability, and unmoved calm, even while causes of agitation are storming
around, will, as I said, flash into energy, and be a Helper and a
Deliverer at the right moment. And when will that right moment be? At
the appearing of the morning. 'And when they arose early in the morning,
they were all dead corpses'; in the hour of greatest extremity, but ere
the foe has executed his purposes; not too soon for fear and faith, not
too late for hope and help; when the morning dawns, when the appointed
hour of deliverance, which He alone determines, has struck. 'It is not
for you to know the times and seasons'; but this we may know, that He
who is the Lord of time will ever save at the best possible moment. He
will not come so quickly as to prevent us from feeling our need; He will
not tarry so long as to make us sick with hope deferred, or so long as
to let the enemy fulfil his purposes of destruction. 'Lord, behold! he
whom Thou lovest is sick. Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and
Lazarus. When He had heard therefore that he was sick, He abode two days
still in the same place where He was.... Lord, if Thou hadst been here,
my brother had not died. Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise
again.... And he that was dead came forth.'
The Lord may seem to sleep on His hard wooden pillow in the stern of the
little fishing boat, and even while the frail craft begins to fill may
show no sign of help. But ere the waves have rolled over her, the cry of
fear that yet trusts, and of trust that yet fears, wakes Him who knew
the need, even while He seemed to slumber, and one mighty word, as of a
master to some petulant slave, 'Peace! be still,' hushes the confusion,
and rebukes the fear, and rewards the faith.
'The Lord is in the midst of her'--that is the perennial fact. 'The Lord
shall help her, and that right early'--that is the 'grace for seasonable
help.'
III. The psalm having set forth these broad grounds of confidence, goes
on to tell the story of actual deliverance which confirms them, and of
which they are indeed but the generalised expression.
The condensed narrative moves to its end by a series of short crashing
sentences like the ring of the destructive axe at the roots of trees. We
see the whole sequence of events as by lightning flashes, which give
brief glimpses and are quenched. The grand graphic words seem to pant
with haste, as they record Israel's deliverance. That deliverance comes
from the Conquering Voice. 'The heathen raged' (the same word, we may
note, as is found a verse or two back, 'Though the waters thereof
_roar_'), 'the kingdoms were moved; He uttered His voice, the earth
melted.' With what vigour these hurried sentences describe, first, the
wild wrath and formidable movements of the foe, and then the One
Sovereign Word which quells them all, as well as the instantaneous
weakness that dissolves the seeming solid substance when the breath of
His lips smites it!
And where will you find a grander or loftier thought than this, that the
simple word--the utterance of the pure will of God conquers all
opposition, and tells at once in the sphere of material things? He
speaks, and it is done. At the sound of that thunder-voice, hushed
stillness and a pause of dread fall upon all the wide earth, deeper and
more awe-struck than the silence of the woods with their huddling
leaves, when the feebler peals roll through the sky. 'The depths are
congealed in the heart of the sea'--as if you were to lay hold of
Niagara in its wildest plunge, and were with a word to freeze all its
descending waters and stiffen them into immovableness in fetters of
eternal ice. So He utters His voice, and all meaner noises are hushed.
'The lion hath roared, who shall not fear?'
He speaks--no weapon, no material vehicle is needed. The point of
contact between the pure divine will and the material creatures which
obey its behests is ever wrapped in darkness, whether these be the
settled ordinances which men call nature, or the less common which the
Bible calls miracle. In all alike there is, to every believer in a God
at all, an incomprehensible action of the spiritual upon the material,
which allows of no explanations to bridge over the gulf recognised in
the broken utterances of our psalm, 'He uttered His voice: the earth
melted.'
How grandly, too, these last words give the impression of immediate and
utter dissolution of all opposition! All the Titanic brute forces are,
at His voice, disintegrated, and lose their organisation and solidity.
'The hills melted like wax'; 'The mountains flowed down at Thy
presence.' The hardness and obstinacy is all liquefied and enfeebled,
and parts with its consistency and is lost in a fluid mass. As two
carbon points when the electric stream is poured upon them are gnawed to
nothingness by the fierce heat, and you can see them wasting before your
eyes, so the concentrated ardour of His breath falls upon the hostile
evil, and lo! it is not.
The Psalmist is generalising the historical fact of the sudden and utter
destruction of Sennacherib's host into a universal law. And it _is_ a
universal law--true for us as for Hezekiah and the sons of Korah, true
for all generations. Martin Luther might well make this psalm the battle
cry of the Reformation, and we may well make our own the rugged music
and dauntless hope of his rendering of these words:--
And let the Prince of Ill
Look grim as e'er he will,
He harms us not a whit.
For why? His doom is writ.
A word shall quickly slay him.'
IV. Then note, finally, how the psalm shows us the act by which we enter
the City of God.
'The Lord of Hosts is with _us_; the God of Jacob is _our_ refuge.' It
is not enough to lay down general truths, however true and however
blessed, about the safe and sacred city of God--not enough to be
theoretically convinced of the truth of the supreme governance and
ever-present aid of God. We must take a further step that will lead us
far beyond the regions of barren intellectual apprehension of the great
truths of God's love and care. These truths are nothing to us, brethren!
unless, like the Psalmist here, we make them our own, and losing the
burden of self in the very act of grasping them by faith, unite
ourselves with the great multitude who are joined together in Him, and
say, 'He is _my_ God: He is _our_ refuge.' That living act of
'appropriating faith' presupposes, indeed, the presence of these truths
in our understandings, but in the very act they are changed into powers
in our lives. They pass into the affections and the will. They are no
more empty generalities. Bread nourishes, not when it is looked at, but
when it is eaten. 'He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me.' We feed
on Christ when we make Him ours by faith, and each of us is sustained
and blessed by Him when we can say, 'My Lord and my God!'
Mark, too, how there is here set forth the twofold ground for our
calmest confidence in these two mighty names of God.
'The Lord of Hosts is with us.' That majestic name includes all the
deepest and most blessed thoughts of God which the earlier revelation
imparted. That name of 'Jehovah' proclaims at once His Eternal Being and
His covenant relation--manifesting Him by its mysterious meaning as He
who dwells above time, the tideless sea of absolute unchanging
existence, from whom all the stream of creatural life flows forth
many-coloured and transient, to whom it all returns, who, Himself
unchanging, changeth all things, and declaring Him, by the historical
associations connected with it, as having unveiled His purposes in firm
words, to which men may trust, and as having entered into that solemn
league with Israel which underlay their whole national life. He is _the
Lord_ the Eternal,--the covenant name.
He is the Lord of Hosts, the 'Imperator,' absolute Master and Commander,
Captain and King of all the combined forces of the universe, whether
they be personal or impersonal, spiritual or material, who, in serried
ranks, wait on Him, and move harmonious, obedient to His will. And this
Eternal Master of the legions of the universe is with us, weak and poor,
and troubled and sinful as we are. Therefore, we will not fear: what can
man do unto us?
Again, when we say, 'The God of Jacob is our refuge,' we reach back into
the past, and lay hold of the mercies promised to, and received by, the
long vanished generations who trusted in Him and were lightened. As, by
the one name, we appeal to His own Being and uttered pledge, so, by the
other, we appeal to His ancient deeds--past as we call them, but present
with Him, who lives and loves in the undivided eternity above the low
fences of time. All that He has been, He is; all that He has done, He is
doing. We on whom the ends of the earth are come have the same Helper,
the same Friend that 'the world's grey fathers' had. They that go before
do not prevent them that come after. The river is full still. The van of
the pilgrim host did, indeed, long, long ago drink and were satisfied,
but the bright waters are still as pellucid, still as near, still as
refreshing, still as abundant as they ever were. Nay, rather, they are
fuller and more accessible to us than to patriarch and Psalmist, 'God
having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should
not be made perfect.'
For we, brethren! have a fuller revelation of that mighty name, and a
more wondrous and closer divine presence by our sides. The psalm
rejoices in that 'The Lord of Hosts is with us'; and the choral answer
of the Gospel swells into loftier music, as it tells of the fulfilment
of psalmists' hopes and prophets' visions in Him who is called
'Immanuel,' which is, being interpreted, 'God with us.' The psalm is
confident in that God dwelt in Zion, and our confidence has the more
wondrous fact to lay hold of, that even now the Word who dwelt among us
makes His abode in every believing heart, and gathers them all together
at last in that great city, round whose flashing foundations no tumult
of ocean beats, whose gates of pearl need not be closed against any
foes, with whose happy citizens 'God will dwell, and they shall be His
people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God.'