As all of the songs of the Old Testament, this song speaks such great things about our God. From the very beginning, look at the awesome attribute of our Father as a “refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalms 46:1). The word “refuge” here is rendered “a place of trust” in Hebrew, while the phrase “a very present help” is a reference to the fact that God has been found to be exceedingly helpful, more than we can imagine. In Him is our place of trust, to the point that it cannot even be described.
The physical descriptions of verse 2 and 3 can be likened to the civil world as well. We may not see the earth removed and mountains carried into the sea, but we will have earth-moving incidents happen around us; and we will see monumental, life-changing events. In spite of all of life’s curve balls, we have a place of trust in the Lord, that we are secure in Him and He is more than enough.
Even when men roar against us and there is trouble on every hand, we know who we serve. When there is “swelling” around us, which can be interpreted as men swelling themselves against our position, our doctrine, our faith or our family, we have a “very present help” in our Lord Jesus.
For the New Covenant saint, these promises are fulfilled in the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ. We not only have the Old Testament rendering of these words; we have the New Testament promise that they are ours because of Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20). Because we have our promises in Christ, we have the assurance of these promises inside of us. The more that we feed on the finished work of Christ, the more that our faith in all of His promises increases. We go from knowing that God can provide to EXPECTING God to provide due to His faithfulness to Jesus.
The river of verse 4 was a literal underground water conduit that provided fresh water to Jerusalem in the event of a military siege that shut the people in. They could survive indefinitely with their external water sources cut off because this river made “glad the city of God” (Psalms 46:4). The river is a type of the Holy Spirit within every believer. Though the outside world fall apart, we have a river inside of us that sustains us day to day. Our provision is supernatural, in the midst of a natural world.
Feel free to sing these psalms in your own daily walk with the Lord. I know that we do not know the melody that accompanied the words, but we do know that there was instrumentation (that is what the word “Selah” is conveying at the end of verse 3. It was a notation in the music for the vocalists to pause and allow the instruments to play). Since there is no melody for us to mess up, just make up your own! The wisdom of Christ dwells in you when you sing “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Colossians 3:16).
