Psalms 87:1

The Psalmist's heart is full of his theme. He states it abruptly in a verse of a single line (cp. Psalms 18:1):"

Tis his foundation upon the holy mountains:

which stands by itself as a kind of title to his poem or inscription on his picture. Zion is a city founded by God Himself (Isaiah 14:32). Its site is consecrated (Psalms 2:6; Psalms 43:3; Psalms 48:1, and often) by the ownership and presence of Jehovah.

The plural mountains(cp. Psalms 133:3) may be merely poetical, or it may refer to the different hills upon which Jerusalem stood, or generally to the mountainous region in which it was situated. "Jerusalem was on the ridge, the broadest and most strongly marked ridge of the backbone of the complicated hills, which extend through the whole country from the Desert to the plain of Esdraelon." Like Rome and Constantinople, it stood upon a "multiplicity of eminences," and "the peculiarity imparted to its general aspect and to its history by these various heights is incontestable." Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, pp. 176, 177. Comp. note on Psalms 48:2.

The brevity and abruptness of the verse have led some commentators to conjecture that the first line has been lost, and others to combine Psalms 87:1 in construction (cp. R.V. marg.) thus:

His foundation upon the holy mountains doth Jehovah love,

Yea, the gates of Zion &c.

The conjecture is unnecessary, and though the combination of Psalms 87:1 would give a good parallelism, the Ancient Versions support the division of the Massoretic Text, and the abrupt beginning is in accordance with the terse oracular style of the Psalm.

P.B.V. - herfoundation" is untenable. The gender of the pronoun in the Heb. shews that it cannot refer to the city.