Psalms 84: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm is the song of someone who longs to be at the LORD's dwelling place, the temple in Jerusalem, and notes that even the sparrow and the swallow have found a nest near its altars. It calls blessed those who live in God's house, those whose strength is in God and who travel toward him, and those who trust him. It asks God to hear the prayer and to look with favor on the king, and it says one day in God's courts is worth more than a thousand anywhere else.

Claim by Claim

1. 84:1
   • The dwelling places of the LORD of hosts are lovely.
   • The speaker addresses the LORD of hosts.
   • The statement is made as an exclamation of wonder at how lovely those dwelling places are.
2. 84:2
   • The speaker's soul longs for the courts of the LORD.
   • The speaker's soul faints with longing for the courts of the LORD.
   • The speaker's heart and flesh cry out for the living God.
   • God is described as living.
3. 84:3
   • The sparrow has found a house.
   • The swallow has found a nest for herself.
   • In that nest the swallow places her young.
   • The place identified is the altars of the LORD.
   • The speaker addresses the LORD of hosts.
   • The speaker calls God his King.
   • The speaker calls God his God.
   • It is left unclear whether the birds nest at God's altars or whether the altars are named as what the speaker longs for by comparison.
4. 84:4
   • Those who dwell in God's house are blessed.
   • Those who dwell in God's house continually praise God.
   • The verse is marked with a musical or liturgical pause.
5. 84:5
   • The person whose strength is in God is blessed.
   • In the heart of such a person are the highways.
   • It is left unstated in the Hebrew whose highways or which roads these are; the phrase can mean the pilgrimage roads are set in their heart.
6. 84:6
   • They pass through the valley of Baca.
   • They make the valley of Baca a place of springs.
   • The rain also covers the valley with pools.
   • It is unclear whether the rain fills the pools or covers the valley with blessings.
7. 84:7
   • They go from strength to strength.
   • Each of them appears before God.
   • This appearing takes place in Zion.
8. 84:8
   • The speaker asks the LORD God of hosts to hear his prayer.
   • The speaker asks God to give ear.
   • The speaker calls God the God of Jacob.
   • The verse is marked with a musical or liturgical pause.
9. 84:9
   • The speaker calls on God to see the shield.
   • It is unclear whether God is called our shield or whether God is asked to look upon our shield.
   • The speaker asks God to look upon the face of his anointed one.
10. 84:10
    • A day in God's courts is better than a thousand days.
    • The speaker would rather stand at the threshold of the house of his God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
    • There are tents of wickedness.
11. 84:11
    • The LORD God is a sun.
    • The LORD God is a shield.
    • The LORD gives grace.
    • The LORD gives glory.
    • The LORD withholds no good thing from those who walk uprightly.
12. 84:12
    • The speaker addresses the LORD of hosts.
    • The man who trusts in the LORD is blessed.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

84:1

"Tabernacles" here means God's dwelling place, the temple in Jerusalem. The Hebrew noun is plural, probably because the temple complex was a group of buildings and courtyards rather than one room. "LORD of hosts" is a military title: the "hosts" are armies, the heavenly forces at God's command. Where the King James prints LORD in small capitals, the Hebrew has the personal name of Israel's God, which Jewish readers did not say aloud.

84:2

The "courts" are the open walled courtyards surrounding the temple building. Ordinary worshipers gathered there; only priests went inside the building itself, so for most Israelites the courtyard was as close as they came. "The living God" was a standing phrase that set Israel's God against the carved images of other nations, a god who acts, as opposed to a manufactured object.

84:3

An altar was a raised stone platform where animals and grain were burned as offerings. The temple had more than one, which is why the psalm says "altars." The point of the image is that the birds nest in the temple precincts, close to God, in a way the singer cannot.

84:4

"Selah" appears seventy-one times in the Psalms and nobody now knows what it meant. It was probably a direction to the musicians (a pause, a change of volume, or an instrumental break), rather than a word to be read aloud. Translators leave it untranslated.

84:5

The Hebrew says literally "in whose heart are the highways", the roads to Jerusalem. Israelites traveled to the temple for the major festivals, and the phrase describes someone whose mind is already on that journey. The King James "the ways of them" is an attempt at the same phrase and is hard to follow in English.

84:6

"Baca" is a place no longer identifiable. The name sounds like the Hebrew word for weeping, and also like the name of a shrub that grows in dry ground, so the valley is either "the valley of weeping" or "the valley of balsam trees." Either way it stands for a dry, hard stretch of the road. The "early rain" is the autumn rainfall that ended the dry season and softened the ground for plowing, the first relief after months without water.

84:7

"From strength to strength" is a Hebrew idiom for gaining rather than losing energy as the journey goes on, the opposite of what a long walk normally does to a traveler. Zion was originally the fortified hill David captured in Jerusalem; by this period the name stood for the temple hill, and often for the whole city.

84:8

"God of Jacob" identifies him by the ancestor of the Israelite tribes: the God who bound himself to this particular family.

84:9

"Our shield" and "thine anointed" are probably the same person, the king. Kings were installed by having olive oil poured over the head, which is what "anointed" means; the Hebrew word is *mashiach*, the source of the English word "messiah," and in the Psalms it normally means the reigning king. "Look upon the face of" is court language for granting someone an audience and receiving them favorably.

84:10

The Hebrew of the second line means standing at the threshold, or being a gatekeeper (the doorkeepers were temple servants who guarded the entrances and controlled who came in. It was a lowly post, which is the point of the comparison. The Hebrew says only "better than a thousand"; the unit) days, most likely, is left for the reader to supply.

84:11

Calling God a sun occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible, probably because sun worship was widespread among Israel's neighbors; a shield, by contrast, is a common image for God as protector. "Grace" here is favor or generosity shown to someone who has no claim on it, and "glory" is public honor or standing, not an inner quality.