*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
His foundations are in the holy mountains. Those who conceive that Jerusalem is here meant, as if it were said to be founded upon the holy mountains, are in my judgment mistaken; for the relative is in the masculine gender. Some learned men, I am aware, defend this opinion, by supposing that the words, the people, are to be supplied, although it is the capital of Judea which is specified. But it is unnecessary for me to say any thing to prove what is apparent to all, that this exposition is forced. Some Jewish interpreters have thought it most probable that this opening sentence is to be referred to the psalm itself; and, accordingly, they explain foundations as denoting metaphorically the theme, or subject of the poem, because it treats of the holy city Jerusalem, which was situated upon mountains. But I am surprised that they should have been mistaken in a matter so very obvious. It being quite a common thing among the Hebrews to put a relative without its antecedent, this manner of speaking ought not to seem harsh or strange. The name of God is mentioned a little after; and we know that he is everywhere represented as having founded Jerusalem. Some by the mountains understand Moriah and Zion, [1] which were the two tops of a mountain cleft into two, but this is too forced. As the country was mountainous, we are rather to understand the prophet as having in his eye the several neighboring and contiguous mountains which formed a chain around Jerusalem; for we will see in another place that Jerusalem was surrounded by mountains, (Psalm 125:2.) The true and natural meaning then is, that God chose the holy mountains in order to found and erect his city in the midst of them. For a little after, in the prosecution of the subject, these words occur, "The Highest himself shall establish her." He is indeed the founder of other cities also; yet we do not read of him saying with respect to any other city, "This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell; for I have desired it," (Psalm 132:14.) There is this difference, which is always to be remembered, that while other cities were founded and built by the guidance and power of God, merely for the sake of civil government, Jerusalem was his peculiar sanctuary, and his royal seat. Isaiah also uses a similar form of expression, (Isaiah 14:32,) "The Lord hath founded Zion, and the poor of his people shall trust in it." Besides, although the whole country of Judea was consecrated to God, yet he is said to have rejected all the other cities, and to have chosen this one for himself in which to reign. Here the question is not about earthly polity, but spiritual government; for the pure religion, and the true worship of God, and the doctrine of godliness, were at that time to be found nowhere but in Jerusalem.
1 - As examples of this, see 2 Samuel 1:19, 25; Psalm 114:2; Song of Solomon 1:2; Isaiah 23:1; 26:1, 3; 30:4; 41:2; 55:4; Jeremiah 33:2; Lamentations 3:1; Nahum 1:8.
His foundation - This is an abrupt commencement of the psalm. The adjective "his" has been supposed by some to refer to the psalm itself, and this expression has been considered to be a part of the title to the psalm, meaning that the foundation of the psalm is the holy mountain where the praises of God were celebrated; that is Zion. This, however, is a forced and unnatural interpretation. The most obvious explanation is to refer it to God, and the meaning is, that his "foundation," or that which he had founded and established, to wit, the place for his worship, or for the institutions of religion, was in the holy mountains of Jerusalem. It would seem that the psalmist was contemplating the city - looking on its walls, and its palaces, and especially on the place which had been reared for the worship of God, and that he breaks out in this abrupt manner, by saying that this was what God had founded; that here he had established his home; that here was the place where he was worshipped, and where he dwelt; that this was the place which he loved more than all the other places where the descendants of Jacob dwelt.
Is in the holy mountains - The mountains of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is surrounded by hills, and within the city itself there were the hills of Zion, Moriah, Acra, and Bezethah; See the notes at Matthew 2:1. These sacred hills God had selected as the place of his solemn worship - of his own abode. Compare the notes at Psalm 48:1-2.
His foundation is in the holy mountains - Jerusalem was founded on the mountains or hills of Zion and Moriah. The after increase of the population obliged the inhabitants to inclose all the contiguous hills; but Zion and Moriah were the principal. We know that ancient Rome was built on seven hills.
"A Psalm [or] Song for the sons of Korah." His (a) foundation [is] in the holy mountains.
(a) God chose that place among the hills to establish Jerusalem and his temple.
His foundation is in the holy mountains. The Jewish writers connect these words with the title of the psalm, and make the sense to be this; "the foundation" or argument "of it", the psalm, "is concerning the holy mountains" of Zion and Jerusalem; so Aben Ezra, Jarchi, and Kimchi; and the Targum joins them together thus,
"by the hands of the sons of Korah is said a song, which is founded by the mouth of the fathers that were of old:''
but the words are a part of the song or psalm, which begins in an abrupt manner, just as Song 1:2 and may be rendered either "its foundation", or "his foundation", and refer either to the church, or to the Lord, and the sense is the same either way; for the church's foundation is also the Lord's foundation, a foundation of his laying; see Isaiah 14:32 and is laid "in the holy mountains"; alluding to the mountains of Zion and Moriah, where the temple stood, a type of the church; or to the mountains about Jerusalem, by which also the church is frequently signified; and by those, in a mystical and spiritual sense, may be meant the purposes and decrees of God, which are as mountains of brass, Zac 6:1, they are like the ancient mountains for the antiquity of them, and are high, and not to be reached and searched into, and are firm, solid, and immoveable; and are also holy, particularly the decree of election, that source of all true holiness, which has sanctification for its end and means; and is the foundation of the church, which supports and secures it, and stands sure, 2-Timothy 2:19, also the covenant of grace, which is sure and immoveable, and in which are provisions for holiness, internal and external; and is the foundation and security of the church, and all believers; but especially Jesus Christ, the Rock of ages, is meant, the Holy One of Israel, the sure foundation laid in Zion: some interpret these holy mountains of the holy apostles, who were in an high and eminent station in the church, and were doctrinally foundations, as they ministerially laid Christ, as the only foundation; see Ephesians 2:20, it may be rendered, "among the holy mountains" (w); and so may regard, as Cocceius explains it, the several kingdoms and provinces of the world in which the Gospel shall be preached; and the church shall be established and settled in the latter day even upon the tops of mountains, which shall become holy to the Lord, Isaiah 2:2.
(w) "inter montes sanctitatis", Junius & Tremellius; so Ainsworth.
Christ himself is the Foundation of the church, which God has laid. Holiness is the strength and firmness of the church. Let us not be ashamed of the church of Christ in its meanest condition, nor of those that belong to it, since such glorious things are spoken of it. Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, even Jesus Christ. The glorious things spoken of Zion by the Spirit, were all typical of Christ, and his work and offices; of the gospel church, its privileges and members; of heaven, its glory and perfect happiness.
This triumphal song was probably occasioned by the same event as the forty-sixth [see on Psalm 46:1, title]. The writer celebrates the glory of the Church, as the means of spiritual blessing to the nation. (Psalm 87:1-7)
His--that is, God's
foundation--or, what He has founded, that is, Zion (Isaiah 14:32).
is in the holy mountains--the location of Zion, in the wide sense, for the capital, or Jerusalem, being on several hills.
The poet is absorbed in the contemplation of the glory of a matter which he begins to celebrate, without naming it. Whether we render it: His founded, or (since מיסּד and מוּסּד are both used elsewhere as part. pass.): His foundation (after the form מלוּכה, poetically for יסוד, a founding, then that which is set fast = a foundation), the meaning remains the same; but the more definite statement of the object with שׁערי ציּון is more easily connected with what precedes by regarding it as a participle. The suffix refers to Jahve, and it is Zion, whose praise is a favourite theme of the Korahitic songs, that is intended. We cannot tell by looking to the accents whether the clause is to be taken as a substantival clause (His founded city is upon the holy mountains) or not. Since, however, the expression is not יסוּדתו היא בהררי־קדשׁ, יסודתו בהררי קדשׁ is an object placed first in advance (which the antithesis to the other dwellings of Jacob would admit of), and in Psalm 87:2 a new synonymous object is subordinated to אהב by a similar turn of the discourse to Jeremiah 13:27; Jeremiah 6:2 (Hitzig). By altering the division of the verses as Hupfeld and Hofmann do (His foundation or founded city upon the holy mountains doth Jahve love), Psalm 87:2 is decapitated. Even now the God-founded city (surrounded on three sides by deep valleys), whose firm and visible foundation is the outward manifestation of its imperishable inner nature, rises aloft above all the other dwelling-places of Israel. Jahve stands in a lasting, faithful, loving relationship (אהב, not 3 praet. אהב) to the gates of Zion. These gates are named as a periphrasis for Zion, because they bound the circuit of the city, and any one who loves a city delights to go frequently through its gates; and they are perhaps mentioned in prospect of the fulness of the heathen that shall enter into them. In Psalm 87:3 the lxx correctly, and at the same time in harmony with the syntax, renders: Δεδοξασμένα ἐλαλήθη περὶ σοῦ. The construction of a plural subject with a singular predicate is a syntax common in other instances also, whether the subject is conceived of as a unity in the form of the plural (e.g., Psalm 66:3; Psalm 119:137; Isaiah 16:8), or is individualized in the pursuance of the thought (as is the case most likely in Genesis 27:29, cf. Psalm 12:3); here the glorious things are conceived of as the sum-total of such. The operation of the construction of the active (Ew. 295, b) is not probable here in connection with the participle. בּ beside דּבּר may signify the place or the instrument, substance and object of the speech (e.g., Psalm 119:46), but also the person against whom the words are spoken (e.g., Psalm 50:20), or concerning whom they are uttered (as the words of the suitor to the father or the relatives of the maiden, 1-Samuel 25:39; Song 8:8; cf. on the construction, 1-Samuel 19:3). The poet, without doubt, here refers to the words of promise concerning the eternal continuance and future glory of Jerusalem: Glorious things are spoken, i.e., exist as spoken, in reference to thee, O thou city of God, city of His choice and of His love.
The glorious contents of the promise are now unfolded, and that with the most vivid directness: Jahve Himself takes up the discourse, and declares the gracious, glorious, world-wide mission of His chosen and beloved city: it shall become the birth-place of all nations. Rahab is Egypt, as in Psalm 89:11; Isaiah 30:7; Isaiah 51:9, the southern worldly power, and Babylon the northern. הזכּיר, as frequently, of loud (Jeremiah 4:16) and honourable public mention or commemoration, Ps 45:18. It does not signify "to record or register in writing;" for the official name מזכּיר, which is cited in support of this meaning, designates the historian of the empire as one who keeps in remembrance the memorable events of the history of his time. It is therefore impossible, with Hofmann, to render: I will add Rahab and Babylon to those who know me. In general ל is not used to point out to whom the addition is made as belonging to them, but for what purpose, or as what (cf. 2-Samuel 5:3; Isaiah 4:3), these kingdoms, hitherto hostile towards God and His people, shall be declared: Jahve 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 (vid., Psalm 36:11) know Him as their God. Accordingly, it is clear that זה ילּד־שׁם is also meant to refer to the conversion of the other three nations to whom the finger of God points with הנּה, viz., the war-loving Philistia, the rich and proud Tyre, and the adventurous and powerful Ethiopia (Isaiah 18:1-7). זה does not refer to the individuals, nor to the sum-total of these nations, but to nation after nation (cf. זה העם, Isaiah 23:13), by fixing the eye upon each one separately. And שׁם refers to Zion. The words of Jahve, which come in without any intermediary preparation, stand in the closest connection with the language of the poet and seer. Zion appears elsewhere as the mother who brings forth Israel again as a numerous people (Isaiah 66:7; Psalm 54:1-3): it is the children of the dispersion (diaspora) which Zion regains in Isaiah 60:4.; here, however, it is the nations which are born in Zion. The poet does not combine with it 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 (πολιτεία τοῦ Ἰσραήλ, Ephesians 2:12) 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.
Its foundation - The foundation of the temple of God.
*More commentary available at chapter level.