Context No. 2562 of 4322 · Psalms

Psalms 87:1-7: in context

1His foundation is in the holy mountains. 2The LORD loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. 3Glorious things are spoken about you, city of God. Selah. 4I will record Rahab and Babylon among those who acknowledge me. Behold, Philistia, Tyre, and also Ethiopia: “This one was born there.” 5Yes, of Zion it will be said, “This one and that one was born in her;” the Most High himself will establish her. 6The LORD will count, when he writes up the peoples, “This one was born there.” Selah. 7Those who sing as well as those who dance say, “All my springs are in you.”

Psalm 87 sings of Zion, the city of God, and does something unexpected with the roll of its citizens. God records the peoples, and among those written down as born in Zion are Rahab, a name for Egypt, and Babylon, and Philistia, Tyre, and Cush, the old enemies and foreigners. Of each God says, this one was born there. The city's registry is startlingly wide.

Consider who gets counted. Not just the native Israelite, but Egypt and Babylon, the very nations that had oppressed and exiled God's people, are enrolled as citizens of Zion, native-born. The city of God turns out to have room for the outsider and even the old enemy, registered not as guests but as those born there. It is a preview of the wide ingathering the gospel would bring, when people of every nation are made citizens and children of God. Our imaginations tend to draw God's family narrowly; this psalm draws it wide enough to write in Babylon.

Do I picture God's family narrowly, or wide enough that even my old enemies and unlikely outsiders could be registered as born in his city?

Sources

Psalm 87:4: I will record Rahab and Babylon among those who acknowledge me... This one was born there.
Psalm 87:5: of Zion it will be said, This one and that one was born in her; the Most High himself will establish her.
Psalm 87:6: The LORD will count, when he writes up the peoples, This one was born there.