Fathers

Psalms 87

Tap a verse to read the Fathers. Press and hold, then drag, to make a card.

His foundation is in the holy mountains. Yahweh loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken about you, city of God. I will record Rahab and Babylon among those who acknowledge me. Behold, Philistia, Tyre, and also Ethiopia: “This one was born there.” Yes, of Zion it will be said, “This one and that one was born in her;” the Most High himself will establish her. Yahweh will count, when he writes up the peoples, “This one was born there.” Those who sing as well as those who dance say, “All my springs are in you.”

About · Privacy · Credits · Support VRSZ

What the Fathers say

Psalms 87:5

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

Listen now to a deep mystery. Rahab is there through Him, through whom also is Babylon, now no longer Babylon, but beginning to be Jerusalem. The daughter is divided against her mother, and will be among the members of that queen to whom is said, "Forget your own people, and your father's house, so shall the king have pleasure in your beauty." For how could Babylon aspire to Jerusalem? How could Rahab reach those foundations? How could the Philistines, or Tyre, or the people of the Ethiopians? …

Exposition on Psalm 87 ↗

Jerome

Will a man say to Zion, and a man is born in her? The Seventy translators rendered it thus: Will a man say to Zion? Many, then, expected, and did not understand what μήτη Σιὼν is: and they added a ρ, and they read μήτηρ Σιὼν ἐρεῖ ἄνθρωπος (mother Zion will a man say). And they say this because there follows, And a man is born in her: they expect that it also ought to be said in this way, Mother Zion will a man say. …

Homily 18, on Psalm 86 ↗

Bonaventure

The Church had to be founded: therefore it was necessary to lay the foundations, namely the commandments of God, and it was necessary that they be placed in some person. This could not be except in the glorious Virgin; as the Psalm says: "His foundations are in the holy mountains: a man is born in her, and the Most High himself has founded her."

Collationes de Septem Donis, Collation 6 ↗