For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Psalm 87

1 He has founded his city on the holy mountain.
2 The Lord loves the gates of Zion
    more than all the other dwellings of Jacob.

3 Glorious things are said of you,
    city of God:
4 ‘I will record Rahab and Babylon
    among those who acknowledge me –
Philistia too, and Tyre, along with Cush –
    and will say, “This one was born in Zion.”’
5 Indeed, of Zion it will be said,
    ‘This one and that one were born in her,
    and the Most High himself will establish her.’
6 The Lord will write in the register of the peoples:
    ‘This one was born in Zion.’

7 As they make music they will sing,
    ‘All my fountains are in you.’

A. Find Out:

1. Where has the Lord established and where does He love? v.1,2
2. What have been written of the place? v.3
3. Who acknowledge Jerusalem ? v.4
4. What comes out of the special-ness of Jerusalem ? v.5
5. What will the Lord write? v.6
6. What will those people do? v.7

B. Think:

1. What is special about Jerusalem according to this psalm?
2. What does the psalm say about the inhabitants?
3. What, particularly, marks out Jerusalem for the Israelites?

C. Comment:

For is today this is a simple but strange psalm. It simply heralds Jerusalem . The actual name Jerusalem is not used, only Zion , the main mountain (hill) upon which the city is built. Again, perhaps because it is such a short psalm, it doesn’t give the primary reason why Jerusalem is so special, beyond saying it is where the Lord has ‘set His foundation’ – it is the place where God established a meeting place with His people. In that sense it was a portal to heaven, the only one on the whole earth. It is thus a place that the Lord loves (v.2), a place where the glory of the Lord was revealed (v.3) and a place that was known of all around the world (v.4).

Yet the focus of this psalm is really none of that; that is merely the background. The focus of this psalm is the wonder of being an occupant of Jerusalem – at least that is how it appears at first. But verse 4 seems to indicate that a lot of non-Jews were ‘born’ in Jerusalem . Twice more (v.5,6) there is reference to those ‘born’ in Jerusalem, and we suggest that in fact the psalmist means that every person or creature, wherever they are in the world, who acknowledges the Lord, has the origins of their belief in Jerusalem, in the facts of history that indicate that it was there God revealed Himself to His established people.

D. Application:

1. For us as Christians, we too are born from Jerusalem for there our Saviour  hung on the Cross to redeem us.
2. We too are in the register of those born in Zion . Hallelujah!