Bible Strands
Psalms 87:3
Glorious things are ascribed to you, O city of God. Selah
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses Jerusalem directly, following the previous declaration that Yahweh loves Zion’s gates above all Jacobite dwellings. The moment marks a shift from God’s preferential love for the city to the public recognition of its honored status.
The words — The Hebrew נִכְבָּדוֹת (nikhbāḏôṯ) translates literally as “glorious things,” paired with מְדֻבָּר (məḏubbār), the passive participle “is spoken.” The construction yields the declarative phrase “glorious things are spoken of you.”
The thread — The motif of divine habitation and restored population defining Zion’s glory appears in Ezekiel 36:11 and Ezekiel 37:27. It reaches its narrative conclusion in Revelation 21:10, which depicts the holy Jerusalem descending from God.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to accept that the city’s honor originates solely from God’s spoken declaration rather than human merit. It demands a reorientation of identity toward divine election as the basis for community and allegiance.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God. Selah.
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 37:27 My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be My people.
- Ezekiel 36:11 I will fill you with people and animals, and they will multiply and be fruitful. I will make you as inhabited as you once were, and I will make you prosper more than before. Then you will know that I am the LORD.
- Revelation 21:10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city of Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God,
- Psalms 48:2 Beautiful in loftiness, the joy of all the earth, like the peaks of Zaphon is Mount Zion, the city of the great King.
- Hebrews 12:22 Instead, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to myriads of angels
- Jeremiah 31:12 They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion; they will be radiant over the bounty of the LORD—the grain, new wine, and oil, and the young of the flocks and herds. Their life will be like a well-watered garden, and never again will they languish.
- Revelation 14:1 Then I looked and saw the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him 144,000 who had His name and His Father’s name written on their foreheads.
- Psalms 46:4 There is a river whose streams delight the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.
- Psalms 48:11 Mount Zion is glad, the daughters of Judah rejoice, on account of Your judgments.
- Psalms 125:1 A song of ascents. Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion. It cannot be moved; it abides forever.