Psalms 84:1-12
1 How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts!
2 My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.
3 Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God.
4 Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Selah.
5 Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them.
6 Who passing through the valley of Bacaa make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools.
7 They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.
8 O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah.
9 Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed.
10 For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.
12 O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.
LXXXIV. A Pilgrim Psalm.
Psalms 84:3. sparrow (rather little bird generally) and swallow are metaphorical for pious Jewish pilgrims. As the birds find their nests and homes, so the Jew, worthy of the name, finds his rest and joy in proximity to the altars of his God. Altars may be a poetical plural, like holy places in Psalms 68:35 (cf. especially Psalms 132:5; Psalms 132:7). To take the words as if they meant that the birds in the literal sense found a home at the altar would involve manifest absurdity. The swallow still haunts the temple-mosque at Jerusalem, but an altar with its crowd of worshippers and its sacrifices by fire is surely the last place which a bird would choose for its nest or even as a favourite resort.
Psalms 84:5. Read, in whose heart are ascents (LXX), i.e. pilgrimages to Jerusalem on the height.
Psalms 84:6. The meaning is very doubtful. The valley of balsam shrubs (? cf. mg.) is mentioned only here. Possibly there was such a valley on the way to Jerusalem. The Psalmist by a play of words thinks of it as a vale of weeping, barren and repulsive. Cf. Bab el Mandeb, Gate of lamentation, at the narrow and perilous entrance of the Red Sea. Read, perhaps, As they pass through the valley of Baca, He (i.e. God) maketh it a spring. blessings: read pools. The early rain falls in October, before the new farming year begins.
Psalms 84:7. Instead of growing weary, the pilgrims are strengthened by that journey. Read, seeth God in Zion.
Psalms 84:9. Translate O God, behold our shield and look, etc. The anointed one may be the High Priest (see Leviticus 4:3; Leviticus 4:5; Leviticus 4:16; Leviticus 6:15).
Psalms 84:10. Read, A day in thy courts is better than a thousand away; mg. gives better the sense of what follows.
It has been thought that Psalms 84:9; Psalms 84:11 f. have been in whole or part interpolated into this Ps. as a liturgical conclusion.