Albert Barnes Commentary Psalms 46:5

"God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God will help her, and that right early." — Psalms 46:5 (ASV)

God is in the midst of her — God is in the midst of the “city” referred to above — the “city of God.” That is:

• He dwelt there by the visible symbol of his presence, the Shekinah;
• He was there actually as a help and a protector.

It was his chosen dwelling, and as long as such a Being dwelt in the city, they had nothing to fear.

God shall help her — That is, in her danger, He will intervene to save her. This is language that would be used in reference to a place that was besieged, and would well apply to the state of things when Jerusalem was besieged by the armies of Assyria under Sennacherib. The language expresses the confidence of the people in the time of the impending danger.

And that right early — The margin says, “when the morning appears.” Literally, it means “in the faces of the morning,” as the expression is commonly used; or, more literally, in the “turning” of the morning — for the verb from which the word is derived properly means “to turn,” and then “to turn to or from anyone.”

The noun is applied to the face or countenance because the person is “turned” to us when we see their countenance. The poetic idea here seems to refer to the day as having turned away from us at night, and then as turning about toward us in the morning, after having gone, as it were, to the greatest distance from us.

Possibly, there may be an allusion here to what occurred in the camp of the Assyrians, when the discovery that the angel of the Lord had struck them was made early in the morning, or when men arose in the morning: The angel of the Lord went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred and fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose in the morning (that is, when men arose in the morning), behold, they were all dead corpses (Isaiah 37:36).