John Calvin Commentary Psalms 87:5

"Yea, of Zion it shall be said, This one and that one was born in her; And the Most High himself will establish her." — Psalms 87:5 (ASV)

And it shall be said of Zion, Man and man is born in her. It is asserted in the fourth verse (Psalms 87:4) that new citizens shall be gathered into the Church of God from different parts of the world, and here the same subject is continued. However, another figure is employed: strangers by birth shall be counted among the holy people, just as if they were descended from Abraham.

It had been stated in that same preceding verse (Psalms 87:4) that the Chaldeans and Egyptians would be added to the household of the Church, and that the Ethiopians, Philistines, and Tyrians would be enrolled among her children. Now, by way of confirmation, it is added that the number of the new offspring shall be exceedingly great, so that the city which was for a time uninhabited, and later only sparsely populated, shall be crowded with a vast population. What is promised here in a few words, the prophet Isaiah describes more fully:

Sing, O barren, you who did not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, you who did not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, says the Lord. Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of your habitations; spare not, lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes: for you shall break forth on the right hand and on the left; and your seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited (Isaiah 54:1).

Also,

Lift up your eyes round about, and see; all they gather themselves together, they come to you: your sons shall come from far, and your daughters shall be nursed at your side (Isaiah 60:4).

And in Isaiah 44:5, we find language very similar to this passage, or at least closely resembling it: One shall say, I am the Lord’s; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand to the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel. Nor is the word born inappropriately used to express the fact that the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and others like them, shall be of the flock of God’s people.

Although Zion was not the place of their natural birth, and they were to be grafted into the body of the holy people by adoption, yet since the way we enter the Church is a second birth, this expression is used very appropriately. The condition upon which Christ espouses the faithful to Himself is that they should forget their own people and their father’s house (Psalms 45:11), and that, being formed into new creatures and born again of incorruptible seed, they should begin to be the children of God as well as of the Church (Galatians 4:19).

Indeed, the ministry of the Church, and it alone, is undoubtedly the means by which we are born again to a heavenly life. Incidentally, we should remember the difference the Apostle describes as existing between the earthly Jerusalem—which, being herself a bondwoman, also brings forth children in bondage—and the heavenly Jerusalem, which brings forth free children by the instrumentality of the Gospel.

In the second part of the verse, the stability and enduring character of Zion are expressed. It often happens that the more rapidly cities rise to distinguished eminence, the shorter their prosperity lasts. Lest it be thought that the prosperity of the Church is of such a perishable and fleeting nature, it is declared that the Most High himself will establish her.

It is not surprising, then, to find other cities shaken and subject from time to time to various upheavals, for they are swept along with the world’s changes and do not have eternal protectors. But the opposite is true for the new Jerusalem, which, being founded upon the power of God, will continue even when heaven and earth fall into ruins.