(Of the sons of Korah. A Psalm. A Song.) His foundation is in the mountains of holiness.
Psalm 87 opens with a pronoun and no name: "His foundation." Commentators work from an older wording of the line, "His foundation is in the holy mountains," and ask two questions: whose foundation is it, and why are the mountains holy?
Men founded cities and boasted about them. This city had another founder.
Psalm 87 views Zion as founded by God, a city which has foundations. Men had cities, and boasted of them; but God had a city He founded in the holy mountains. Even here it was not Joseph or the richness of the land that counted. God was its riches. Its place was the holy mountains, what He had set apart for Himself.
Another writer hears the opening words as the confession of a people who have stopped thinking about themselves. He then asks whether Israel's great kings could claim the credit.
Out of all this will come the blessed result, that they will no longer be thinking of themselves, but of God. Our first word expresses this: "His foundation is in the holy mountains." Who was He? What were these mountains, and why were they holy?... And who is this before me? Is it David or Solomon? Is it the king's foundation? No.
The mountains are not just where the city sits. They are what it rests on.
The name Zion means "fixed." Like the Jerusalem above, this is the "city that has foundations." Those foundations are in the holy mountains — pictures of the fixed, lasting holiness of God Himself... The stability of the city depends upon there being in it the display in glory of all that God is. It exists because He exists. It abides because He abides... It is the place of His rest. He can never rest unless everything His nature requires is met and satisfied. There, nothing strikes a note of discord.
Another writer links that holiness to the love named in the next verse.
It is not only firmly established. Its foundations are secure, because they are built on "the mountains of holiness." It stands on a righteous foundation. Being holy Jehovah "loves" its gates.
If God laid the foundation, the next question is why here.
What reason did God have to interest Himself in this place more than in another? There was no reason at all except that He loved this city. It had been under the power of the Jebusites, the enemies of Jehovah and of His anointed. His heart clung to this place, because here He wanted to set up the throne of His grace on earth for good.
The Jebusites had held the place, and they were enemies of God and of His anointed king. The chosen spot had been enemy ground.
One writer turns the comparison into a test of where our own confidence sits.
It is God's foundation which makes all assured. What draws out the interest and assures the heart of faith is not that her foundation is in the holy mountain. It is that the city of God rests on God's foundation — and so do we. The sure foundation of God abides... Faith attaches more importance to God's city than to all that man has built... But what about in practice? When the church of God is despised, and made up of people who count for nothing in this world — do we boast in it because they are precious in God's sight, rich in faith? Or do the grandeurs of the Egypts and Babylons, which God judges, eclipse it in our sight?
Commentators also read the verse forward to Christ.
Psalm 87 says of Zion, "His foundation is in the holy mountains." There is only one foundation for the worker with God, and that is Christ: "no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid"; let us hold to it in these dark days.
One writer places the fulfilment after Israel returns to the land, and reads the opening words as a deliberate contrast:
The earthly Zion is clearly the subject of this remarkable psalm... Human counsel had settled the foundations of other cities. Tyre and Babel had risen through the wisdom and the might of man. But God had chosen Him a place for His own name in the earth, even as He had formed a people for His own peculiar praise.
- His — the psalm opens with a pronoun, not a name, and the foundation belongs to God. Not to David, not to Solomon, not to human counsel.
- Holy — the mountains picture the fixed, enduring holiness of God. The city stands because He stands; it lasts because He lasts.
- Loved — nothing in the place earned the choice. It had been enemy ground, and He wanted it for the throne of His grace.
- Unrivalled — set beside Egypt, Babylon and Tyre, what God founded needs no defence. The only question is whether man's splendour still outshines it in our eyes.
- One — for anyone building with God, the foundation is already laid and is Christ, and no one can lay another.
Jehovah loveth the gates of Zion more than all the habitations of Jacob.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God. Selah.
Psalm 87 sings about a city, and this line is its burst of praise. Two questions follow: who is speaking, and why is this one city praised above every great capital of the ancient world?
The praise starts with who founded the city.
The psalm opens by celebrating the glory of Zion. Men may found other cities, but Zion is the city Jehovah founded. It is not only firmly established; its foundations are secure, because they rest on "the mountains of holiness." It stands on a righteous foundation. Because He is holy, Jehovah "loves" its gates — the place where people gather and where the city is governed, and so a picture of the city's active life. Glorious things are spoken of this city. It is not simply a place where great events have happened, but a city with a glorious future foretold. Unlike all other cities, it is the "city of God."
The verse does not say who spoke. The answer decides whether the promise stands.
It is the city of God (verse 3). It is also the city of the great King (Matt. 5:35). Glorious things are spoken of her. God, who spoke them, will surely fulfil His word. She will be the light and joy of the whole earth (Ps. 48; Isa. 62).
So what are these glorious things? The prophets describe them, and their picture is nothing like the city's history.
It refreshes the spirit to turn away from the Jerusalem stained with the blood of Jesus and with the blood of the prophets. That is the city the rejected Son of God wept over. Prophecy lets us look instead at "the city of the great King," once its judgments and its cleansing are complete. The psalmist wrote well: "Glorious things of you are spoken, O city of God" (Ps. 87:3). Many of the Old Testament prophets had the privilege of describing the glories of the city in its splendour during the thousand-year reign.
This praise is not whispered. It is sung where the proudest cities of the ancient world can hear it.
Psalm 87 views Zion as founded by God, a city that has foundations. Men had cities, and boasted of them; but God had a city He founded in the holy mountains... In the power of the Spirit the godly are not ashamed of it (glorious things are spoken of it) — not even in front of all the earth's seats of boasting. Egypt and Babylon boasted in vain; so did Philistia, Tyre, and Ethiopia, who had all had their day. The godly could talk of them without fear of comparison.
One writer turns this into a challenge to the world.
Rahab or Egypt was the first great power; it decayed and fell before the growing ambition and resources of Babylon. Choose, O world, your very best: Rahab and Babylon. And not only these, but Philistia, that busy land whose energy sent it out to every part of the world, and Tyre too, its rival at sea. Add Ethiopia as well, that distant land of wonders! In all these proud quarters of the old world, pick out the most respected and the best. Pick the men you have gloried in most, the geniuses who led others and won all the fame that a man can earn, and give, and boast of. But what is it? Undying fame, alas! Broken bits of pottery from the earth!
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The psalm speaks of one Man born in Zion. One writer sees Christ in those words, and mercy too: Jerusalem is the city that killed Him.
Christ the Lord is the only key to the psalms just before this one. They bring together Israel, poor and needy, looking to Him, and all nations coming to worship before Him. In the same way He explains the God-given source of Israel's patriotism. For everyone else the centre is self, the first man. Strict justice might and must have cut them all down. Grace counts instead that This man was born (not crucified!) there.
The city keeps a citizen list. Names go on it in more than one way.
On Christians who overcome, the Lord will write the name of the city of His God, which is New Jerusalem (Rev. 3:12). That shows they belong to it. Here the saint on earth will find his name on the citizen list of the city of God, even Zion, which will rise from the dust of ages and be dressed in her beautiful garments (Isa. 52:1).
- Founded — men founded other cities; God founded this one in the mountains of holiness. That is why it is the city of God.
- Spoken — the glorious things are God's word about her, not human praise. The One who spoke them will carry them out.
- Foretold — the prophets fill in the detail. They describe a cleansed and splendid city, not the one stained with the blood of Jesus and the prophets.
- Unrivalled — Egypt, Babylon, Philistia, Tyre and Ethiopia each had their day and their fame. Next to God's city, that fame is broken pottery.
- Born there — the glory rests at last on one Man whom grace counts as born in Zion. His people find their own names on her citizen list.