A Day in Your Courts
1 For the Chief Musician. On an instrument of Gath. A Psalm by the sons of Korah. How lovely are your dwellings, Yahweh of Armies! 2 My soul longs, and even faints for the courts of Yahweh. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. 3 Yes, the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young, near your altars, Yahweh of Armies, my King, and my God. 4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house. They are always praising you. Selah. 5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on a pilgrimage. 6 Passing through the valley of Weeping, they make it a place of springs. Yes, the autumn rain covers it with blessings. 7 They go from strength to strength. Every one of them appears before God in Zion. 8 Yahweh, God of Armies, hear my prayer. Listen, God of Jacob. Selah. 9 Behold, God our shield, look at the face of your anointed. 10 For a day in your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. 11 For Yahweh God is a sun and a shield. Yahweh will give grace and glory. He withholds no good thing from those who walk blamelessly. 12 Yahweh of Armies, blessed is the man who trusts in you.
A pilgrim envies the birds nesting in the temple, and reports that the valley of weeping is where the water is.
1 For the Chief Musician. On an instrument of Gath. A Psalm by the sons of Korah. How lovely are your dwellings, Yahweh of Armies! 2 My soul longs, and even faints for the courts of Yahweh. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
A pilgrim psalm, written on the way rather than on arrival, and the longing is physical: my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
Yes, the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young, near your altars, Yahweh of Armies, my King, and my God.
The most affecting observation in the psalm, and it is envy. Birds have nested in the temple precincts and are raising chicks there. They live where he can only visit, and they did not have to travel. A sparrow was the cheapest bird in the market, worth almost nothing Matthew 10:29, and it has what a pilgrim walks for days to get a few hours of.
Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on a pilgrimage.
The blessing is on people still traveling. The Hebrew phrase is literally the highways are in their heart — they are carrying the road inside them.
Passing through the valley of Weeping, they make it a place of springs. Yes, the autumn rain covers it with blessings.
The valley is a real one on the route, dry and difficult, and its name puns on weeping. The claim is not that pilgrims avoid it or that it becomes pleasant. They make it a place of springs by going through it, and the rain that fills it is the early rain that arrives at the pilgrimage season. What was a dry crossing becomes water for whoever comes next.
They go from strength to strength Psalms 84:7.
The opposite of what a long walk does. The psalm reports pilgrims arriving stronger than they set out, and offers no explanation beyond the destination.
For a day in your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
Two comparisons and both are deliberately lopsided. One day against a thousand; and the lowest position in the temple against a comfortable residence somewhere else. A doorkeeper stands at the threshold, outside the building, in the weather — and the psalm ranks the threshold of the right house above the interior of any other.
For Yahweh God is a sun and a shield. Yahweh will give grace and glory. He withholds no good thing from those who walk blamelessly.
The only place in Scripture where God is called a sun, and it is paired with a shield: the source of light and the protection from what light does to an unprotected traveler. Both are needed on a long road.
For Yahweh God is a sun and a shield. Yahweh will give grace and glory. He withholds no good thing from those who walk blamelessly.
The promise is about withholding, which is what a pilgrim on a hard stretch would most suspect.
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