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The Lord Almighty Is With Us

             For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. According to alamoth. A song.

 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

 (chorus) The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

 

 Come and see what the Lord has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

(chorus) The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. (Psalm 46)

I have referred before to “praise sandwiches” but in this instance (as in others) it seems more as if the song has a chorus, and goes through the standard verse, chorus repetition. The repetition still emphasizes that God is with us and is our fortress. He’s also not just any God, but specifically the God of Jacob. Sometimes, He is referred to as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but here, only Jacob.

Perhaps there is something in the song that wouldn’t allow the full list. In modern poetry, meter controls the length of a line. There’s the possibility that it’s just shorthand, since the sons of Jacob are by definition the sons of Isaac and Abraham, but the full list is often used. Perhaps the sons of Korah felt some affinity to Jacob, at least at that time. Perhaps the reference was to the fact that Jacob was the manipulator and the trickster of the family. He tricked his father into giving him the inheritance he didn’t deserve. This switch goes back to Eden. Lucifer tricked Adam and Eve into giving him the inheritance they deserved. Cain murdered to get the inheritance/blessing that Abel deserved. Rachel and Leah’s father substituted Leah for Rachel after Jacob fulfilled his contract of work for Rachel. Saul was willing to murder David to give Jonathan the inheritance he thought Jonathan deserved. Aaron was willing to work with a substitute God to placate or control the Jews. And, the sacrifices made according to the law were substitutes so that the sinning Israelites didn’t have to die to keep the Law.

Interestingly and not surprisingly, Jesus reverses this pattern. He surrenders His inheritance (temporarily) with His Father’s knowledge and permission, so that everyone could share in His inheritance. But returning to the psalm, God promised to protect Israel, and He did, in spite of Israel’s bad behavior. Sometimes, that protection involved their being subjugated by others who actually provided protection to some part of Israel even though Israel didn’t deserve it. And God doesn’t protect the Church because the Church deserves it. In both cases, He protects because He keeps His promises – sometimes in ways we don’t understand.

 He deserves full praise for that.

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