Psalm 47:4
He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom he loved. Selah.
He shall choose our inheritance for us,.... Either a portion in this life; God knows what is best for his people, and therefore they should leave it with him, who can make a better choice for them than for themselves: an Heathen {c} once gave this advice,
"give thyself wholly to the will and disposal of the celestial ones; for they who are used to give good things easily can also choose the fittest.''
Or the heavenly inheritance, so called in allusion to the land of Canaan, subdued and possessed by the Israelites, in which Christ is greatly concerned; his people are predestinated to the adoption of children, that is, to the inheritance they are adopted to by him, in whom they obtain it; through his death they receive the promise of eternal inheritance, he being the testator of that will of their heavenly Father which bequeaths it to them; it is his righteousness which gives them a title to it, and through his grace they have a meetness for it, and he will at last introduce them into it; all which is a reason for joy and gladness in them. The Arabic version renders it, "he hath chosen us an inheritance for himself"; so the Lord's people are, Deuteronomy 32:9. Christ asked them of his father, and he gave them for his inheritance, he having chosen them as such, and greatly delighted he is with them, Psalms 2:8;
the excellency of Jacob whom he loved. The saints, who are, in his esteem, the excellent in the earth, and who will be in the latter day an eternal excellency, Psalms 16:3; even the whole church, consisting of Jews and Gentiles, the spiritual Jacob or Israel of God, whom Christ has loved with an everlasting love, and therefore has chosen them for his portion and peculiar treasure; as Jacob in person was loved when Esau was hated.
Selah; on this word, See Gill on "Psalms 3:2".
{c} Socrates apud Valer. Maxim. l. 7. c. 2. extern. 1.