Matthew Henry Commentary Psalms 48:1-7

"Great is Jehovah, and greatly to be praised, In the city of our God, in his holy mountain. Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, Is mount Zion, [on] the sides of the north, The city of the great King. God hath made himself known in her palaces for a refuge. For, lo, the kings assembled themselves, They passed by together. They saw it, then were they amazed; They were dismayed, they hasted away. Trembling took hold of them there, Pain, as of a woman in travail. With the east wind Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish." — Psalms 48:1-7 (ASV)

Jerusalem is the city of our God: none on earth render Him due honor except the citizens of the spiritual Jerusalem. Happy is the kingdom, the city, the family, the heart, in which God is great, in which He is all. There God is known. The clearer the revelations of the Lord and His greatness are made to us, the more it is expected that we should abound in His praises.

The earth is, by sin, covered with deformity. Therefore, justly might that spot of ground, which was beautified with holiness, be called the joy of the whole earth. The whole earth has reason to rejoice that God would thus indeed dwell with humankind upon the earth.

The kings of the earth were afraid of it. Nothing in nature can more aptly represent the overthrow of heathenism by the Spirit of the Gospel than the wreck of a fleet in a storm. Both are by the mighty power of the Lord.