The first line in Hebrew is simply “His foundation on the hills of holiness.” The meaning expressed by Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation is found also in Biblia Dios Habla Hoy, Bible en français courant, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Dahood. It is possible to take “His foundation” as a reference to the Temple as Yahweh’s dwelling place; but the psalm is in praise of the city of Jerusalem, not of the Temple as such. The holy mount is Mount Zion (see 2.6). It may be preferable to translate the Hebrew plural “sacred hills” (literally “hills of holiness”) as a reference to the various hills on which Jerusalem was built (so Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Bible en français courant). Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch‘s rendering of this verse is recommended as a good model: “The Lord has built his city, its foundation is his holy mountain.” In many languages it will be more understandable to render holy mount as “God’s Mount Zion” or “the mountain called Zion which belongs to God.”

In verse 2 Good News Translation “the city of Jerusalem” translates the gates of Zion, and “any other place in Israel” translates all the dwelling places of Jacob. Here dwelling places may mean towns and cities, in a general sense (so Good News Translation, Bible en français courant), or it may have the more restricted sense of sanctuaries, temples, as “dwelling places of God” (so Anderson). Of course the two are not mutually exclusive, but again the emphasis seems to be on Jerusalem, the city, and not on the Temple in particular. In some languages the comparative degree must be structured to say, for example, “God loves all the places in Israel, he loves most the city of Jerusalem.”

In verse 3 Jerusalem is called city of God, which may be taken to mean the city that belongs to God or the city in which God lives; in this case both are true (see 46.4; 48.1, 8). The Hebrew passive are spoken of you in line a may be an impersonal passive: “people say,” “everyone says” (Biblia Dios Habla Hoy); but in light of what follows in verse 4, where God is the speaker, it seems preferable to understand that God is here the speaker (so Good News Translation, Bible de Jérusalem, New Jerusalem Bible, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, Bible en français courant). Most translations have the plural active form (“people say”) or the passive (“are said”). For languages in which it is awkward to say “Listen, city of God,” it is often possible to recast this as a simile and say “Listen, people of God’s city,” or more in the Revised Standard Version style, “God says good things about you, Jerusalem,” or “… people of Jerusalem.”

For Selah see 3.2.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on the Book of Psalms. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1991. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .