Psalter Devotional: Psalm 84

In this psalm, like so many others, David is in sore distress. We expect to find him running from his enemies and entreating God’s favor in escaping or subduing them. David didn’t always pray for those things, but it was a common subject of his psalms. Here we find David in a distress whose primary cause is of very little value to him. It is not the worldly inconvenience but the spiritual privation that causes the man of God such distress, such grief, such soul weighing despair. David, the man after God’s own heart, longs for something he cannot have. My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God (v.2).

In verse 3, David makes note of a seeming contradiction of the created order. The birds have a house to go to in which to dwell securely and to be comforted along with her babes. Are not men greater than the sparrows that God should leave them abandoned in the field in their distresses? The inquiry is stunning and begs an answer which David is already to deliver.

It is clear from the preceding analogy what David wants: To be in God’s house; to be in his holy temple. For there he would surely dwell securely from his enemies. There he could speak to God face to face as he was want to do, to enquire in his holy temple (Psalm 27:4) and seek help for his faint and persecuted heart, and to pour out the sinfulness of the very same in soul cleansing confession. It was David who knew the power of a God who forgives sins and forgives them alone. The man who is forgiven of all his sins in God is the man blessed. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Selah. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them (vv.4-5). To dwell in the house of the Lord is to be in close fellowship with him. And who is that man who is in close fellowship with God? The man who is forgiven by God of all his sins and who is brought by God into that sweet fellowship.

If we look back to verse 3, we still await an answer. How can God deprive his people of his own presence, who desire to be with God? Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools. They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God (vv.6-7). It seems from these verses that it is the valley of tears (העמק הבכא) we must endure — and expect — as we travel through this world as pilgrims. Weary saint, are you not of more value than a sparrow? Indeed, and his strength is perfected in your weakness. For even in privation of God’s presence, it is God’s strength which is (actively) sustaining the Christian and bringing him to his glorious home of Zion. In fact, God only seems afar off to us who are but dust. God is near to every one of us.

In verse 8, David cries out in an outpouring of emotion. O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah. The Selah is added for the pause of grand introspection. What has David just prayed for? I see no request in the previous verses (though I could be wrong). Up to this point, David speaks of his longing only. His prayer to God is of the heart; the request is the longing which is too clouded with groanings to even be uttered. But God has heard his saint and is prepared to answer him even if the words cannot flow out. David’s true request is shown in verse 9. This is the sum total of what he really desires deep in his heart: Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed. הבט פני משיחך. David wants God’s favor. And this he can certainly have apart from the physical tabernacle of God. This realization is further expounded in the analogy in verse 11: 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. .כי שמש ומגן יי אלהים הן וכבוד יתן יי לא ימנע־טוב להולכים בתמים Grace and glory are for those who walk in uprightness. They come to us as a shield of protection burning as the glory of the sun.

How is a man made upright in heart? Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile (Psalm 32:1-2). It is for the sake of God’s Anointed that we are compassed about by God’s protection. It is for the sake of Jesus Christ that we are delivered from sin and death. It is his redemption that makes us upright and able to receive more abundant grace. In whom we have redemption though his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace (Ephesians 1:7). Here the psalm ends: O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee. How can this be, seeing how David is still (presumably) bodily separated from the house of God? In verse 4, didn’t David link blessedness to dwelling in God’s house? Here we see what David finally realizes (or knew all along). It is not the physical courts of the Lord which he seeks, but as we have already explored, the spiritual courts of God, his presence, his forgiveness, his power which he demonstrates to us in the forgiveness of sins in Christ Jesus. This is what it means to dwell in God’s house (c.f. Psalm 23:6).

We conclude with a remark about verse 10: For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. We see here an abasement of the mighty king which shows his humble gratitude to even tread the threshold of this blessed state. To just touch but the fringes of the master’s garments is enough to satisfy him. Let the earth and its wickedness have its fill, for being in the presence of God is infinitely better!

Though we speak of spiritual realities, we should not be so quick to exclude our humanly duties in the face of this Psalm. If we are truly blessed by God, if he has withheld nothing good from us for the sake of his anointed, and if we dwell in his heavenly courts, why should we neglect our duties to the physical tabernacle here on earth, the church? If David desired so earnestly to be in God’s physical tabernacle, shouldn’t we be also? Do not forsake your duties to the fellowship of believers. Do not forsake the assembly, as is the manner of some (Hebrews 10:25).

Every flower hath its sweetness; so hath every holy duty its comfort 

- John Trapp, Exposition of the Book of Psalms