Psalms 84:1 - Meaning and Application

The psalmist was kept away by force from worshiping God in public, and that absence made him feel the value of those services more deeply than before. What he had taken for granted now seemed precious. When people are shut out from holy worship, they often learn more clearly how lovely it is.

He first sees the beauty of God’s holy places: “How lovely are your tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!” Some think he calls God “Lord of hosts” because of the angels, the heavenly armies, who attend God’s presence in his sanctuary. The tabernacle is spoken of in the plural, since there were several courts for the people, and the holy place and most holy place within it. To a heart made holy by grace, God’s sanctuary is beautiful beyond words. Its outward form may seem plain, but its true glory is spiritual and inward.

He then shows how strongly he longs to return to worship, or rather to God himself in worship (Psalm 84:2). His desire was whole, with body, soul, and spirit all drawn toward it. It was also intense, like the craving of an ambitious or wealthy person after what he wants most. He cries out, grows faint, and feels almost unable to bear the delay. Yet what he really wants is not the outer courts alone, but the living God, the God who can be known and enjoyed in fellowship (John 1:3). Worship means little if we do not meet with God there.

He even envies the birds that can make their nests near God’s altar (Psalm 84:3). The sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself. David would rather live in a bird’s nest near God’s altar than in a palace far from it. At one point he wished for dove’s wings to flee into the wilderness (Psalm 55:6), but here he would gladly have the wings of a small bird if they would carry him unseen into God’s courts. Even if his lot were to watch alone on a rooftop like a lonely sparrow, he would count it better, so long as he could be near God’s altars (Psalm 102:7).

He is willing to be alone in God’s service rather than crowded among people while serving sin. The word for “sparrow” can mean any small bird, and David seems to think with special tenderness of birds that not only pass by the sanctuary, but live there. He does not want to be a traveler who merely stops overnight. He wants God’s house to be his home. He also notices that these birds make nests for their young there, which reminds him that those who have a place in God’s house should want their children to have one too.

Some explain the verse another way: the birds are given resting places by God’s care, but David, who longs for God’s altar as his resting place, cannot reach it. If God provides so well for birds, will he do less for his own servant? Like a wandering bird away from its nest, David feels out of place until he can return (Proverbs 27:8). People whose souls are truly at home in God cannot help longing to be settled near his worship.

There were two altars, one for sacrifice and one for incense, and David seems to look toward both in his desire for God’s courts. In our worship too, we should look to Christ both for satisfaction and for intercession, meaning his offering for our sins and his praying for us before God. David ends this part by calling God, “The Lord of hosts, my King and my God.” A suffering subject should seek protection from his king, and God’s people should seek help from their God. David wants to live and die by the help of the Lord of hosts and his altars.

He then says how blessed are those who are allowed to serve around those altars. First, he blesses the ministers, the priests and Levites, who lived near the tabernacle and served there in their turns (Psalm 84:4). He does not pity them for being always occupied and serious. He would rather envy them than envy the greatest rulers on earth. Some people call the rich blessed, but David calls the faithful blessed. Their happiness is not in good pay, but in good work. “They will still be praising you.” If there is any taste of heaven on earth, it is found in praising God without end.

This also points us upward to heaven. Blessed are those who dwell there, the angels and glorified saints, because they never stop praising God day or night. So we should spend as much time as we can in this blessed work, because it is the work we hope to enjoy forever.

He also says the people are blessed, those who do not live constantly at the tabernacle like the priests, but who may come up at the appointed feasts, especially the three great feasts when all the men were required to appear before the Lord (Deuteronomy 16:16).

David did not see this as a burden placed on people. Instead, he envied the joy of those who could come and wait on God there (Psalms 84:5-7). He describes as blessed the people whose lives are marked by trust in God and devotion to him.

First, they are people who act in religion from a deep trust in God. “Blessed is the man whose strength is in you,” that is, the one who makes God his strength and depends on him firmly, like someone running into a strong tower for safety (Proverbs 18:10). They are truly happy who keep going in worship and duty, not in their own strength, because that will surely fail, but in the strength of the grace of Jesus Christ, from whom all our ability comes. David longed to return to God’s tabernacles so he could strengthen himself in the Lord his God for both service and suffering.

Second, they are people who love holy ordinances, that is, God’s appointed ways of worship and teaching. “In whose heart are the ways of them” means that, since they have made God their highest happiness, they delight in every way that leads to him, every means by which their faith grows and their fellowship with him stays alive. They do not just walk in these ways, they keep them close to their hearts. Their deepest concern and joy is centered there.

Those who keep the New Jerusalem in view must also keep the paths that lead there in their hearts. They should watch those paths closely, think about them, stay near them, and be careful not to turn aside. If we make God’s promise our strength, then we must make God’s word our rule and walk by it.

Third, they are people who keep going through hardships and discouragements while waiting on God in worship (Psalms 84:6). When worshipers came up from the country for the feasts, their road often passed through dry, sandy valleys, where they were close to dying of thirst. To protect themselves, they dug small pits to catch rainwater, and when the rain came, the pools were filled and became a help to them and others. If we are ready to receive God’s grace, that grace will not fail us, but will be enough for every need.

Some understand Baca as a weeping valley, a place of sorrow. Others take it to mean watery valleys, which in wet weather could become hard to cross because of rising water or mud. People would drain and trench such places to make a road through them for those going up to Jerusalem. We should care for roads that lead to church just as much as roads that lead to market.

All of this shows two things. First, they had a willing heart for the journey. When they went to the solemn feasts in Jerusalem, they would not let bad weather or bad roads keep them away, and they would not use those things as excuses to stay home. Hard things in the path of duty test our resolve, and the person who keeps watching the wind will never sow. Second, they made the best of the road to Zion. They repaired what they could and bore what they could not remove. Our way to heaven lies through a valley of Baca, but even that can become a place of refreshment if we use well the comforts God has provided for pilgrims to the heavenly city.

Fourth, they are people who keep pressing forward until they reach the end of the journey, and do not stop short of it (Psalms 84:7). “They go from strength to strength.” Their company grows as more people join from each town they pass through, until the whole group becomes large. Those who were closer to the temple waited for those farther away and called, “Come, let us go to the house of the Lord” (Psalms 122:1-2), so that they might go together as one body, showing their mutual love.

Or it may mean that each traveler, instead of growing tired from the length of the road and the hard places along the way, became more lively and cheerful as Jerusalem drew near. They went on stronger and stronger, like Job described (Job 17:9). So God promises that those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength (Isaiah 40:31). Even where they are weak, there they are strong.

Some read it as “they go from virtue to virtue,” using the same word that is used for the virtuous woman. Those who press on in the Christian life will find God adding grace to the grace they already have (John 1:16). They will be changed from glory to glory, from one bright stage of grace to another (2 Corinthians 3:18), until each of them appears before God in Zion, to give him glory and receive his blessings. Those who grow in grace will, in the end, be made perfect in glory.

The Chaldee reads it this way: they go from the house of the sanctuary to the house of instruction, and the labor they have spent on God’s law will appear before God, whose majesty dwells in Zion. We must keep moving from one duty to another, from prayer to the word, from living out what we have learned to learning more. If we do that, the benefit will show itself, to God’s glory and our lasting comfort.