Ps. 48.2 (covenant, city and mountain)

“In the city / of our God – is his / holy mountain.” Spatial references are perhaps the most important aspect to this psalm. There may be a cultic reason for this as the psalm was likely used during a ceremony wherein pilgrims journeyed to Zion, entered the Temple precincts and then walked around the outside of the Temple. Here, the psalm begins its geographical journey by drawing our attention inside the “city of our God” to “his holy mountain.” There is the sense here of concentric circles—the city is owned by God (“city of our God”) and, within its ambit, is “his holy mountain.” Furthermore, not only does God have a claim on the city, but the people have a claim on him—“city of our God”. As we know, this is a covenantal term (“you will be my people, and I will be your God.”). These twin ideas are crucial: covenant and city/mountain. The city, as a social body, is created by covenant; the covenant is enacted with the city/mountain in mind. Just as creation is to be the stage on which the covenant will be performed, it is also a manifestation of that covenantal bond (in the Sabbath). They mutually interpenetrate and shed light on each other (i.e., the more one contemplates the city, the more one comes to understand the covenant, and the more one contemplates the covenant, the more one comes to perceive the ‘city of God’). This dynamic will be detected in this psalm: the closer one moves to the center of the city and into its temple, the closer one moves into the contemplation of God covenant. The dynamism of ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ will inform this mutual interpenetration.