Psalm 87:1

Psalm 87:1

The City of God

This is a short Psalm, but it has a unique message for it celebrates the City of Zion. What is also distinctive is its prophetic content. The Psalm doesn’t just major on the historic character of Zion, it looks forward too. It declares that a time is coming when all nations will join with Israel as fellow citizens in God’s kingdom. This theme is unusual in the Psalter, it is prophetic and powerful, and the content is attributed to the sons of Korah. The Korahites were part of the tribe of Levi and had liturgical responsibilities in the Temple. Clearly, these were godly men for the content of this Psalm shows a deep understanding of God’s greater purpose for the world that extends far beyond the patriotic hopes of most Israelites. It’s exciting, isn’t it, to skim over this song and wonder what the Lord God is going to teach us from it in the coming week?

 

V1        It’s not easy to fully describe the significance that Zion has for the Jewish people. So, let’s try and fill in some of the pieces.

·      Zion was the seat of Jewish worship and government. 

·      The name Zion also refers to the Israelites themselves. After their exile from the Holy Land, the word Zion meant to them their homeland, with Jerusalem, the Temple, and all Israel’s ancient glory.

·      Among Christians, the name Zion means the church ruled by God, or a heavenly city or heavenly home.

Yet Zion is also a real place that you can find on the map. Joel alludes to this reality when he says, “Blow the trumpet in Zion … between the porch and the altar, let the priests … weep.” Joel 2:15-17. This is a reference to the Temple itself, which was located in Jerusalem, near the real Mt. Zion.

Mt. Zion is part of Jerusalem, the westernmost of the two main mountains on which the city sits. Mount Moriah, the actual location of the Temple Mount, lies to the east. Beyond, outside the city proper, is a third mountain, the Mount of Olives. 

Zion is the highest point in Jerusalem at 2,558 feet. In Jesus’ day, Zion and Moriah were separated by the Tyropean Valley — also called the Valley of the Cheesemakers — but today that has been largely filled in and the two seem joined.

Three thousand years ago, when David captured Jerusalem from the Jebusites, he established the City of David on Mt. Zion, near the spring of Gihon, the city’s only water source. He built his palace there around the year 1,000 BC and brought the Ark of the Covenant there. (It was later moved to Mount Moriah when Solomon’s Temple was built.) Today, Mt. Zion stands just outside the walls of the Old City.

In the Bible, mountains are often presented as places to meet God. One of the ancient Hebrew names for God is El Shaddai, which translates as “God Almighty”, but has a more ancient meaning: “God of the Mountains.”

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