Bad guys have Russian accents.
Growing up during the thick of the Cold War between the United States and what was then the Soviet Union, I was raised on James Bond and other spy movies where the world’s fate was threatened by operatives of the so-called Evil Empire.
German accents also pointed to villainous intent, a holdover from the World War II. And I watched with glee as Indiana Jones bested Nazi treasure hunters in his sprawling adventures.
More recently, Arab men with thick Middle Eastern accents have become the new bad guys in movies, tossing terrorist mayhem wherever their wicked intentions take them.
It’s no new thing to vilify the nationalities of people whose homelands are at odds with the government of the land in which we reside. Both intentionally and otherwise, Hollywood had been the propaganda machine for promoting fear and mistrust of our national foes.
Because of all those movies, I can easily slip into Russian and German accents. I have no idea how good my accents are, since they are derived from actors and not from citizens of those countries, but I enjoy employing them whenever I want to sound sinister.
Every nation has its rivals and its ways of distinguishing their foes from themselves. Sometimes, it’s accent. Sometimes, it’s skin color. Sometimes, it’s diet. Sometimes, it’s clothing style. How we do it is less important than that we do it.
And ancient Israel was no less susceptible than we are. Real blood had been shed and real lives had been torn apart in their battles against their enemies. Over and over again, they had been invaded and beaten down. And the hostilities resulting from war are not so easily shed.
This makes Psalm 87 so stunning to me.
The psalm begins with a gush of pleasure in Zion, the mount on which Jerusalem was built. At Zion’s summit was constructed the temple of Yahweh. It’s this last feature which elicits praise from the psalmists, identified as the Sons of Korah.
He has founded his city on the holy mountain.
The LORD loves the gates of Zion
more than all the other dwellings of Jacob.
Glorious things are said of you,
city of God (Ps. 87:1-3).
Worship had come to define Israel. The temple had become the most loved building in the entire land.
It may seem obvious, but why does Yahweh love the gates of Zion more than all the other dwellings of Jacob? Why does your house and mine play second fiddle to the house of God?
For years, I’ve heard pastors say things like, “The church is not a building, it’s a people.” Jesus demoted the temple in a number of things he said. And it was Stephen’s speech about the unimportance of the temple that got him stoned to death (Acts 6:13 gives the charge against him and Acts 7:2-46 narrates the history of God’s people without a temple, with 7:47-49 dismissing the temple completely). If that’s so, then what makes it so special here?
It has to do with who is “born” in it.
For most of history, babies were born at home. A midwife would come by with other women to help out in the birthing process. But my home would have been the birthplace of my children. The temple, however, wasn’t just to be the birthplace of our own.
The temple was be the birthplace of nations.
“I will record Rahab and Babylon
among those who acknowledge me —
Philistia too, and Tyre, along with Cush —
and will say, ‘This one was born in Zion’” (Psalm 87:4).
Did you catch those names?
Rahab was the name of a mythical sea monster, an anti-creation beast that stood against Yahweh. As such, it became associated with Egypt, the nation that had enslaved the Hebrews for centuries before the Exodus. The name Rahab, then, was not a term of endearment, though maybe not quite a slur. It highlighted Egypt’s antipathy with Israel.
And Babylon? That empire absolutely devastated the southern kingdom of Judah. Under Nebuchadnezzar, the city of Jerusalem was besieged and sacked (see 2 Kings 25). The temple was torn down. All of the stuff used for the worship of Yahweh was hauled to Babylon and used in the worship of Babyon’s gods. The dynasty of David was snuffed out (almost). Before king Zedekiah was taken to Babylon in chains, his sons were murdered as he watched, and his eyes plucked out so that their deaths would be the final thing he ever saw. And the best and brightest of the kingdom of Judah were taken into exile, given Babylonian names, and forced to serve the empire.
Then there were the Philistines, the sea-faring people to the south in the region where the Gaza Strip is today. While Israel was still a Bronze Age people, the Iron Age Philistines wrecked havoc on the land because of their technological advantage. It wasn’t just the giant Goliath they had going for them, they were a whole tech age ahead. And even today, their descendants (whose name “Palestinians” resembles their ancient name “Philistines”) still don’t play well with the Israelis.
Then, too, were the people of Tyre, another sea-faring people but to the north in Phoenicia, which is now the country of Lebanon. The border between Tyre and Israel went back and forth during years of squabbles.
Finally, Cush was a general name for Africa, including Ethiopians and Libyans. The Septuagint, the earliest translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, translates the name Cush as Ethiopia. Unlike the four nations listed before it, all of which were openly hostile in war against the people of God, Cush represents people who come from very far away. They are ends-of-the-earth people in the Hebrew imagination, like Tarshish in the book of Jonah.
And here, in Psalm 87, there is a vision for each of these antagonistic (and far-flung) people to be born in Zion.
Indeed, of Zion it will be said,
“This one and that one were born in her,
and the Most High himself will establish her.”
The LORD will write in the register of the peoples:
“This one was born in Zion” (Psalm 87:5-6).
This should be stunning to us. These are outsiders and enemies. These are people for whom violent vengeance is expected, not birth.
To be born in Zion means to be a child of Yahweh, to have an inheritance among the people of God.
Where Psalm 137 looks for the babies of Babylon to be smashed against the rocks, here Babylon in its entirety will be born in Zion. The two psalms couldn’t be much further apart in their visions of the future.
These real foes who did real damage to God’s people will become the children of Zion. They will be citizens, not despised aliens. Not only do they get the rights of inheritance, they get all of the affection of babies.
This is both shocking and expected at the same time. For God’s covenant with Abraham set us up for this (Gen. 12:1-3). And for Christians, the vision in the Revelation of every people group gathered around God’s throne (Rev. 5:9; 7:9) echoes what we read here, as does the Great Commission of Jesus (Matt. 28:18-20; Acts 1:8).
The biblical vision is for God’s blessing to extend to the whole of humanity, not just a chosen few. But it’s through the chosen few that the blessing spreads out.
We see this in the prophetic vision of nations pouring into Jerusalem.
Many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem (Micah 4:2).
Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, and to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles (Zech. 14:16).
It’s an Exodus in reverse. Instead of a way out, it’s a way in. And we see the beginning of it on Pentecost, where people from all over the world are in Jerusalem and, in a Babel-reversed moment, hear the good news of Jesus spoken without language barriers.
So, what’s with the final verse of the psalm?
As they make music they will sing,
“All my fountains are in you” (Psalm 87:7).
We have an abrupt shift in metaphors, from birth to fountains.
Where the vision of the prophets generally has the nations coming into Jerusalem, there is another vision with reverses the direction. Instead of nations pouring into Zion, Zion pours into them.
In Ezekiel 47, from the altar in the temple, a fountain bursts forth and a stream begins to flow down from Zion. As it flows, it widens further and further until it becomes a massive, unfordable river that transforms the whole land.
This image is echoed in the final chapter of the Bible.
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse (Rev. 22:1-3).
Instead of the nations coming in, the water goes out. The nations are healed and the curse is ended. Only blessing and an impossibly abundant fruitfulness remain.
This is God’s dream for the world. Hostilities ended. Nations healed and reborn in Jerusalem. War replaced by worship. Alienation replaced by brotherhood. Babel reversed.
Ah, dear Zion, all my life-bringing fountains are in you!
And Russian accents, they will be the sound of friends, not foes.