Psalms 87

Psalms 87:1-7

His testimony to His servants. A psalm-song of the sons of Korah. The eighty-seventh psalm, short as it is, is by its very conciseness open to different interpretations, and is essentially a “deep saying” -a problem to be resolved by the spiritual mind alone. Almost any translation of it must have more or less of the character of interpretation: as, for instance, if we only translate in verses 4 and 6, “that [man],” man is not in the original, and most, perhaps, would rather understand for it, “nation.” The result would be to make the psalm a celebration of the conversion of the world to God: each people named being assigned to Zion as its spiritual birth-place. Similarly the ascription of the seventh verse would be to Zion. Cheyne says: “Born there is of course to be explained by the familiar Jewish saying that a proselyte is like a new-born.” In this way of considering it, there would be a certain connection with the previous psalm in its ninth verse: “all nations whom Thou hast made shall come and worship before Thee.” But there are two objections to this: the first, that the connection here seems rather incidental than essential; the second, that (according to the prophecies of the period referred to) there is no promise of Babylon and Philistia being converted to God; but the reverse, as we may see directly. We shall have, however, to take up the psalm; as is evident, with more than ordinary care. The seven verses have an unusual division into 3. 3. 1: which seems however to be that of the very first seven in Scripture, -the creative days (Genesis 1:1-31; Genesis 2:1-3).

1. The first three verses plainly speak of Zion as the object of Jehovah’s love, Zion itself means “fixed:” and that is what stands out clearly as to the time contemplated. Like Jerusalem which is above, it is the “city which has foundations”; and these are in the holy mountains, images of the fixed, enduring holiness of God Himself. The foundations of the heavenly city are like the jeweled breast-plate of the high-priest, the Urim and Thummim, the “lights and perfections” of Him who is Perfect Light. The stability of the city depends upon there being in it the display in glory of all that God is. It exists because He exists.

It abides because He abides. So, on its lower level, with the city below. It is the place of His rest; and rest He never can, except as the requirements of His nature are met and satisfied: there is nothing to produce a note of discord. On the holy mountains is His foundation. There then His heart is free; and, being so, is poured forth in love: “Jehovah loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.” His love is active; and these gates are the symbol of activity, -the place of ingress and egress, -the place where wisdom cries and justice is transacted, and which stands for all its busy life, -the city itself, as it were. Zion the royal city is in closest connection with those “dwellings of Jacob” which also -every one of them -Jehovah loves, and therefore loves most of all what is their supremest expression. The “dwellings of Jacob” imply, as we know, not human righteousness but divine grace; and Zion is royalty in grace, as the seventy-eighth psalm has pointed out to us (68-70). “Glorious things” may indeed well “be spoken” therefore of the “city of God.” 2. The second section now speaks of a certain testimony which God is giving: “I will make mention of Rahab (pride) and Babel (confusion) to them that know Me: behold Philistia and Tyre, with Cush: this [man] was born there.” Here comes, however, the question of interpretation before pointed out. Moll with others would translate, “as those that know Me,” which it is allowed it may be rendered; and Delitzsch similarly remarks that the meaning is “for what purpose, or as what these kingdoms, hitherto hostile towards God and His people, shall be declared: Jehovah completes what He Himself has brought about, inasmuch as He publicly and solemnly declares them to be those who know Him, i.e. those who experimentally know Him as their God. Accordingly it is clear that ‘This one was born there’ is also meant to refer to the conversion of the other three nations to whom the finger of God points. . . . This one, does not refer to the individuals, nor to the sum-total of these nations, but to nation after nation; by fixing the eye upon each one separately. And ’there’, refers to Zion . . . nations which are born in Zion. The poet does not combine with this the idea of being born again in the depth of its New Testament meaning: he means, however, that the nations will attain a right of citizenship in Zion as in their second mother-city, that they will therefore at any rate experience a spiritual change which, regarded from the New Testament point of view, is the new birth out of water and the Spirit.” This is happily not a question of the language used; and therefore all are capable of deciding it by plain Scripture. The first of these nations, Rahab, is Egypt; and of Egypt God has indeed prophesied blessing as well as of Assyria. These will be, in days to come, conterminous with Israel’s territory; and in that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land: whom Jehovah of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance" (Isaiah 19:23-25). Thus Scripture predicts with perfect plainness the blessing of Egypt; and had it been Assyria that we found connected with her, there could have been no question raised as to the suitableness of the interpretation given by the writers mentioned, as far as these two were concerned. But where we might have expected Assyria, we find Babel, and a very different future is assigned to Babel: “For I will rise up against them, saith Jehovah of hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name and remnant and son and nephew, saith Jehovah. I will also make it a possession for the bittern and pools of water, and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction; said’ Jehovah of hosts” (Isaiah 14:22-23). The definiteness of the prediction in the one case shows that this in the psalm is not one. Philistia is also threatened to be destroyed without inhabitant (Zephaniah 2:5; Amos 1:8), her land to be possessed by Judah. This is another witness that the psalmist does not prophesy the conversion of these nations to God. This interpretation being purely conjectural and opposed to other scriptures, cannot be maintained; while to apply it merely to individuals out of these nations in the same way would be to deprive it of any particular importance, and from another side destroy it as a prophecy. But if not a prophecy, then it can only be a contrast that is drawn here, between the countries named and their great men; and Zion and hers in the next verse; and this is perfectly natural, after dwelling upon the glory of Zion itself. The world boasts its heroes, and has ever boasted: the fame of the men of Egypt and Babylon is in our ears today -of kings, conquerors, builders, who speak to us in perished languages, from their uncovered monuments. Really, it would seem as if God were permitting all these nations to tell their own story of the men born in them, and that we may contrast it with the voices of the men of Zion, men of a feeble, despised, and scattered people, which yet strangely move us as no others do. On the one hand, the dead past speaks to us from its unsealed sepulchre, a memorial of doom which its own words justify and we cannot regret: there is in it no title to resurrection. On the other, there are voices that never die, -living and life-giving, -that proclaim not their own praise, but ascribe greatness unto God, and live eternally by their own hold of the Eternal. On the one hand, the voice is single -in each generation but a single voice; some king for whom his kingdom seems alone to have existed, and who tells us how many he has slaughtered, that he might have room to dwell in.

On the other, the voice of many in chorus, the king of Israel with the gatherer of sycamore fruit, each having his part in a strain which, though it may be often sad, is never discordant, and which ends in triumphant harmony. Aye, “of Zion it may be said that this man and that was born in her, and the Highest Himself establisheth her.” How else, indeed, can the mystery of this be explained? And it shall be fully seen in the day to which the psalm looks on. But this is not all; nay, all would be left out, if this were to be taken as all. Jehovah’s voice has not been heard directly yet; and plainly we shall never get a perfect knowledge of things, except He guide us. He too is the One who “writeth down the peoples,” -takes account of all with no mere local or national partiality, but in absolute righteousness and truth. Strange then it may seem that now, when we have His reckoning of things, even Zion’s count of her great men is gone. In all history there seems now but One Name. One Person takes the place of every other. “Jehovah counteth, when He writeth down the peoples, that THIS Man was born there.” 3. An enigma, is it? Couched in abrupt, enigmatical language, indeed: but as a secret which expects that we should fathom. And suddenly there bursts out as from a multitude, in songs and with instruments to swell the melody, another voice as enigmatical, and yet with the same appeal to our intelligence, -as if there were no possibility of going wrong in the interpretation of it; a voice which is one and individual, and yet the voice of all; a response echoing Jehovah’s claim for the One Man of His approval: “All my springs are in Thee.” The Christian heart can translate this, and the Christian only. It is not that the Lord whom they have served does not appreciate the service of His people. It is not that their names can be forgotten with Him. But it is the Old Testament version of what has come out in full reality in the gospel of our salvation; -the truth that, for salvation, the cross of Christ had to be our all: death and judgment had to do their awful work upon our Substitute and Saviour; and thus God pronounced upon man; thus He had to put him away from His sight, that He might show us mercy. Those who believe are now therefore by the cross “dead with Christ” and “buried with Christ,” so as to be accepted in Another raised from the dead, His work accomplished. How plain, therefore, that there is but One Man; whom God sees, the perfect Servant of His perfect will; and that Zion’s great men can only come in before God thus. How well may they sing, and how surely they know to Whom they sing, “All my springs are in Thee”! The glory of Zion; the dwelling-place of God in Israel, is found in Him. Thus the two psalms here come into their place with one another. The servants’ path in the one finds its recognition from God in the other; and the One perfect Servant is distinguished from, while seen to be the sufficiency and boast, of every other. Thus the work of salvation is seen once more to be for holiness.