Psalm 87:1; Psalm 48:1; Psalm 88:1; Psalm 46:1,2
A Psalm or Song for the sons of Korah. His foundation is in the holy mountains.
A Song and Psalm for the sons of Korah. Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness.
A Song or Psalm for the sons of Korah, to the chief Musician upon Mahalath Leannoth, Maschil of Heman the Ezrahite. O LORD God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee.
To the chief Musician for the sons of Korah, A Song upon Alamoth. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed.
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): The title may be justly read, A Psalm or Song for the sons of “miserable man;” for such was Korah: and William Romaine so translated it.
WILLIAM ROMAINE (1714-1795): That is—“fallen man.”
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Some are of opinion the word “Mahalath,” may be rendered “the afflicting disease,” either a bodily one, or a soul disorder, being under a sense of divine wrath. “Leannoth” signifies “to answer.” “Maschil,” may be translated “causing to understand.”
J. J. STEWART PEROWNE (1823-1904): The “Korah” whose “sons” are here spoken of, is the Levite who headed the insurrection against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Korah, Dathan and Abiram perished because of their presumption—they went down alive into the pit—and the earth closed upon them. They and all that appertained unto them were swallowed up, Numbers 16:32,33. But we are astonished to read, “Notwithstanding, the children of Korah died not,” Numbers 26:11. Why they were spared, we cannot tell.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): They were his sons that died not, “departing,” as it seems, “from their father’s tents,” as all were counselled, Numbers 16:24-26.
MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Or because Moses interceded for them, or because God would glorify His own free mercy in sparing some, while He punished others.
C. H. SPURGEON: I attribute their singular escape to the Sovereign Grace of God who spared them when their kinsmen were destroyed.
J. M. NEALE (1818-1866): Mediæval writers remark how here, as so often, it was the will of God to raise up saints where they could have been least looked for.
WILLIAM KELLY (1821-1906): The people who deserved least of all, as man would have thought, to be exempted from destruction were precisely those for whom God did reserve this special grace—the sons of Korah!—the leader and organiser of the apostasy, from his position as well as in his conduct, above all others most guilty! The sons of Korah were the objects of a most singular deliverance. Is not this the true grace of God? It is the same God whom we now know, the same God from first to last. Grace is no new thing with Him; but where can you find a finer sample of its power and superiority to all circumstances than in the distinguishing grace that saved from destruction the children of gainsaying Korah, the most infamous of those who had conspired against Moses and Aaron, the types of Christ’s royalty and priesthood.
WILLIAM S. PLUMER (1802-1880): Who were “the sons of Korah?”
JOHN GILL: The immediate “sons of Korah,” were Assir, and Elkanah, and Abiasaph, Exodus 6:24.
C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): But who are these sons of Korah?
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): These sons of Korah were afterwards—in their posterity, eminently serviceable to the church.
JOHN TRAPP: Of them came Samuel the prophet, Heman the music master, and others.
J. J. STEWART PEROWNE: The Korahites were a part of the band who acknowledged David as their chief at Ziklag; warriors “whose faces,” it is said, “were like the faces of lions, and who were—for speed, like gazelles upon the mountains,” 1 Chronicles 12:1,6-8. The Korahites were in David’s time, keepers of the threshold of the tabernacle, 1 Chronicles 9:17-19; and still earlier, in the time of Moses, watchmen at the entrance of the camp of the Levites. We find two branches of this family associated with that of Merari, as guardians of the doors of the Temple, 1 Chronicles 26:1-19; and probably an allusion to this, their office, is in Psalm 84:10, “I had rather be a doorkeeper in house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.” The Korahites were also celebrated musicians and singers, 1 Chronicles 6:16-33. The musical reputation of the family continued in the time of Jehoshaphat, 2 Chronicles 20:19, where we have the peculiar doubly plural Hebrew form בּגי הקּרהים, “Sons of the Korahites.”
C. H. MACKINTOSH: Grace upon grace shadowed forth in these sons of Korah. The royal guards of the hidden king—guards of the house, 2 Chronicles 3-5,19. One more privilege of these sons of Korah—sanctified in holiness, they had the happy service of distributing the oblations of the Lord, and the most holy things, 2 Chronicles 31:14-18. They are also thought to have written some of the Psalms. Their names are connected with eleven of them; but their authorship is by no means certain.
THE EDITOR: Eight of those Psalms are addressed “To the Chief Musician, for the Sons of Korah,” as is twice quoted in our opening verses.
WILLIAM KELLY: This is, I think, an important key to the book of Psalms. Every attentive reader will have noticed that the second of the five divisions of the Psalms gives us at its beginning, psalms entitled, “For the sons of Korah,” Psalms 42-49. A few follow in Book 3, Psalms 84-88. These mean the descendants of the men in question.
MATTHEW HENRY: Perhaps they were made to bear his name so long after, rather than the name of any other of their ancestors, for a warning to themselves, and as an instance of the power of God, which brought those choice fruits even out of that bitter root.
C. H. SPURGEON: They who are saved by sovereign grace are the most fit to praise the name of the Lord. The sons of Korah became door-keepers to the house of the Lord. Surely they would sing with peculiar emphasis these words, “Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be removed,” Psalm 46:2. They saw the earth open her mouth and swallow up the offenders of their household while they were preserved by Sovereign Grace. Surely the tears must have stood in their eyes when they sang this verse and thought of the opening gulf at their feet. The circumstance under which a man is saved will influence the rest of his life. To be saved by God from between the teeth of judgment is a rescue so special and vivid that the subject of it learns to sing aloud unto the preserving Lord! Delivered from so great a death, believers learn to trust that the Lord will yet deliver them. When conversion is especially remarkable, the music of gratitude is pitched in a high key and the converts reach notes which are impossible to others.
WILLIAM KELLY: And who were so fit to have such psalms and songs as the sons of Korah?
ANDREW BONAR (1810-1892): “A song upon Alamoth,” in Psalm 46, suggests “a choir of virgins,” as if this virgin-choir were selected to sing a Psalm that tells of perils and fears and alarms abounding, to show that even feeble virgins may sing without dread, because of “The Mighty One” on their side.
C. H. SPURGEON: It is for sons of Korah to sing, “Therefore we will not fear.”
ROBERT HAWKER: Such a Psalm, or Song, was composed for the daily use of the sons of Korah; these miserable sons of fallen nature, who, but for the redemption through the sufferings and soul-travail of Jesus, must have thus groaned forever!
THE EDITOR: As believers in Jesus Christ, saved by grace, we are all “sons of Korah.”
WILLIAM ROMAINE: Every such person is entitled to sing this sacred hymn, and he is called upon to do it.
