Biblion Bible Commentary
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Glorious Things Are Spoken of You
Psalms 87:1-7
1 A Psalm by the sons of Korah; a Song. His foundation is in the holy mountains. · WEB
A register of citizens is kept, and the names entered belong to the nations Israel most feared.
His foundation is in the holy mountains. Yahweh loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob Psalms 87:1–2.
Seven verses, and among the strangest in the Psalter. It opens as a psalm about a city and turns into a psalm about a birth register.
I will record Rahab and Babylon among those who acknowledge me. Behold, Philistia, Tyre, and also Ethiopia: "This one was born there" Psalms 87:4.
Rahab is a poetic name for Egypt. So the list is: Egypt, which enslaved them; Babylon , which destroyed the temple; Philistia, the enemy of every generation; Tyre, the commercial rival; and Ethiopia, the edge of the known world. Israel's five worst associations, and God says he is writing them down.
What is being recorded is the place of birth, which in the ancient world determined everything about a person's standing. And the entry made against each of these nations is this one was born there — born in Zion.
That is the psalm's astonishing claim. It is not saying that foreigners may visit, or convert, or be tolerated at the edges. It is saying that God registers them as native-born citizens of the city they attacked. An Egyptian is not naturalized; the record says he was born there.
Yes, of Zion it will be said, "This one and that one was born in her" Psalms 87:5.
The phrase is deliberately casual — this one and that one, as though the clerk were working through a queue.
Yahweh will count, when he writes up the peoples, "This one was born there" Psalms 87:6.
A census, kept by God, in which the only entry that matters is one. Paul reaches the same conclusion by a different route: the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is the mother of us all Galatians 4:26, and the letter to the Hebrews tells its readers they have come to Mount Zion already Hebrews 12:22.
Those who sing as well as those who dance say, "All my springs are in you" Psalms 87:7.
The last line is given to musicians, and it is the sentence a new citizen says. Springs are the one thing Jerusalem genuinely had — the city exists where it does because of a water source — and the singers say that everything they draw from is here.
Seven verses that begin with a city God loves more than anywhere else and end by enrolling its enemies as natives.
settled What this mark means