Psalm 84:10

Three times a year the men of Israel were to appear before the LORD “in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles” (Deuteronomy 16:16). The journey to Jerusalem was often long and hard, over rough country, and it was made with great expectation, because the temple was where God had set his presence among his people. Pilgrims sang the Songs of degrees, Psalms 120–134, on the way up, and Psalm 84 belongs to the same journeys.

The psalm opens, “How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD” (Psalm 84:1–2). The psalmist envies the sparrow that has found a house near God’s altars (Psalm 84:3), calls those who dwell in God’s house blessed (Psalm 84:4), and blesses the pilgrim whose strength is in God and who turns the valley of Baca, the valley of weeping, into a place of springs (Psalm 84:4–7). At verse 8 he stops describing and starts asking. Longing for God leads naturally to calling on him.

The psalmist addresses God by two titles in one breath, and each tells us something about the one he is praying to.

“LORD God of hosts” joins three Hebrew words. Yᵉhôvâh, printed “LORD” in the KJV, is God’s own covenant name, and it is tied to the verb hâyâh, “to be”, which speaks of the eternal, self-existent God who keeps his covenant. ʼĕlôhîym is the general word for God. It is plural in form, and when it names the true God it is read as a plural of majesty, usually with a singular verb. tsâbâʼ means an army or host, and it is also used for war, for service and for the host of heaven. “LORD of hosts” names God as the ruler of every host there is, the angels and the stars of heaven as well as the armies of earth. David used this name when he faced Goliath: “I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts” (1 Samuel 17:45). The God who made the ends of the earth is unwearied in his strength and his understanding (Isaiah 40:28), and so whatever the psalmist brings to him is within his power.

“God of Jacob”, ʼĕlôhîym Yaʻăqôb, is a title of nearness. Yaʻăqôb is Jacob, the patriarch whose name God changed to Israel. At Bethel God promised Jacob the land he lay on, descendants as many as the dust of the earth, and his own presence wherever Jacob went (Genesis 28:13–15). To pray to the God of Jacob is to pray on the ground of what God has already promised and done for his people.

Together the two titles show us how to come to God. The one who commands all the hosts of heaven has bound himself to one man and his family, so we come with reverence and with confidence at once.

The request itself is made twice, “hear my prayer” and “give ear”. Saying the same thing in two lines is common in the Psalms, and here the repetition makes the plea earnest. Solomon asked at the dedication of the temple that God would “hearken unto the cry and to the prayer, which thy servant prayeth before thee to day” (1 Kings 8:28), and the LORD himself says, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee” (Jeremiah 33:3).

“Behold, O God our shield” calls God to look, and names him by what he is to his people. The word mâgên means a shield, the small shield or buckler a soldier carried, and the Old Testament uses it as a title for God, and for a king, as the protector of his people. God said to Abram, “Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward” (Genesis 15:1). The psalmist says “our shield”, so the whole people stand under God’s protection, and for pilgrims on dangerous roads the word carried real comfort.

The request is that God “look upon the face of thine anointed”. The verb nâbaṭ is a common word for looking or gazing, and in fewer places for having regard to someone. In a prayer like this, asking God to look on the face of his anointed is asking him to regard the king with favour and bless him. Psalm 132:10 makes the same prayer from the other side: “For thy servant David’s sake turn not away the face of thine anointed.”

Verse 10 begins with “For”, and it gives the reason behind the prayer. The psalmist prays this way because he values God’s house above everything else.

The word for courts, châtsêr, means an enclosed yard or courtyard. At the temple the courts were the open areas around the house of God where the people gathered to worship, and they are the courts the psalmist’s soul fainted for in verse 2. The KJV says only “a thousand”, and the sense is a thousand days spent anywhere else. A thousand is a great round number, and the point is one of worth. A single day near God gives more joy and more life than any length of time elsewhere, however prosperous or pleasant it looks. David says the same: “in thy presence is fulness of joy” (Psalm 16:11), and “One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4). Asaph ends his struggle with the words “But it is good for me to draw near to God” (Psalm 73:28). Paul counted “all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:7–8), and Jesus tells us, “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33).

Verse 11 opens with “For” again, and it gives the deepest reason of all for the psalmist’s longing: who God is and how generous he is.

The word for sun, shemesh, is the ordinary word for the sun in the sky. The nations around Israel revered the sun as a source of life, light and warmth, and in a farming land everyone knew that the crops depended on it. The psalmist gives that place to the LORD, who made the sun. God gives light for our path, life and warmth, and growth. As a shield, mâgên again, he guards his people from harm and from every enemy. The two pictures together cover all his care: he gives what is good and he protects from what is evil. David piles up images in the same way: “The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer” (Psalm 18:2).

The psalm opened with “O LORD of hosts” in verse 1, and it closes with the same title. Yᵉhôvâh of hosts, tsâbâʼ, the ruler of every host in heaven and earth, is the one in whom we trust. Isaiah tells us to lift up our eyes and see who “bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might” (Isaiah 40:26).

“Blessed” is ʼesher, happiness or blessedness, and the form here, ʼashrê, is an exclamation: “how happy!” It describes a person who is fortunate and blessed by God. This is the psalm’s third “Blessed”. The first was for those who dwell in God’s house (verse 4), the second for the pilgrim whose strength is in God (verse 5), and the last is for everyone who trusts him, wherever they are. The same words open Psalm 1, “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly” (Psalm 1:1), and Proverbs says, “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom” (Proverbs 3:13). Jeremiah gives almost the same words as this verse: “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is” (Jeremiah 17:7–8).

To trust, bâṭach, means at root to hide for refuge, and so to trust, to be confident and sure. It is an ongoing leaning on God, with our security resting in his faithfulness, wisdom and power. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee” (Isaiah 26:3–4).

The New Testament shows us the fulfilment of each part of this prayer in Jesus.

The pilgrim longed for the place where God dwelt, and “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Jesus spoke of the temple of his body: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19–21). The Son shares the authority of the LORD of hosts, for he said, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18), and the promises to the God of Jacob’s people come to their goal in him, the seed “which is Christ” (Galatians 3:16). Through his blood we have “boldness to enter into the holiest”, the inner place itself, “By a new and living way” (Hebrews 10:19–22), and with him as our great High Priest we “come boldly unto the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:14–16). Our prayers are heard in his name.

Jesus is the Anointed One, the Christ, on whom God looks with perfect favour. He is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Hebrews 1:3) and “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15).

The doorkeeper’s humility is seen fully in Christ, who “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:5–8). Those who belong to him are now themselves God’s dwelling, for “your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost” (1 Corinthians 6:19). At the end, the longing for God’s courts is satisfied completely: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them” (Revelation 21:3), and the city has no temple building, “for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it” (Revelation 21:22).

Christ is the “Sun of righteousness” who rises “with healing in his wings” (Malachi 4:2), and in him “was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4–5). He is our shield too. Being “justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him” (Romans 5:9), and of his sheep he says, “neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:28). Grace comes to us through him, and glory waits for us as “joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17). He alone walked perfectly upright, and God “hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Because God gave his own Son, every good thing comes with him (Romans 8:32).

Jesus himself trusted the Father perfectly, becoming “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8), and now he is the one we trust. Through faith in him “we have peace with God” (Romans 5:1). He is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), in him we are blessed “with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3), and he is “the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).

The psalmist’s prayer can become ours. We come to God as the LORD of hosts, who can do whatever he wills, and as the God of Jacob, who has made promises and keeps them. We pray for those who lead us. We give our time gladly to worship, prayer, Scripture and the fellowship of God’s people, because a day spent near him is better than a thousand elsewhere. Any service in his house, however small it looks, is worth more than the best seat among the wicked. And we trust him, the sun and shield who gives grace and glory, knowing that the one who trusts in him is truly blessed.