2 Chronicles 6:6

6:6 But now I have chosen Jerusalem as a place to live, ¹  and I have chosen David to lead my people Israel.’

Psalms 48:2

48:2 It is lofty and pleasing to look at, ² 

a source of joy to the whole earth. ³ 

Mount Zion resembles the peaks of Zaphon; ⁴ 

it is the city of the great king.

Psalms 87:2

87:2 The Lord loves the gates of Zion

more than all the dwelling places of Jacob.

Malachi 1:14

1:14 “There will be harsh condemnation for the hypocrite who has a valuable male animal in his flock but vows and sacrifices something inferior to the Lord. For I am a great king,” ⁵  says the Lord who rules over all, “and my name is awesome among the nations.”

Revelation 21:2

21:2 And I saw the holy city – the new Jerusalem – descending out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband.

Revelation 21:10

21:10 So ⁶  he took me away in the Spirit ⁷  to a huge, majestic mountain ⁸  and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.

¹ tn Heb for my name to be there.” See also the note on the word “live” in v. 5.

² tn Heb “beautiful of height.” The Hebrew term נוֹף (nof, “height”) is a genitive of specification after the qualitative noun “beautiful.” The idea seems to be that Mount Zion, because of its lofty appearance, is pleasing to the sight.

³ sn A source of joy to the whole earth. The language is hyperbolic. Zion, as the dwelling place of the universal king, is pictured as the world’s capital. The prophets anticipated this idealized picture becoming a reality in the eschaton (see Isa 2:1-4).

⁴ tn Heb “Mount Zion, the peaks of Zaphon.” Like all the preceding phrases in v. 2, both phrases are appositional to “city of our God, his holy hill” in v. 1, suggesting an identification in the poet’s mind between Mount Zion and Zaphon. “Zaphon” usually refers to the “north” in a general sense (see Pss 89:12; 107:3), but here, where it is collocated with “peaks,” it refers specifically to Mount Zaphon, located in the vicinity of ancient Ugarit and viewed as the mountain where the gods assembled (see Isa 14:13). By alluding to West Semitic mythology in this way, the psalm affirms that Mount Zion is the real divine mountain, for it is here that the Lord God of Israel lives and rules over the nations. See P. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 (WBC), 353, and T. N. D. Mettinger, In Search of God, 103.

⁵ sn The epithet great king was used to describe the Hittite rulers on their covenant documents and so, in the covenant ideology of Malachi, is an apt description of the Lord.

⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the angel’s invitation.

⁷ tn Or “in the spirit.” “Spirit” could refer either to the Holy Spirit or the human spirit, but in either case John was in “a state of spiritual exaltation best described as a trance” (R. H. Mounce, Revelation [NICNT], 75).

⁸ tn Grk “to a mountain great and high.”