Psalm 87 explained: Foreign Nations Counted as Citizens

God's chosen city (vv. 1-3)

Zion is the hill in Jerusalem where the temple stood, and the psalm says God himself founded it and loves it more than any other town of Israel, here called "Jacob." The "glorious things" are the praise and promises spoken about this city as the place where God chose to meet his people.

Foreign nations enrolled (vv. 4-5)

Rahab here is a poetic nickname for Egypt, not the woman in Joshua, and the list names old powers and rivals: Egypt, Babylon, the Philistines, the trading city of Tyre, and Cush, a land south of Egypt. Surprisingly, God counts them among those who know him and declares each one born in his city, as if they were native citizens.

God's citizen register (v. 6)

The picture is of a city's official list of citizens, with God himself entering these foreign peoples as native born. Scholars are unsure whether this means foreigners who came to worship Israel's God or Jewish people living abroad, and Christians later read it as people of every nation joining God's family through Jesus.

A city of music (v. 7)

The song ends with people celebrating and saying that all their "fountains," meaning the sources of their life and joy, are found in Zion. The Hebrew of this verse is hard to translate, so the exact wording is uncertain.

Key verse: Psalm 87:4

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on whether the nations being counted as born in Zion is fulfilled now in the worldwide church or also points to a future gathering of nations around Jerusalem itself.

Something to think about

What would it take for you to see someone who was once an outsider, or even an opponent, as fully one of your own?