"To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah.
How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
2 My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
3 Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house,
ever singing your praise! Selah
5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
6 As they go through the Valley of Baca
they make it a place of springs;
the early rain also covers it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength;
each one appears before God in Zion.
8 O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer;
give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah
9 Behold our shield, O God;
look on the face of your anointed!
10 For a day in your courts is better
than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favour and honour.
No good thing does he withhold
from those who walk uprightly.
12 O Lord of hosts,
blessed is the one who trusts in you!"
Psalm 84
The picture changes in the second stanza (5-8), and now it is the blessedness and the joy of the progress of the soul towards God, and the spiritual life is conceived of as a pilgrim's progress. The RSV translates 5, 'In whose hearts are the highway to Zion'. Here is a pilgrim whose heart is set on God and on the things of God. And such a man is blessed indeed! (cf Hebrews 11:10, 27b for Abraham's and Moses' experience - again and again, in the midst of the duties and appointments of life, their desires and their hearts were on the path to God). The picture here is one of 'ongoing' - it is the ongoing life of the believer, conceived as a pilgrimage, the path of the spiritual life, in terms of sanctification and growth in grace. This is the force of the words in 7, 'They go from strength to strength' (cf Philippians 3:12ff). Part of this blessedness lies in the fact that it makes a man superior to his circumstances. To have a heart thirled to the ways of God does things to a man, and one of the things is expressed in 6, 'Passing through the valley of weeping, he makes it a well' - that is, 'Sorrow, borne as a help to pilgrimage changes into joy and refreshment...trials borne aright bring down fresh bestowments of power for fruitful service' (Maclaren). Such a pilgrim will make capital out of the pressures of life and the oppositions of Satan. But something more is implied in 6: not only is such a pilgrim blessed himself, he becomes a blessing to others. When he passes through the dry, parched places, the face of the land changes; rain falls, and springs rise from the ground. This is what the quality of his life accomplishes.