The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"amiable," Hebrew yedidot (יְדִידוֹת), lovely, beloved. The psalm opens with an aching love for God's house: "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts!" The word is one of affection, not of architecture; the place is dear because of whose it is.

"tabernacles," mishkenotekha (מִשְׁכְּנוֹתֶיךָ), dwelling places. What draws the psalmist is simply the place where God dwells. He never praises the building for its own sake; his love is for a residence because of its Resident.

"longeth," nikhsefah (נִכְסְפָה), yearns, pines. "My soul longeth... for the courts of the LORD." This is not a mild preference but a pining, the ache of someone kept away from where he most wants to be.

"even fainteth," gam-kaletah (גַּם־כָּלְתָה), is spent, consumed. The longing is pressed further still: "yea, even fainteth." The desire has used him up; he is worn out with wanting the courts of the LORD.

"crieth out," yerannenu (יְרַנְּנוּ), sing/cry aloud for joy. "My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God." Body and soul together break into a cry, and the cry is not merely of need but of gladness.

"the living God," El chai (אֵל חָי). The object of all this longing is named at last, and it is a Person, not a place. The courts are loved because the God who lives is there.

"sparrow," tzippor (צִפּוֹר). The psalm marvels that even the little birds nest at God's altars: "Yea, the sparrow hath found an house." The commonest bird of all has what the psalmist longs for, a settled home in God's presence.

"swallow," deror (דְּרוֹר). "And the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars." The restless, wandering bird finds a place to raise her brood, and finds it at the altars of the LORD of hosts.

Explanation

Two things make this opening more than pious sentiment. First, notice how total the longing is: "my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God." This is not a merely spiritual wish that leaves the body untouched; it is a whole-person ache, soul and nerves together, the kind of yearning that leaves you "spent" (the word behind "fainteth" means consumed, used up). The psalmist does not admire God's house from a comfortable distance; he is homesick for it in his very bones. Second, and unforgettable, is the picture of the birds. "The sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself... even thine altars." Here is a pilgrim, perhaps kept far from the temple, watching the smallest, most insignificant birds, sparrows and swallows, build their nests right there among the courts and altars of God, and half-envying them: they get to stay; they are always at home in God's house, while I long from afar. If the least of creatures finds a settled home at God's altar, surely a soul may find its rest there too. And mark how the names of God climb even as he speaks: "O LORD of hosts", the commander of heaven's armies, and in the same breath, "my King, and my God." The infinite Lord of hosts is also intimately mine. So the passage crowns the truly happy: "Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee", those who never have to leave, whose whole life is one unbroken song.

Gospel Focus

"My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God", this longing for God's dwelling is fulfilled in Christ, for in Him God has come to dwell among us. The old temple was but a shadow; the true temple is the body of Jesus, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up... he spake of the temple of his body" (John 2:19-21), for "in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9). To long for the house of God is, at bottom, to long for Christ, in whom the living God is found. And the sparrow that finds a home at the altar is a picture of the sinner welcomed at the altar of Christ's sacrifice, for the least and lowliest are received there; of the sparrows the Lord said "one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father" (Matthew 10:29), and how much more will He make a home for a soul that comes to His altar. More wonderful still, God now makes His people themselves the house: "ye are the temple of the living God" (2 Corinthians 6:16). The homesick heart of Psalm 84 comes home in Christ, who is both the temple where God dwells and the door through which we enter to dwell with God for ever.

Word Study

"whose strength is in thee," Hebrew uzzo-vakh (עוּזּוֹ־בָךְ). A second beatitude, for the pilgrim on the road: "Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee." His strength is not in his own legs or his provisions but lodged outside himself, in God.

"the ways of them," mesillot (מְסִלּוֹת), the highways, raised pilgrim roads. "In whose heart are the ways of them." The roads that led up to Zion are carried in the traveller's heart before ever his feet are on them; he is already journeying inwardly.

"the valley of Baca," emek habbakha (עֵמֶק הַבָּכָא), valley of weeping (or of balsam trees). The road to God's house runs through a hard, dry place. The pilgrim is not promised a route around the valley of weeping but a way through it.

"make it a well," ma'yan (מַעְיָן), a spring. Such travelers turn the valley of weeping into a place of springs: "Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools." What was dry becomes a source of water for those who come after.

"from strength to strength," mechayil el-chayil (מֵחַיִל אֶל־חָיִל). Instead of wearing out on the journey, they "go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God." The road that should exhaust them only increases them.

Explanation

This is the pilgrim's beatitude, and it hides two beautiful surprises. First, look where the roads to Zion actually run: "in whose heart are the ways", literally the highways, the pilgrim roads. The truest pilgrim carries the road to God's house within him; his heart is already set toward home, and every step outwardly only follows the journey his heart has already made. Second, watch what such a heart does with hardship. "Who passing through the valley of Baca", the valley of weeping, a dry and difficult stretch on the pilgrim route, "make it a well." They do not merely endure the valley of tears; they turn it into a source of springs. Faith digs wells in the place of weeping, so that the very sorrow becomes refreshment, for themselves and for every pilgrim who follows. And then the crowning marvel, a reversal of everything we know about journeys: "They go from strength to strength." An ordinary journey wears the traveler down; you set out strong and arrive exhausted, from strength to weakness. But the pilgrimage to God runs the other way: the nearer to Zion, the stronger the pilgrim grows, each stage adding fresh strength, until at last "every one of them in Zion appeareth before God." The world's roads drain you; the road home to God renews you, because your strength is not in yourself but in Him.

Gospel Focus

"They go from strength to strength", this is the Christian's own pilgrimage, and its secret is Christ. Believers are "strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (Hebrews 11:13), journeying home to the God whose strength is theirs. The valley of Baca is every stretch of tears along the way, and the promise is that in Christ our weeping is turned to wells: "they that sow in tears shall reap in joy" (Psalm 126:5). The Lord Jesus Himself passed through the deepest valley of weeping, the garden and the cross, and from that place of sorrow opened for us the well of salvation. And the strange arithmetic of "from strength to strength" is the believer's daily experience: "though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day" (2 Corinthians 4:16), for "they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles" (Isaiah 40:31). The Christian life does not run downhill into exhaustion; it climbs from grace to grace, from strength to strength, until we appear at last before God in the Zion above. Keep the road to Him in your heart, draw your strength from Christ, and the valley of tears will become a well.

Word Study

"a doorkeeper," Hebrew histofef (הִסְתּוֹפֵף), to stand/lie at the threshold. The psalm weighs one day with God against a thousand without Him, and prefers the lowest place in His house to the best in the world: "I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God." Not a seat inside, only the doorstep, and even that is better.

"the tents of wickedness," oholei-resha (אָהֳלֵי־רֶשַׁע). Over against the threshold of God's house stands the comfort of the wicked, "than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." The choice is not between hardship and ease but between two dwellings, and it is settled by whose house it is.

"a sun," shemesh (שֶׁמֶשׁ). The psalm confesses, "the LORD God is a sun and shield." As sun He is the light and warmth by which His people live; everything that makes the day bright comes from Him.

"and shield," umagen (וּמָגֵן). The same God who gives the light also gives the cover. He is both what shines on His people and what stands between them and harm.

"grace and glory," chen vekhavod (חֵן וְכָבוֹד). "The LORD will give grace and glory." Favour now and honour hereafter are put together in one promise, both of them gifts and neither of them earned.

"no good thing will he withhold," lo yimna-tov (לֹא־יִמְנַע־טוֹב). The promise is stated as a refusal to keep anything back "from them that walk uprightly." Whatever is truly good, God has no intention of denying to His own.

"trusteth," boteach (בֹּטֵחַ). The psalm ends where it has been heading all along: "O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee." Not the man in the best place, but the man who leans his whole weight on God.

Explanation

Three jewels shine in these closing verses. First, the arithmetic of the sanctuary: "a day in thy courts is better than a thousand." One single day near God outweighs a thousand days anywhere else; the scales are not even close. Second, the humble preference: "I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." The word pictures lying down at the threshold, the lowest, meanest post there is, and the psalmist says he would sooner have that than a place of honour among the wicked. The doorstep of God's house beats the palace of sin. Third, and richest of all, the title: "the LORD God is a sun and shield." This is the only place in Scripture God is called a sun, and the pairing is perfect. A sun gives what we need to grow, light, warmth, life; a shield gives what we need to be safe, protection from all that would harm. God is both at once: the source of all our flourishing and the guard against all our foes. He supplies and He defends. And He gives in pairs that span the whole of salvation: "grace and glory", grace for the road now, glory at the journey's end; and the sweeping promise, "no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." Whatever is truly good, He will not keep back from His own. So the psalm ends where it must: "blessed is the man that trusteth in thee."

Gospel Focus

"The LORD God is a sun and shield", both halves of this title are ours in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Sun: "unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings" (Malachi 4:2), the "dayspring from on high" (Luke 1:78), who says, "I am the light of the world" (John 8:12). And He is our shield, the defence and refuge of all who hide in Him. The paired gifts, "grace and glory", are the very shape of His salvation: "grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17), and He is even now "bringing many sons unto glory" (Hebrews 2:10), grace to begin us and glory to complete us. And the promise "no good thing will he withhold" rests on the greatest gift already given: "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32). If God did not withhold His own Son, He will withhold no good thing. So count the cost as the psalmist did: the lowest place in Christ is better than the highest place in the world, as Moses judged, "choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season" (Hebrews 11:25). Blessed indeed is the man that trusteth in Him.