Ps. 50.2 (the Great King has come to meet his bride)

“From Zion / the perfection of beauty / God has shone forth.” Once the entire world has been summoned, Zion now makes her appearance as the abode of God from which he emerges. It is difficult to overstate the importance and centrality of Zion as the place of God’s ruling power and throne. It is, in many ways, a type of Sinai (a mountain top chosen specifically by God where his presence will descend and on which his covenant with Israel will be entered into). Furthermore, the city itself (as Psalm 48 makes abundantly clear) is itself a theophany or icon of God. It shimmers with his presence and power. Of all the ‘dwellings’ on earth, it is the ‘perfection of beauty’, ‘elevated above all mountains’ (Ps. 48). As we saw in Psalm 48, the ‘glory of Zion’ in no way competes with or detracts from God’s glory. Quite the reverse. And so, when the Summoner now emerges, and ‘shines forth’, the whole earth and Zion herself are arrayed as agents and servants of his power. The intensity and gravity of the situation could not be greater. God is now emerging to meet his covenant partner. This seems central: that when the covenant is entered into God himself steps forth, arrayed with his agents and servants, but also in his own ‘person’. The Great King has come to meet his bride. The Father has come to make his son.