Psalms 84:1. How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts!
«Though they are only tabernacles, temporary structures that are soon to be taken down, and carried away, they are very dear to us. Thy tabernacles are so lovely to us because thou dost meet us there.»
Psalms 84:2. My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.
A little starving brings on an appetite for health-giving food, and a brief absence from the house of God, through sickness, or by reason of distance, makes a Christian sigh and cry for the dainties of the divine table. Even the heavy flesh, which is so slow to move, at last joins the heart in crying out for the living God.
Psalms 84:3. 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.
He envies even the sparrows, which have no sort of bashfulness, but boldly enter God's house, and find a house for themselves there. O Lord, make me like the sparrows, blessed in finding shelter in the courts of thy house! As for the swallow, she makes God's house a nest for herself, and a place where she may lay her young; and it is blessed when our children, as well as ourselves, love the house of God, when they have been so nurtured and cherished that they are at home there. We may well envy the sparrows and the swallows when we and our families are unable to go up to the house of the Lord; and it is as sad for those who have to go up to a place where there is nothing good to be had, a place where the gospel is not preached, and so their souls are not fed.
Psalms 84:4. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house:
The men who are always occupied in the Lord's service, or those who are in God's house even when they are in their own houses, the men who are always at home with God, who feel that the canopy of heaven is the roof of God's house in which they dwell, and who therefore never go away from God's house, but always dwell there with him. «Bless'd are the souls that find a place Within the temple of thy grace.»
Psalms 84:4. They will be still praising thee. Selah.
How can they do otherwise? When they are God's children, at home with their Heavenly Father, and behold his glory, what can they do but praise, and praise, and praise yet again ?
Psalms 84:5. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them.
Or, as it might be rendered, «In whose heart are thy ways.» The man whose strength is wholly derived from God, and who spends all his strength in God's service, the man who has God's ways in his heart, and his heart in God's ways, must be blessed. This is the man to get the blessing that the Lord is waiting to give. Half-hearted worshippers do not even know what the blessing is like, but the whole-hearted not only taste of it but drink it down with delight.
Psalms 84:6. Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools.
They get a blessing on the road to God's house as well as a blessing in the house itself. It does their heart good even to be on the way to the assembly of God's people, and they sing, with good Dr. Watts,
«How did my heart rejoice to hear
My friends devoutly say,
In Zion let us all appear,
And keep the solemn day!»
They also sing, with the same writer,
«I love her gates, I love the road.»
The very road to God's house has a blessing in it for those whose hearts are right with the God of the house.
Psalms 84:7. They go from strength to strength,
They get stronger as they proceed on their happy, heavenward way. The men who love God, and who live with God, grow stronger and stronger ;
not always in body, for the flesh may be growing weaker while «the inward man is renewed day by day.» «They go from strength to strength,» or, as it is in the margin, «They go from company to company,» from the company of mourners to the company of hopers; from the company of hopers to the company of believers; from the company of the men and women of feeble faith to the company of those who rejoice in full assurance.
Psalms 84:7. Every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.
That is the glory of going to God's house, that we go there to appear before God, to spread our wants before him, to confess our sin to him, to sun our souls in the light of his countenance. It is little for us to appear before our fellow men, but to appear before God is a blessed prelude to that day «when he shall appear,» and «we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.»
Psalms 84:8. O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah.
O God of wrestling Jacob, hear my prayer! O God, thou who didst make such a gracious covenant with Jacob, be a covenant God to me!
Psalms 84:9. Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed.
Look upon the face of Christ, O God, for he is «thine Anointed»!
«Him, and then the sinner see;
Look through Jesus' wounds on me.»
Psalms 84:10. For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand.
That is, better than a thousand days spent anywhere else. Feasting and rioting with the ungodly are not worthy to be compared with feasting and praising in the courts of God's house.
Psalms 84:10. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
I hope many of us can say, again with Dr. Watts,-«
Might I enjoy the meanest place
Within thy house, O God of grace!
Not tents of ease, nor thrones of power,
Should tempt my feet to leave thy door.»
Psalms 84:11-12. 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. O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.
Let us share that blessedness, dear friends, and be as happy as we can by trusting in the Lord of hosts as he deserves to be trusted.