John Calvin Commentary Psalms 48:7

"With the east wind Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish." — Psalms 48:7 (ASV)

By the east wind you break in pieces the ships of Tarshish. Commentators are divided in their view of this passage. But let us rest content with the natural sense, which is simply this: that the enemies of the Church were overthrown and plunged into destruction, just as God, by suddenly raising storms, sinks the ships of Cilicia to the bottom of the sea.

The Psalmist celebrates the power that God is accustomed to display in great and violent storms; and his language implies that it is not surprising if God, who breaks by the violence of the winds the strongest ships, had also overthrown His enemies, who were inflated with the presumptuous confidence they placed in their own strength.

By the sea of Tarshish the Hebrews mean the Mediterranean Sea, because of the country of Cilicia, which in ancient times was called Tarshish, as Josephus informs us, although over time this name came to be restricted to one city of the country. But as the main part of the naval traffic of the Jews was with Cilicia, what was common to other countries that were more distant and less known is here attributed to that country by synecdoche.