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This little psalm looks very much like a record of the impression that was made on the pilgrim as he first topped the crest of the hill from which he looked on Jerusalem. Two peculiarities of its topographical position are both taken here as symbols of spiritual realities, for the singularity of the situation of the city is that it stands on a mountain and is girdled by mountains. There is a tongue of land or peninsula cut off from the surrounding country by deep ravines, on which are perched the buildings of the city, while across the valley on the eastern side is Olivet, and, on the south, another hill, the so-called "Hill of Evil Counsel"; but upon the west and north sides there are Do conspicuous summits, though the ground rises. Thus, really, though not apparently, there lie all round the city encircling defences of mountains. Similarly, says the psalmist, set and steadfast as on a mountain, and compassed about by a protection, like the bastions of the everlasting hills, are they whose trust is in the Lord.

I. THE SIMPLE ACT OF TRUST IN GOD BRINGS INWARD STABILITY. The word here translated "trust" literally means to "hang upon" something. And so, beautifully, it tells us what faith is — just hanging upon God. Whoever has laid his tremulous hand on a fixed something, partakes, in the measure in which he does grasp it, of the fixity of that on which he lays hold; so "they that trust in the Lord" "shall be as Mount Zion," that stands there summer and winter, day and night, year out and year in, with its strong buttresses and its immovable mass, the very emblem of solidity and stability.

II. THIS SAME ATTITUDE OF REALIZING THE DIVINE PRESENCE, WILL, AND HELP, WILL BRING AROUND US THE ENCIRCLING DEFENCES. "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people" — a very real defence, but a defence that it takes an instructed eye to see; no obvious protection, palpable to the vulgar touch, and manifest to the sensuous eye, but something a great deal better than that — a real protection, through which we may be sure that nothing which is evil can ever pass. Whatsoever does get over the encircling mountains, and down to us, we may be sure is not an evil but a very real good. Only we have to interpret the protection on the principles of faith, and not on those of sense. When, then, there come down upon us — as there do upon us all, thank God! — dark days, and sad days, and solitary days, and losses and bitternesses of a thousand kinds, do not let us falter in the belief that if we have our hearts set on God, nothing has come to us but what He has let through.

III. SIMPLE TRUST IN GOD, IN SOME MEASURE, ASSIMILATES THE PROTECTED TO THE PROTECTOR. Mountains girdle a mountain, and so my trust opens my heart to the entrance into my heart of something akin to God. It makes us "partakers of a Divine nature." The immovableness of the trustful man is not all unlike the calmness of the trusted God; and the steadfastness of the one is a reflex of the unchangeableness of the other. "As the mountains are round about Mount Zion," God is round about the people that are becoming Godlike. Mark further the significant repetition of the same expression in reference to the stability of the man protected, and the continuance of the protection. Both are "for ever." That is to say, if it is true that God is round about me, and that, in some humble measure, my heart has been opening to be calmed and steadied by the influx of His own life, then His "for ever" is my "for ever." And it cannot be that He should live and I should die. The guarantee of the eternal being of the trustful soul is the experience to-day of the reality of the Divine protection. And thus we may face everything — life, death, whatsoever may come, assured that nothing touches the continuity and the perpetuity of the union between the trusting soul and the trusted God.

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

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KJV: {A Song of degrees.} They that trust in the LORD shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever.

WEB: Those who trust in Yahweh are as Mount Zion, which can't be moved, but remains forever.