God Wants Us to Know Him (vv. 1-3). When the northern kingdom of Israel was taken by the Assyrians in 722 bc, many godly people moved into Judah, where a descendant of David was on the throne and true priests ministered in God’s appointed temple (2 Chron. 11:13-17; 15:9). Asaph named both Israel and Judah, for though the kingdoms had been divided politically, there was still only one covenant people in the sight of the Lord. God’s name was great in Judah and Jerusalem (47:1-2; 48:1, 10; 77:13), but it needed to be magnified among the neighboring nations, for that was Israel’s calling (v. 11; Gen. 12:1-3; Isa. 49:6). “You who are far away, hear what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge My might” (Isa. 33:13 nasb).

Jehovah had chosen Judah to be the ruling tribe (Isa. 49:10) and Jerusalem to be the site of His holy sanctuary (Ezra 7:19; Zech. 3:2). When the Assyrian army camped near Jerusalem and threatened to attack, the angel of the Lord visited the camp and killed 185,000 soldiers. All their abandoned implements of war were but silent monuments to the power of the God of Israel.

“Salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22); and if we are to know the true and living God, we must read the Bible, a Jewish book, and trust the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God who came through the Jewish nation and died for the sins of the world. The true and living God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 1:3; Eph. 1:3; 1 Peter 1:3).