When Home Becomes Bigger Than Geography
What’s Psalm 87 about?
This brief but revolutionary psalm flips ancient ideas about nationality and belonging on their head, declaring that God’s city welcomes people from everywhere – even former enemies. It’s a stunning vision of inclusion that would have shocked its original audience and still challenges us today.
The Full Context
Psalm 87 emerges from a time when Israel understood itself as God’s chosen people in very exclusive terms. Written likely during the post-exilic period (around 5th-4th century BCE), this psalm reflects a growing theological awareness that God’s purposes extend beyond ethnic Israel. The Sons of Korah, a guild of temple musicians, crafted this piece as Israel grappled with their identity after returning from Babylon and encountering a more diverse, cosmopolitan world.
The psalm sits within the collection of “Songs of Zion” (Psalms 46, 48, 76, 84, 87, 122), but stands out dramatically from its companions. While other Zion psalms celebrate Jerusalem’s military victories or architectural beauty, Psalm 87 does something unprecedented: it imagines former enemies as full citizens of God’s city. This isn’t just poetry – it’s a theological bombshell that anticipates themes we’ll see fulfilled in the New Testament’s vision of the church.
What the Ancient Words Tell Us
The Hebrew word yalidti appears twice in this psalm and creates one of the most startling images in all of Scripture. Usually translated “born,” it carries the intimate sense of being birthed, of emerging from a mother’s womb. When the psalmist says Egypt and Babylon were “born” in Zion, he’s using language typically reserved for biological children.
Think about how radical this is. Egypt – the nation that enslaved Israel for four centuries. Babylon – the empire that destroyed Jerusalem and dragged God’s people into exile. The psalmist is essentially saying, “These former enemies? They’re going to be registered as native-born citizens of God’s city.”
Grammar Geeks
The phrase zeh yullad-sham (literally “this one was born there”) uses a passive construction that emphasizes God’s action rather than human effort. Nobody earns their way into this citizenship – it’s entirely God’s gracious act of registration.
The word mechokek in verse 6 refers to an official registrar or census-taker. In ancient times, being recorded in a city’s official records meant everything – it determined your rights, your protection, your belonging. God himself becomes the cosmic registrar, personally enrolling people from every nation as if they were native-born Jerusalemites.
What Would the Original Audience Have Heard?
Picture yourself as a returned exile in Jerusalem, working to rebuild the temple while surrounded by foreign neighbors who worship different gods. Your community is small, vulnerable, and desperately trying to maintain its distinct identity. Then you hear this psalm sung in the temple courts.
“Rahab and Babylon – among those who know me…” Wait, what? Rahab was a poetic name for Egypt, Israel’s ancient oppressor. Babylon had just finished devastating your homeland. And now the psalm singer is declaring that people from these nations will be counted as Zion-born?
The original audience would have been stunned. This wasn’t just inclusive – it was scandalous. It challenged every assumption about who belonged to God’s people and how they could join.
Did You Know?
Ancient cities jealously guarded citizenship rights. Being “born” in a city meant legal protection, inheritance rights, and social status that foreigners could rarely achieve. The psalm’s language would have been as shocking then as declaring that foreign nationals are automatically granted full citizenship today.
The mention of specific nations – Egypt, Babylon, Philistia, Tyre, even distant Ethiopia (Cush) – wasn’t random. These represented the entire known world: south (Egypt/Ethiopia), east (Babylon), west (Philistia), and north (Tyre). The psalmist is painting a picture of universal inclusion.
But Wait… Why Did They…?
Here’s what’s genuinely puzzling: why does this psalm seem so disconnected from its immediate context? The other Sons of Korah psalms focus on Zion’s beauty, strength, and security. But Psalm 87 barely mentions Jerusalem’s physical attributes and instead obsesses over its future population diversity.
The answer might lie in the psalm’s cryptic opening. When it says God “loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob,” it’s not just expressing preference – it’s making a theological statement. Gates in ancient cities weren’t just entrances; they were places of legal transaction, where foreigners could seek justice and protection.
God loves Zion’s gates because that’s where the nations will come seeking citizenship. The psalm envisions Jerusalem not as a fortress keeping people out, but as a city whose gates stay open to welcome the world in.
Wrestling with the Text
The most challenging aspect of this psalm is its complete lack of conditions for citizenship. There’s no mention of conversion, circumcision, or law-keeping. No process described, no requirements listed. People from enemy nations are simply declared to be Zion-born.
This creates theological tension even today. How do we understand inclusion without requirements? What does it mean for God to register people as citizens based purely on divine initiative rather than human response?
“The most shocking thing about Psalm 87 isn’t that it includes the nations – it’s that it gives them the same status as those born in Zion.”
The psalm also raises questions about identity and belonging. If people from Egypt and Babylon can be declared Zion-born, what makes someone truly part of God’s people? Is it ethnicity, geography, belief, or something else entirely?
Perhaps the psalm is teaching us that true citizenship in God’s city is less about where you’re from and more about God’s sovereign choice to include you. It’s a preview of what Paul would later write about being “fellow citizens with the saints” (Ephesians 2:19).
How This Changes Everything
Psalm 87 demolishes the walls we build around belonging. It challenges every “us versus them” mentality by declaring that God’s “us” is bigger than we ever imagined. The nations we might consider enemies or outsiders are precisely the ones God wants to welcome home.
This vision becomes reality in the New Testament, where we see Ethiopian eunuchs, Roman centurions, and Samaritan women finding their place in God’s family. The apostle Paul picks up this theme when he writes about the church being built from “every tribe and tongue and nation” (Revelation 7:9).
Wait, That’s Strange…
The psalm ends with singing and dancing, but there’s no mention of sacrifice, temple ritual, or priestly activity. It’s as if the presence of all these diverse citizens creates its own form of worship – a celebration of inclusion itself.
For us today, Psalm 87 raises profound questions about our own attitudes toward inclusion. Do we see our churches as fortresses protecting insiders or as cities with gates wide open? Do we view people from different backgrounds as potential threats to our identity or as future fellow citizens?
The psalm suggests that God’s heart is bent toward radical inclusion, and that the ultimate picture of his kingdom looks like a beautifully diverse city where former enemies become family.
Key Takeaway
God’s vision of home is bigger than our tribalism – he’s building a city where citizenship is based on his grace rather than our origin, and where the celebration never ends because the family keeps growing.
Further Reading
Internal Links:
External Scholarly Resources:
- The Psalms: A Commentary by James Luther Mays
- Psalms 73-150: A Commentary by John Goldingay
- The Message of the Psalms by Walter Brueggemann
Tags
Psalm 87, Zion, inclusion, citizenship, nations, Egypt, Babylon, Philistia, Tyre, Ethiopia, Sons of Korah, Jerusalem, belonging, universalism, covenant, election
