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Korahitic Ps 46-48. It is indeed equally admissible to refer these three Korahitic Psalms to the defeat of Sennacherib's army under Hezekiah, but this view has not the same historical consistency. After the fourteenth year of Hezekiah's reign the congregation could certainly not help connecting the thought of the Assyrian catastrophe so recently experienced with this Psalm; and more especially since Isaiah had predicted this event, following the language of this Psalm very closely. For Isaiah and this Psalm are remarkably linked together.
Just as Psa 2:1-12 is, as it were, the quintessence of the book of Immanuel, Isa 7:1, so is Psa 46:1-11 of Isa. 33, that concluding discourse to Isa 28:1, which is moulded in a lyric form, and was uttered before the deliverance of Jerusalem at a time of the direst distress. The fundamental thought of the Psalm is expressed there in Psa 46:2 in the form of a petition; and by a comparison with Isa 25:4. we may see what a similarity there is between the language of the psalmist and of the prophet. Isa 33:13 closely resembles the concluding admonition; and the image of the stream in the Psalm has suggested the grandly bold figure of the prophet in v. 21, which is there more elaborately wrought up: “No indeed, there dwells for us a glorious One, Jahve - a place of streams, of canals of wide extent, into which no fleet of rowing vessels shall venture, and which no mighty man-of-war shall cross.” The divine determination expressed in ארוּם we also hear in Isa 33:10. And the prospect of the end of war reminds us of the familiar prediction of Isaiah (Isa 2), ), closely resembling Micah's in its language, of eternal peace; just as Psa 46:8, Psa 46:11 remind us of the watch-word עמנו אל in Isa 7:1. The mind of Isaiah and that of Jeremiah have, each in its own peculiar way, taken germs of thought (lit., become impregnated) from this Psalm.
We have already incidentally referred to the inscribed words על־עלמות, on Psa 6:1. Böttcher renders them ad voces puberes, “for tenor voices,” a rendering which certainly accords with the fact that, according to 1Ch 15:20, they were accustomed to sing בּנבלים על־עלמות, and the Oriental sounds, according to Villoteau (Description de l'Egypte), correspond aux six sons vers l'aigu de l'octave du medium de la voix de tenor.