Translation: ESV
In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: 'We have a strong city; he sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks.'
God's salvation becomes the wall that protects us. We must trust in God, not in human fortresses.
▸This is the song that saved Judah will sing.
This is the song that saved Judah will sing. That God sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks means God himself becomes the defense. The true fortress is not a human stronghold but God's salvation.
Open the gates, that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.
Those who are righteous by God's standard can enter the city of God.
▸This is an invitation to open the gates.
You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.
To the one who fully trusts in God, God gives perfect peace.
▸This is one of the most famous verses.
Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.
Because God is an everlasting rock, it is fitting to trust in him forever.
▸This is the command to trust in the LORD forever.
For he has humbled the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city. He lays it low, lays it low to the ground, casts it to the dust.
God brings low the arrogant—this is a consistent pattern in God's work in history.
▸God brings low the lofty.
The foot tramples it, the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy.
God works to exalt the oppressed and humble the arrogant.
▸The poor and the needy trample the fallen arrogant city.
The path of the righteous is level; you make level the way of the righteous.
God makes the path of the righteous level; God's uprightness guides our way.
▸The path of the righteous is level.
In the path of your judgments, O LORD, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul.
Genuine faith is to desire and wait for God even in the midst of suffering.
▸To wait for God in the path of his judgments means to trust God in the process of judgment and salvation.
My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
Even in the night of suffering one yearns for God, and the world learns righteousness through God's judgment.
▸The soul yearns for God in the night.
If favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly and does not see the majesty of the LORD.
Even grace cannot change a hardened heart; without repentance one cannot see the majesty of the LORD.
▸But the wicked, even when shown favor, do not learn righteousness.
O LORD, your hand is lifted up, but they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed. Let the fire for your adversaries consume them.
Spiritual blindness—not seeing God's work—is a characteristic of the wicked, and ultimately God's judgment arrives.
▸Even when God's hand is lifted up, the wicked do not see it.
O LORD, you will ordain peace for us, for you have indeed done for us all our works.
The confession that God ordains peace for us and accomplishes all things is the essence of faith.
▸This is the confession of faith that God grants peace and accomplishes all things for us.
O LORD our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name alone we bring to remembrance.
Acknowledging the past of relying on other things and relying on God alone is genuine repentance.
▸Other lords (foreign gods, foreign kings) have ruled over Israel, but now there is a resolution to rely only on the LORD.
They are dead, they will not live; they are shades, they will not arise; to that end you have visited them with destruction and wiped out all remembrance of them.
God's enemies perish, but God's people have the hope of resurrection.
▸The other lords that ruled over Israel—foreign kings—are dead and will not live again.
Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.
God's people have the hope of resurrection, and God's life overcomes death.
▸This is one of the clearest prophecies of bodily resurrection in the Old Testament.
Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by.
At the time of judgment God's people must hide in God, and God protects them.
▸The command to go into the chamber and hide while judgment passes.
For behold, the LORD is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no more cover its slain.
God knows all injustice and violence, and on the day of final judgment all things are disclosed.
▸The LORD comes out from his place to execute final judgment.