Psalms 47:2

47:2 For the sovereign Lord ¹  is awe-inspiring; ² 

he is the great king who rules the whole earth! ³ 

Psalms 48:2

48:2 It is lofty and pleasing to look at, ⁴ 

a source of joy to the whole earth. ⁵ 

Mount Zion resembles the peaks of Zaphon; ⁶ 

it is the city of the great king.

Jeremiah 10:10

10:10 The Lord is the only true God.

He is the living God and the everlasting King.

When he shows his anger the earth shakes.

None of the nations can stand up to his fury.

Jeremiah 46:18

46:18 I the King, whose name is the Lord who rules over all, ⁷  swear this:

I swear as surely as I live that ⁸  a conqueror is coming.

He will be as imposing as Mount Tabor is among the mountains,

as Mount Carmel is against the backdrop of the sea. ⁹ 

Jeremiah 48:15

48:15 Moab will be destroyed. Its towns will be invaded.

Its finest young men will be slaughtered. ¹⁰ 

I, the King, the Lord who rules over all, ¹¹  affirm it! ¹² 

Daniel 4:37

4:37 Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, for all his deeds are right and his ways are just. He is able to bring down those who live ¹³  in pride.

Malachi 1:11

1:11 For from the east to the west my name will be great among the nations. Incense and pure offerings will be offered in my name everywhere, for my name will be great among the nations,” ¹⁴  says the Lord who rules over all.

Malachi 1:14

1:14 “There will be harsh condemnation for the hypocrite who has a valuable male animal in his flock but vows and sacrifices something inferior to the Lord. For I am a great king,” ¹⁵  says the Lord who rules over all, “and my name is awesome among the nations.”

Matthew 5:35

5:35 not by earth, because it is his footstool, and not by Jerusalem, ¹⁶  because it is the city of the great King.

[47:2]  ¹ tn Heb “the Lord Most High.” The divine title “Most High” (עֶלְיוֹן, ’elyon) pictures the Lord as the exalted ruler of the universe who vindicates the innocent and judges the wicked.

[47:2]  ² tn Or “awesome.” The Niphal participle נוֹרָא (nora’), when used of God in the psalms, focuses on the effect that his royal splendor and powerful deeds have on those witnessing his acts (Pss 66:3, 5; 68:35; 76:7, 12; 89:7; 96:4; 99:3; 111:9). Here it refers to his capacity to fill his defeated foes with terror and his people with fearful respect.

[47:2]  ³ tn Heb “a great king over all the earth.”

[48:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “beautiful of height.” The Hebrew term נוֹף (nof, “height”) is a genitive of specification after the qualitative noun “beautiful.” The idea seems to be that Mount Zion, because of its lofty appearance, is pleasing to the sight.

[48:2]  ⁵ sn A source of joy to the whole earth. The language is hyperbolic. Zion, as the dwelling place of the universal king, is pictured as the world’s capital. The prophets anticipated this idealized picture becoming a reality in the eschaton (see Isa 2:1-4).

[48:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “Mount Zion, the peaks of Zaphon.” Like all the preceding phrases in v. 2, both phrases are appositional to “city of our God, his holy hill” in v. 1, suggesting an identification in the poet’s mind between Mount Zion and Zaphon. “Zaphon” usually refers to the “north” in a general sense (see Pss 89:12; 107:3), but here, where it is collocated with “peaks,” it refers specifically to Mount Zaphon, located in the vicinity of ancient Ugarit and viewed as the mountain where the gods assembled (see Isa 14:13). By alluding to West Semitic mythology in this way, the psalm affirms that Mount Zion is the real divine mountain, for it is here that the Lord God of Israel lives and rules over the nations. See P. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 (WBC), 353, and T. N. D. Mettinger, In Search of God, 103.

[46:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.” For the significance of this title see the note at 2:19.

[46:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “As I live, oracle of the King, whose….” The indirect quote has been chosen to create a smoother English sentence and avoid embedding a quote within a quote.

[46:18]  ⁹ tn Heb “Like Tabor among the mountains and like Carmel by the sea he will come.” The addition of “conqueror” and “imposing” are implicit from the context and from the metaphor. They have been supplied in the translation to give the reader some idea of the meaning of the verse.

[48:15]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “will go down to the slaughter.”

[48:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.” For an explanation of the translation and meaning of this title see the study note on 2:19.

[48:15]  ¹² tn Heb “Oracle of the King whose name is Yahweh of armies.” The first person form has again been adopted because the Lord is the speaker throughout this oracle/ these oracles (cf. v. 1).

[4:37]  ¹³ tn Aram “walk.”

[1:11]  ¹⁴ sn My name will be great among the nations. In what is clearly a strongly ironic shift of thought, the Lord contrasts the unbelief and virtual paganism of the postexilic community with the conversion and obedience of the nations that will one day worship the God of Israel.

[1:14]  ¹⁵ sn The epithet great king was used to describe the Hittite rulers on their covenant documents and so, in the covenant ideology of Malachi, is an apt description of the Lord.

[5:35]  ¹⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.