1 His foundation on the holy mountains, 2 The gates of Zion Jehovah loves More than all the dwellings of Jacob. 3 Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God. Selah.
4 I will proclaim Rahab and Babylon as those who know Me: "Behold Philistia and Tyre, with Cush; This one was born there." 5 And of Zion it shall be said, "Man after man was born in her," And He, the Most High, shall establish her. 6 Jehovah shall reckon when He writes down the peoples, "This one was born there." Selah.
7 And singers and dancers [shall chant], "All my fountains are in Thee."
One clear note sounds in this remarkable psalm. Its single theme is the incorporation of ancestral foes and distant nations with the people of God. Aliens are to be enrolled as home-born citizens of Jerusalem. In modern words, the vision of a universal Church, a brotherhood of humanity, shines radiant before the seer. Other psalmists and prophets have like insight into the future expansion of the nation, but this psalm stands alone in the emphasis which it places upon the idea of birth into the rights of citizenship. This singer has had granted to him a glimpse of two great truths--the universality of the Church, and the mode of entrance into it by reception of a new life. To what age of Israel he belonged is uncertain. The mention of Babylon as among the enemies who have become fellow-citizens favours the supposition of a post-exilic date, which is also supported by resemblances to Isa. xl.-lxvi.
The structure is simple. The psalm is divided by Selah into two strophes, to which a closing verse is appended. The first strophe bursts abruptly into rapturous praise of Zion, the beloved of God. The second predicts the gathering of all nations into her citizenship, and the closing verse apparently paints the exuberant joy of the festal crowds, who shall then throng her streets.
The abrupt beginning of the first strophe offends some commentators, who have tried to smooth ver. 1 into propriety and tameness, by suggesting possible preliminary clauses, which they suppose to have dropped out. But there is no canon which forbids a singer, with the rush of inspiration, either poetic or other, on him, to plunge into the heart of his theme. Ver. 1 may be construed, as in the A.V. and R.V. (text), as a complete sentence, but is then somewhat feeble. It is better to connect it with ver. 2, and to regard "His foundation upon the holy mountains" as parallel with "the gates of Zion," and as, like that phrase, dependent on the verb "loves." Hupfeld, indeed, proposes to transfer "Jehovah loves" from the beginning of ver. 2, where it now stands, to the end of ver. 1, supplying the verb mentally in the second clause. He thus gets a complete parallelism:--
His foundation upon the holy mountains Jehovah loves, The gates of Zion before all the dwellings of Jacob.
But this is not necessary; for the verb may as well be supplied to the first as to the second clause. The harshness of saying "His foundation," without designating the person to whom the pronoun refers, which is extreme if ver. 1 is taken as a separate sentence, is diminished when it is regarded as connected with ver. 2, in which the mention of Jehovah leaves no doubt as to whose the "foundation" is. The psalmist's fervent love for Jerusalem is something more than national pride. It is the apotheosis of that emotion, clarified and hallowed into religion. Zion is founded by God Himself. The mountains on which it stands are made holy by the Divine dwelling. On their heads shines a glory before which the light that lies on the rock crowned by the Parthenon or on the seven hills of Rome pales. Not only the Temple mountain is meant, but the city is the psalmist's theme. The hills, on which it stands, are emblems of the firmness of its foundation in the Divine purpose, on which it reposes. It is beloved of God, and that, as the form of the word "loves" shows, with an abiding affection. The "glorious things" which are spoken of Zion may be either the immediately following Divine oracle, or, more probably, prophetic utterances such as many of those in Isaiah, which predict its future glory. The Divine utterance which follows expresses the substance of these. So far, the psalm is not unlike other outpourings in praise of Zion, such as Psalm xlviii. But, in the second strophe, to which the first is introductory, the singer strikes a note all his own.