All one in Zion
A descendants of Korah psalm.
Racism and exclusivism have always been major problems, as in the Church today. Though the Israelites often forgot the breadth of God’s plan, he has always intended to unite humankind as one in him.
1 The city he founded
stands on the holy mountain.
2 YHWH loves the gates of Zion
more than any of Jacob’s towns.
3 What glorious things are said of you
city of God: Selah
4 “I will register Rahab and Babylon
among the nations that know me.
Philistia and Tyre too, along with Nubia:
‘This one was born there.’
5 Of Zion it will be said:
‘Each and every one was born in it.’
And the Most High himself will establish it.
6 YHWH himself
will write in the register of peoples:
‘This one was born in it.’”
7 Singers and dancers join together to say:
“All my springs are in you!” Selah
This psalm begins much like others celebrating Zion, God’s earthly home. Zion’s location is sanctified by God’s presence. YHWH, not David, is named as Zion’s founder, and YHWH loves Zion supremely because it’s where heaven and earth uniquely intersect. Zion embodies all of God’s hopes for a new world order, founded on justice and peace.
But the psalm takes an astonishing turn in describing Zion’s glories—that the peoples that threatened Israel’s existence are all declared to know God and be born in Zion. Rahab refers figuratively to Egypt as a sea monster intent on devouring little Israel. The Philistines represent Israel’s equivalent threat within Canaan. The other nations named all tried to wipe Israel off the map at some point.
How amazing that God would grant these peoples not second-class status, but rather full citizenship. God records their Zion-born status in writing, making it indelible, incontestable. And God himself guarantees multi-ethnic Zion’s success, the point emphasized at the center of the psalm’s chiasm.[1] St. Peter and St. Paul would later say that this refers to not just the conversion of individual proselytes, but rather God’s radical inclusion of Gentile peoples in his kingdom, which he envisioned way back in his call to Abram.
Shockingly, Zion’s gates swing open—not just closed—to the Gentiles. Since it is God’s city, he’s free to welcome them in as he chooses. And the psalm’s focal point says God himself will ensure that this clearly reconstituted Zion is a resounding success, as the broader purpose of its original founding. All of earth’s peoples are thus included in Abraham’s blessing, as they submit to Abraham’s God. In his eternal kingdom, the outsiders are second-to-none VIPs made gloriously one with the insiders.
Having begun with God’s love for Zion, the psalmist appropriately ends with Zion’s love for God, as its people tell him in exuberant song and dance that he is their only source of life.
Prayer:
Jesus, forgive us for hoarding the gifts and freedoms you’ve lavished on us—excluding women, Blacks, Indigenous, the poor, and so many others, as less deserving than we are. Give us your heart for humankind. Help us to welcome all you came to embrace. Amen.
In your free moments today, celebrate this truth:
“Of Zion it will be said:
‘Each and every one was born in it.’
And the Most High himself will establish it.”
[1] The psalm’s chiasm is as follows: A: God loves Zion (vv. 1-2), B: God registers Zion’s peoples (vv. 3-4), C: GOD ENSURES MULTI-ETHNIC ZION’S SUCCESS (v. 5), B: God registers Zion’s peoples (v. 6), A: Zion loves God (v. 7).