Psalms 87:2 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

The gates, i.e. the city gates, being oft put for cities, as Deuteronomy 15:7, Deuteronomy 16:5 Psalms 9:14. Of Zion; largely so called, as was now said, to wit, of Jerusalem, which was built upon and near Mount Zion. He saith Zion rather than Jerusalem, to intimate that he loved Jerusalem for Zion's sake, or for the temple, which is oft said to be in Zion; which place he loved and chose for his peculiar dwelling-place. More than all the dwellings of Jacob; more than all other places of the land of Canaan in which the Israelites dwelt. For although the tabernacle was for a season in some other parts of the land, yet the temple, the place of God's fixed residence, was no where but in this city.