What Does Psalm 87:1 Mean?
A Psalm or Song for the sons of Korah. His foundation is in the set-apart mountains.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
A Psalm or Song for the sons of Korah. His foundation is in the holy mountains.THE KEY
The city’s foundation rests in the set-apart, giving the holy a place and ground.
THE MEANING
His foundation is among the holy mountains. The city’s footing is rooted in ground marked as set apart. Its first truth is where it is established, before anything built above it is seen.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The holy is only an idea, without a place or ground.
THE ROOT
יְסוּדָתוֹ
yesudato
GROWS FROM
יסד
y-s-d
to establish, lay a foundation
The word for foundation carries the action of establishing: what stands above begins with something deliberately set in place. English can make “foundation” sound like a passive object, while the root holds the act of grounding within it.
ALSO GROWS
yasad: to establish, lay a foundation
יָסַד
The verb shows that the city’s footing is something established, not something that merely happens to be there.
mosad: foundation, established base
מוֹסָד
This related noun makes the hidden link between an established base and the stability it gives what rises from it.
קֹדֶשׁ
qodesh
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
to set apart
“set-apart” in this verse is qodesh. The mountains are not simply elevated; they are set apart. The verse joins the city’s foundation to ground distinguished from what surrounds it.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: set apart
קָדוֹשׁ
This adjective carries the same quality of distinction that marks the mountains where the foundation rests.
qiddesh: to set apart, consecrate
קִדֵּשׁ
The verb presents set-apartness as an act, illuminating the mountains as ground marked for a distinct purpose.
THE PATTERN
The place of divine presence is pictured as an established center rooted in what is set apart.
A Song and Psalm for the sons of Korah. Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, his set apart mountain.And it shall come to pass in the hindmost days, that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be set firm at the head of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills, and all nations shall flow toward it.But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the Jerusalem of the heavens, and to myriads of messengers.THE THREAD
Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a weighty cornerstone, a foundation set firm. The one who leans his weight will not hurry.The Hebrew verb translated “I lay” is יָסַד (yasad), from the same root יסד (y-s-d) as “foundation” in this verse. Psalm 87 names where the foundation rests; Isaiah shows it being laid in Zion.
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