The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"His foundation," Hebrew yesudato (יְסוּדָתוֹ). The psalm opens on Zion, God's city, and begins underground: "His foundation is in the holy mountains." The city rests on something God Himself laid, not on the labour of the men who built its walls.

"the holy mountains," harerei-qodesh (הַרְרֵי־קֹדֶשׁ). The footing is described as holy ground. What makes these hills different from any others is not their height but that God has set them apart for Himself.

"the gates of Zion," sha'arei Tziyyon (שַׁעֲרֵי צִיּוֹן). "The LORD loveth the gates of Zion." The gates stand for the city as a whole, the place where its people came and went and where its life was transacted; and God's love rests on it.

"the dwellings of Jacob," mishkenot Ya'aqov (מִשְׁכְּנוֹת יַעֲקֹב). His love for Zion is measured against every other home of His people, "more than all the dwellings of Jacob." He loves them all, but this place He loves most.

"city of God," ir ha'Elohim (עִיר הָאֱלֹהִים). "Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God." The city is named by its owner, and it is that ownership, not its size or strength, that gives it everything glorious that is said about it.

Explanation

Two quiet touches in this opening carry the whole psalm. First, the foundation: "His foundation is in the holy mountains." The city of God is not built on the shifting sand of human effort but on ground God Himself has laid and hallowed, an immovable, holy foundation. Whatever storms come against Zion, her footings are secure because they are His. Second, and easy to miss, is the striking comparison in verse 2: "The LORD loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob." The "dwellings of Jacob" are the scattered homes and tents of God's people spread across the land, each a place of real, private devotion. God loves those. But He loves "the gates of Zion", the place where His people gather, worship, and meet together, even more. The gate, in the ancient world, was the heart of the city, where the community assembled and life was shared. So the verse quietly exalts the gathered life of God's people above even their individual piety: private devotion is precious, but God has a special love for the assembly, the congregation drawn together in one place around Himself. And over this beloved city hangs a word of promise, "Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God", great things are declared about her, and the next verses will tell us what they are: not her walls or her wealth, but the wonder of who is counted her citizens.

Gospel Focus

"Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God", the city whose foundation is in the holy mountains finds its fulfilment in the church of the living God and the Jerusalem above. To believers the New Testament says, "ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem" (Hebrews 12:22). Her foundation is sure because it is Christ Himself: "other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 3:11), and the city He builds cannot fall, for "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18). And the love God bears "the gates of Zion... more than all the dwellings of Jacob" reminds us that Christ died not merely to save scattered individuals but to build a people, a gathered city, His body and His bride. The glorious things spoken of the city of God reach their climax in the last vision of Scripture, the new Jerusalem coming down from God, where He dwells with His people for ever. To belong to that city is the highest honour a soul can know.

Word Study

"Rahab," Hebrew Rahav (רַהַב), a poetic name for Egypt. God names Zion's old enemies one after another, Egypt, Babylon, Philistia, Tyre, Ethiopia, and Egypt heads the list under its poetic name. These are the nations Israel had most reason to fear and hate.

"I will make mention," azkir (אַזְכִּיר). "I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know me." God Himself does the naming, and He does it before His own people, as one reading out a roll in their hearing.

"this man was born there," zeh yullad-sham (זֶה יֻלַּד־שָׁם). Astonishingly, each of these enemies is recorded as native-born: "this man was born there." Men out of Philistia and Tyre and Ethiopia are entered on the register as though Zion were their birthplace.

"the highest himself shall establish her," Elyon yekhoneneha (עֶלְיוֹן יְכוֹנְנֶהָ). The city that receives such citizens is made secure by God in person. It is not Zion's walls that guarantee her but the Most High, who set her foundation and now settles her fast.

"the LORD shall count," YHWH yispor (יְהוָה יִסְפֹּר). "The LORD shall count... that this man was born there." The tally is taken by God and by no one else, and He counts in men that Zion's own citizens would have struck off the list.

"when he writeth up the people," bikhtov ammim (בִּכְתוֹב עַמִּים). The picture is of a register being written out, name by name. What is recorded there is not a man's ancestry but God's reckoning of where he belongs.

Explanation

This is one of the most surprising passages in the Old Testament, and its wonder is easy to miss unless you know who these names are. Rahab is a poetic name for Egypt, the house of Israel's bondage. Babylon is the empire that would burn Jerusalem and carry her into exile. Philistia, Tyre, and Ethiopia were Gentile peoples, outsiders, often enemies. These are not Israel's friends; they are the great nations of the pagan world, the very ones a Hebrew would expect God to name for judgment. And what does God say of them? "This man was born there", born, that is, in Zion. Against the names of Egyptians and Babylonians and Philistines, God writes not "condemned" but "native-born citizen of my city." Foreigners become family; enemies become natives. And notice how personal the reckoning is: "The LORD shall count, when he writeth up the people, that this man was born there." God keeps a birth-registry of His city, and He enters names into it one by one, "this and that man," not nations in the mass but individuals, each counted, each recorded. This is nothing less than the picture of a new birth: people who by nature belonged to Egypt and Babylon are, by God's grace, born again into Zion and written down as her own. And it is God who secures it, "the highest himself shall establish her", the citizenship He grants can never be revoked, for the Most High Himself upholds the city and keeps the register.

Gospel Focus

"This man was born there", here, centuries beforehand, is the gospel's welcome of the nations. What it means to be "born" into the city of God is unfolded by the Lord Jesus: "except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). The new birth makes citizens of Zion out of those who by nature were far off, so that Paul can tell Gentile believers, "now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God" (Ephesians 2:19). The old enemies of God's people, Egypt and Babylon, the whole Gentile world, are not admitted as second-class outsiders but written down as native-born, full children of the city. And the register God keeps, in which "this man was born there," is the Lamb's book of life, for only "they which are written in the Lamb's book of life" enter the city (Revelation 21:27). The Lord Jesus told His disciples to "rejoice, because your names are written in heaven" (Luke 10:20). If you have been born again in Christ, God has written your name in His book with those glad words: born in Zion. However far off you began, Egypt, Babylon, or wherever your bondage was, grace has made you a native of the city of God.

Word Study

"the singers," Hebrew sharim (שָׁרִים). The psalm closes in music: "As well the singers as the players on instruments shall be there." The citizens of Zion are a singing people, and their song is named as part of the city's life.

"the players on instruments," cholelim (חֹלְלִים), those who make music, dance. Voices are joined by hands and feet. The word takes in both the making of music and the dancing that goes with it, so the gladness of Zion is bodily as well as sung.

"all my springs," kol-ma'yanai (כָּל־מַעְיָנַי), all my fountains, sources. The last line moves from music to water. Every source of life is found in her, and the word takes in both the literal fountain and everything a life draws upon.

"in thee," bakh (בָּךְ). "All my springs are in thee." The psalm ends by addressing the city directly, and the confession is exclusive: not some of the singer's springs, but all of them, and nowhere else.

Explanation

The psalm ends with two images that crown everything before it. First, music: "As well the singers as the players on instruments shall be there." The city whose citizens are the reborn nations is a city of song; the natural response of those written into Zion's register is to make music. Belonging breaks out in joy. Redemption always ends in singing, and the birthplace of the peoples is a place of unending praise. Second, and most beautiful of all, the closing line: "all my springs are in thee." A "spring" is a fountain, the source of fresh, living water, and in a dry land it is the source of life itself. To say "all my springs are in thee" is to say: every fountain I draw from, every source of my life, my joy, my refreshment, my strength, is found in you, in the city of God, and in the God of the city. The reborn citizen has moved his whole water supply, so to speak, into Zion; he goes nowhere else to be satisfied. It is a confession of total contentment: not merely that I belong to God's city, but that I have found all that my soul thirsts for within her. Nothing is left outside; every well I need is inside these walls.

Gospel Focus

"All my springs are in thee", this is fulfilled for the believer in Jesus Christ, in whom every spring of living water is found. To the woman at the well He said, "the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:14), and He cried, "He that believeth on me... out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38). All the springs the soul was made to drink from, life, forgiveness, joy, the Spirit Himself, are in Christ, and the city He builds is watered by "a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb" (Revelation 22:1). And the song of Psalm 87 is the song of the redeemed still, for those born into the city are a people "singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord" (Ephesians 5:19). So make this your confession: not that some of my springs are in the world and some in God, but that all my springs are in Him. In Christ and His city is everything the thirsty soul was ever looking for.