Psalms 84:11

a sun and shield R.V., A sun and a shield. Nowhere else in the O.T. is Jehovah directly called a sun, though the ideas conveyed by the metaphor are frequent. Cp. Psalms 27:1; Isaiah 10:17; Isaiah 60:19-20; Malachi 4:2. Perhaps the prevalence of sun-worship in the East led to the avoidance of so natural and significant a metaphor. Even here the oldest Versions either had a different reading or shrank from a literal rendering. The LXX and Theodotion have: For the Lord God loveth mercy and truth. The Targ. paraphrases, For the Lord God is like a high wall and a strong shield, reading shemesh(sun), but taking it in the sense of battlement(R.V. pinnacles) which it has in Isaiah 54:12. The Syr. gives, our sustainer and our helper. Only the later Greek Versions and Jerome render the Massoretic text literally.

the Lord&c. Favour (Genesis 39:21), honour (Psalms 85:9; 1 Kings 3:13) and prosperity (Psalms 85:12) are the reward of the upright. Cp. the parallel in Proverbs 3:33-35, which speaks of God's blessing on the habitation of the righteous, of His bestowal of favour on the lowly, and of the honour which is the inheritance of the wise. Grace and glorysuggest to us ideas which were hardly in the Psalmist's mind, though his words include all divine blessings, and he would not have drawn the sharp distinction between temporal and spiritual things which we are accustomed to do. But the temporal blessings of the Old Covenant are the types of the spiritual blessings of the New; and the promise, like so many sayings in the Psalter, receives a larger sense and a spiritual meaning in the light of the Gospel. See Romans 5:2; 1 Peter 5:10.

them that walk uprightly Making sincere devotion to God and perfect integrity in their dealings with men the rule of their lives. Cp. Psalms 15:2, note; Psalms 101:2; Psalms 101:6.