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Glorious things are ascribed to you, O city of God. Selah
Psalms 87:3 · Berean Standard Bible
Parallel translations
  • WEB Glorious things are spoken about you, city of God. Selah.
  • KJV Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God. Selah.
  • NKJV Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God! Selah
  • NASB Glorious things are spoken of you, City of God. Selah
  • NLT O city of God, what glorious things are said of you! Interlude

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Quick answer

Glorious things are spoken of the city of God. Zion's praise rests on God's promises concerning her.

Overview

This verse summarizes the psalm's theme: God has declared glorious things over His city. The 'Selah' invites reflection on her honored destiny. These glories are ultimately fulfilled in the heavenly city, whose builder and maker is God, gathered to Christ as described in Hebrews and Revelation.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 19

  • Ezek 37:27–28My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be My people.
  • Ezek 36:11–38I will fill you with people and animals, and they will multiply and be fruitful. I will make you as inhabited as you once were, and I will make you prosper more than before. Then you will know that I am the LORD.
  • Ps 48:2–3Beautiful in loftiness, the joy of all the earth, like the peaks of Zaphon is Mount Zion, the city of the great King.
  • Rev 21:10–27And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city of Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God,
  • Jer 31:12–13They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion; they will be radiant over the bounty of the LORD—the grain, new wine, and oil, and the young of the flocks and herds. Their life will be like a well-watered garden, and never again will they languish.
  • Heb 12:22–23Instead, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to myriads of angels
  • Rev 14:1Then I looked and saw the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him 144,000 who had His name and His Father’s name written on their foreheads.
  • Isa 59:20“The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” declares the LORD.
  • Isa 54:2–10“Enlarge the site of your tent, stretch out the curtains of your dwellings, do not hold back. Lengthen your ropes and drive your stakes in deep.
  • Isa 12:6Cry out and sing, O citizen of Zion, for great among you is the Holy One of Israel.”
  • Isa 49:14–26But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me; the Lord has forgotten me!”
  • Ps 46:4There is a river whose streams delight the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.
  • Ps 125:1–2A song of ascents. Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion. It cannot be moved; it abides forever.
  • Ps 48:11–13Mount Zion is glad, the daughters of Judah rejoice, on account of Your judgments.
  • Jer 3:14–17“Return, O faithless children,” declares the LORD, “for I am your master, and I will take you—one from a city and two from a family—and bring you to Zion.
  • Isa 61:3to console the mourners in Zion—to give them a crown of beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and a garment of praise for a spirit of despair. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.
  • Ezek 40:1–49In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month—in the fourteenth year after Jerusalem had been struck down—on that very day the hand of the LORD was upon me, and He took me there.
  • Ezek 36:2This is what the Lord GOD says: Because the enemy has said of you, ‘Aha! The ancient heights have become our possession,’
  • Ezek 48:1–35“Now these are the names of the tribes: At the northern frontier, Dan will have one portion bordering the road of Hethlon to Lebo-hamath and running on to Hazar-enan on the border of Damascus with Hamath to the north, and extending from the east side to the west side.

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (1)

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Psalms videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Psalms 87:3YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on PsalmsMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.

Christ at the center

The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.

How Psalms 87:3 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Original language

Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.