Psalm 48 (1928 BCP)

Psalm 48 (1928 BCP) is Magnus Dominus in the Psalter of the American Book of Common Prayer (1928). In the 1928 Prayer Book it follows Psalms 46 and 47 at Ninth-Day Evening Prayer. It praises the God who has made himself known in Zion, remembers a deliverance from threatening rulers, and teaches the next generation to confess, “This God is our God for ever and ever.” Christian readers have heard its city-and-mountain imagery in relation to the Church and the heavenly Jerusalem, but that reception begins with—not instead of—Israel’s praise of the God present with his people.

Text in the 1928 Psalter

The complete text below was compared word for word with the local 1928 Psalter transcription, including “a fair place,” “upon the north side,” “ships of the sea,” “consider her palaces,” and “guide unto death.”

1 GREAT is the Lord, and highly to be praised * in the city of our God, even upon his holy hill.
2 The hill of Sion is a fair place, and the joy of the whole earth; * upon the north side lieth the city of the great King: God is well known in her palaces as a sure refuge.
3 For lo, the kings of the earth * were gathered, and gone by together.
4 They marvelled to see such things; * they were astonished, and suddenly cast down.
5 Fear came there upon them; and sorrow, * as upon a woman in her travail.
6 Thou dost break the ships of the sea * through the east-wind.
7 Like as we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God; * God upholdeth the same for ever.
8 We wait for thy loving-kindness, O God, * in the midst of thy temple.
9 O God, according to thy Name, so is thy praise unto the world's end; * thy right hand is full of righteousness.
10 Let the mount Sion rejoice, and the daughters of Judah be glad, * because of thy judgments.
11 Walk about Sion, and go round about her; * and tell the towers thereof.
12 Mark well her bulwarks, consider her palaces, * that ye may tell them that come after.
13 For this God is our God for ever and ever: * he shall be our guide unto death.

The psalm’s confidence is neither architectural nostalgia nor a claim that no earthly city can fall. It is praise for God’s self-disclosure and protecting presence. Zion’s towers are signs to be remembered and told, but the final confession names God—not the towers—as the people’s enduring God and guide.

Deliverance and praise

The poem moves from the beauty of God’s city (verses 1–2), through the sudden dispersal of assembled kings (verses 3–8), to temple meditation, worldwide praise, and intergenerational testimony (verses 9–13). Alexander Maclaren carefully describes this shape without claiming more historical precision than the psalm supplies.

The psalm falls into three parts, of which the first (vv. 1, 2) is introductory, celebrating the glory of Zion as the city of God; the second (vv. 3-8) recounts in glowing words the deliverance of Zion; and the third tells of the consequent praise and trust of the inhabitants of Zion (vv. 9-14).

The psalm is a hymn of deliverance rather than a military chronicle. Its image of God breaking the ships with the east wind gives the victory to God. The congregation responds not by celebrating its own strength but by waiting for God’s loving-kindness “in the midst of thy temple.”

Deliverance leads to thankful meditation on the loving-kindness which it so signally displayed, and the ransomed people first gather in the Temple, which was the scene of God's manifestation of His grace, and therefore is the fitting place for them to ponder it.

The worldwide horizon in verse 9 corrects a narrowly local reading. God’s Name is praised “unto the world’s end”; the particular mercy shown to Zion aims at public knowledge of God’s righteous character.

Zion, the Church, and the heavenly city

The Psalm speaks first of Zion and its temple. The New Testament does not erase that setting, but it teaches Christians to approach God through the heavenly Zion, Christ, and the gathered worshiping people. That is why the city imagery can be prayed in Christian worship without being detached from Israel’s Scriptures.

But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant.

Maclaren traces this theological continuity with an important distinction between the idea of divine dwelling and its successive historical embodiments.

The idea of God's dwelling with men had its less perfect embodiment in the presence of the Shechinah in the Temple, its more perfect in the dwelling of God in the Church, and will have its complete when the city “having the glory of God” shall appear, and He will dwell with men and be their God.

The final biblical vision makes the same claim in its own terms: the holy city needs no sanctuary because God and the Lamb are its light and temple. Psalm 48’s confidence in God’s presence is thus received eschatologically, not reduced to confidence in an institution or a landscape.

And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.

A patristic Christian reception

Augustine interprets the Psalm’s city as the Church gathered around Christ the cornerstone. His exposition is a theological reception rather than a replacement for the Psalm’s historical Zion; it is valuable because it presses the congregation toward unity, grace, and the praise of God rather than civic or sectarian pride.

The mountain has joined in itself two mountains; one house there is, and two houses; two, because coming from different sides; one, because of the Corner Stone, wherein both are joined together.

Augustine’s reading of “God is well known in her palaces as a sure refuge” also guards against self-congratulation. The city stands because it is received and upheld by grace.

The Lord then has taken up this city, and is known therein, that is, His grace is known in that city: for whatever that city has, which glories in the Lord, it has not of itself.

This is a fitting discipline for Christian use of the Psalm. The Church may confess that God dwells with and sustains his people, but it cannot claim the Psalm as a guarantee of its own merit, immunity from judgment, or triumph over other Christians.

Telling the next generation

Verses 11–13 turn the saved community outward: inspect the towers and bulwarks so that the story may be told “that come after.” The object of that instruction is the confession, “This God is our God,” and the practical trust that he guides. Augustine finds the Psalm’s strength not in external display but in the love that God forms in his people.

What is the might of this city? Whoever would understand the might of this city, let him understand the force of love. That is a virtue which none conquers.

The Prayer Book makes this instruction corporate by assigning the Psalm within the monthly Office cycle.

Ninth Day. Evening Prayer. Psalm 47. Omnes gentes, plaudite. … Psalm 48. Magnus Dominus.

At Evening Prayer Psalm 48 follows Psalm 47’s proclamation of God as King over all the earth. The sequence moves from universal acclamation to a concrete testimony of God’s faithfulness, and then entrusts that testimony to later generations. It is well suited to a congregation learning to praise God for deliverance, meditate on his loving-kindness, and live as a people guided by him rather than by their own defenses.

See Also

• The Psalter (1928 BCP)
• Evening Prayer (1928 BCP)
• Psalm 46 (1928 BCP)
• Psalm 47 (1928 BCP)
• Psalm 49 (1928 BCP)
• Book of Common Prayer (1928)

External Links

• Psalm 48 in the 1928 BCP Psalter
• Alexander Maclaren on Psalm 48
• Augustine on Psalm 48