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A Psalm for the sons of Korah. You remember how Korah, Dathan, and Abiram were destroyed because of their rebellion against the Lord, and their revolt against his chosen servant, Moses and Aaron, and you, no doubt, recollect how it is recorded that “the children of Korah died not.” Why they were spared, we cannot tell, except that it was an act of sovereign grace; and if so, I can understand why they were afterwards selected to be among the chief singers in the house of the Lord, for who can sing so sweetly to the God of grace as the men who have been saved by his sovereign, distinguishing grace This Psalm is “for (or, of) the sons of Korah.”
“
Like a sinner saved by grace?
Angels cannot sing so loud,
Though they see him face to face;
Sinless angels ne’er can know
What a debt saved sinners owe.”
The outer portions and the inner parts as well, — how lovely they all are!
To be among thy people, to have sweet fellowship with them, how delightful it is, “O Lord of hosts Thou dwellest in thy tabernacles, O Jehovah of hosts, like a king in the center of his army, and thy people encamp round about thee!
Psa_84:2. My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD:
Those children of God, who have been for even a little while exiled from the court of the Lord, prize them all the more when they get back to them.
Psa_84:2. My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.
There gets to be so deep a longing to appear once more in the house of the Lord that even this clay-cold flesh of ours, which with difficulty becomes warm towards good things, at last melts, and joins in the common cry of the believer’s whole being: “My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.”
Psa_84:3. Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, —
She is such a bold bird that she comes and picks up a crumb or two even in the courts of God’s house; so, Lord, let me be one of thy sparrows today:
“ Yea, the sparrow hath found an house,” —
Psa_84:3. 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.
God’s house is dear to us for the benefit that it is to ourselves, but it is still dearer to us for our children’s sake, as a nest where we may lay our young. What a double mercy it is when young people love to come with their parents to the house of God!
Psa_84:4. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Selah.
The psalmist felt that those who were always in the house of the Lord must always be full of music. I am afraid that it is not so in all cases, yet it should be so.
Psa_84:5. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them.
The man, who throws his whole heart and soul into his worship of the Lord, and his service for the Lord, is the man who gets the greatest blessing out of the holy exercises in which he takes part. Half-hearted worshippers are an insult to God, but blessed is the man whose strength is in the Lord of hosts, and whose heart is in his ways.
Psa_84:6. Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools.
If they pass through valleys that are dreary and gloomy, they find them to be a benefit and a blessing, for they get refreshments on the road, and help to cheer other travelers also.
Psa_84:7-8. They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God. O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah.
David cannot go up with the multitude that keeps holy day; as, feeling like Jacob when he was all alone at the brook Jabbok, like him he wrestles with God for a blessing. You can hear him crying out in the wilderness: “O Jehovah God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob,” and he, who heard the prayer of lonely Jacob by the brook-side, hears the cry of David, and the cries of all his children who cannot join the great assembly of worshippers of God.
Psa_84:9. Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed.
Jesus is the “shield” of his people, and he is “anointed” for his people and there is, in Jesus, so much of all that is good that, when the Father looks upon us in him, he can see goodness even in us poor sinners, for the goodness of Christ overflows to us, and is accounted ours.
Psa_84:10. For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand.
Of course, the psalmist means that a day in God’s courts is better than a thousand spent anywhere else. See how he contrasts nearly three years with a single day, and he might have gone even further, and said, “Better be one day with God than a thousand years without him.” He gives us another contrast as he goes on to say: —
Psa_84:10-12. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. 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.
May all of us know that blessedness, for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.
May the Spirit of God bless to us every syllable of this familiar Psalm as we read it!
Psa_84:1-2. How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.
Perhaps the psalmist would never have said, “How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!” if he had not been detained from them so long that he could truly say, “My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord.” It is very sad, yet it is all too true, that we often need to be deprived of a mercy in order to be made to value it aright. Would it not be wiser, on our part, if we prized our privileges while they were yet spared to us? Still it is a good thing to have our love to the assemblies of God’s house increased by temporary absence from them. See how fervent was the psalmist’s desire. His longing turned even to fainting at the very thought that, perhaps, he would never go there again: “My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord.” And his very “flesh” also joined in the intense longing of his soul. You cannot often get your flesh to do anything that is good, or to desire anything that is right; yet, sometimes, even our very body seems to be so swayed by the Holy Spirit that it is compelled to go it the right way.
Psa_84:3. Yea, the sparrow hath found a 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.
The psalmist envies even the birds that twitter around the sanctuary, and wishes that he, too, had wings that he might fly to God’s altar with them, and there take up his permanent abode.
Psa_84:4. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house:
The psalmist meant those priests who lived in the temple; and, in a spiritual sense, his words apply to those who dwell in God wherever they are, and who can truly sing, —
“
Or on the land or on the sea.”
Psa_84:4. They will be still praising thee. Selah.
Constant communion leads to constant adoration.
Psa_84:5. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; —
Who throws his whole soul into the worship; not such as come up to the house of God, and leave their hearts at home: “Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; —
Psa_84:5-6. In whose heart are the ways of them. (Or, better, “are thy ways.”) Who passing through the valley of Baca (or, “Weeping”) make it a well;
Finding solace in their suffering, sanctification in their affliction.
Psa_84:6-7. The rain also filleth the pools. They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.
Blessed are the pilgrims who are journeying to the upper Zion, the Jerusalem which is above, the mother of all the saints. The margin renders it, “They go from company to company;” or it may mean, “They go from strength of faith to greater strength,” and so they pass on, — “Till each appears in heaven at length.”
Psa_84:8. O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah.
“Thou art a prayer-hearing God. Didst thou not hear Jacob at the brook Jabbok? Then, O God of Jacob, give ear also to me! If I have not yet come to be like prevailing Israel, I am like wrestling Jacob; so, give ear to me, as thou didst to Jacob.”
Psa_84:9. Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed.
We hold up Christ before his Father, and say to him, —
“
Look through Jesus’ wounds on me.”
He means, of course, better than a thousand spent anywhere else.
Psa_84:10. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
“I had rather dust the mats in thy house than sit on Satan’s throne; I had rather wash the feet of thy saints, or perform any menial duties for them, than rule over all the hosts in the realms of darkness.”
Psa_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.
He will never walk uprightly unless he does trust in the Lord, neither will he receive the fullness of the blessing except as he learns to trust to the full, for the Master still saith, “According to thy faith, be it unto thee.”
Psa_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.”
Psa_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.
Psa_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.
Psa_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.”
Psa_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 ?
Psa_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.
Psa_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, —
“
My friends devoutly say,
In Zion let us all appear,
And keep the solemn day !”
“
Psa_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.
Psa_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.”
Psa_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 !
Psa_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” !
“
Look through Jesus’ wounds on me.”
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.
Psa_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,-“
Within thy house, O God of grace !
Not tents of ease, nor thrones of power,
Should tempt my feet to leave thy door.”
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.
To the chief Musician upon Gittith, A Psalm for the sons of Korah. It is thought, by some interpreters, that Gittith signifies the winepress. They must have been a very godly people who sang such songs as this in the time of the treading out of the grapes. Oh, that the day were come when the common places of our ordinary industries should be sanctified by psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs! Alas, at the winepress, men too often sing loose and lascivious songs; but these ancient people of God did not so. This Psalm is a song to the chief musician, and it is mainly concerning the house of God and the pilgrimage to it. Every sacred song should be sung at its best, we should call out the chief musician in every hymn that is dedicated to the service of the Lord.
“To the chief Musician upon Gittith, A Psalm for the sons of Korah.” I have often reminded you that these sons of Korah owed their continued existence to an act of special sovereign grace. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and all their company, were swallowed up alive, they went down to the pit because of their rebellion; but in the Book of Numbers we read, “Notwithstanding the children of Korah died not.” Why they were spared, we cannot tell; but, ever after, they were made to be the singers of the sanctuary. They who are saved by sovereign grace are the most fit to praise the name of the Lord. The sons of Korah also became door-keepers to the house of the Lord; and hence, probably, is the allusion to a doorkeeper which we find in this Psalm.
Psa_84:1. How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts!
“How amiable “ — how lovely “are thy tabernacles!” The temple was not then built; the Lord’s house was as yet only a tent, so that it is not the glory of architecture that makes the house to be lovely, the glory of it is the indwelling God. “How amiable are thy tabernacles!” That is to say, every part of it is lovely. The outer court, the inner court, the Holy of Holies, all the different parts in that ancient sacred shrine were lovely to the psalmist’s eye. He does not tell us how lovely they were; he leaves off with a note of exclamation, as if he could not measure with his golden rod this city of the great King. “’How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Jehovah of hosts,’ —lovely because they are thine! They are our tabernacles if we gather in them; but they are thine because thou art there, and therefore are they most lovely to our eyes.”
Psa_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.
His soul longed until, as it were, it grew pale, — for so the Hebrew may be rendered, — it grew white with faintness in the intensity of his desire to get up to the courts where God was to be found. God is a King, his ancient tabernacle was one of his royal palaces, so David longed to be a courtier there, that he might dwell in the courts of Jehovah. When he says that his flesh cried out for the living God, he does not mean flesh in the sense in which Paul uses the term, for in that flesh there dwelleth no good thing; but the psalmist means to express here the whole of his nature, “My soul, my heart, and my flesh.” The combination of his entire malehood, spirit, soul, and body, was moved with such intense agony of desire that it must express itself, and it could only express itself in a cry: “My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.” If it be so with you, my brethren, at this time, you shall have a feast of fat things. He who cometh to God’s table with a good appetite shall never go away unsatisfied. It is want of desire which often hinders us from spiritual delight; but when the desire is set upon God, it shall be satisfied. I fear that we often come to the wells of salvation, and yet get nothing, because merely coming to the wells is nothing. We read in Isaiah, “With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.” It is not the wells, but the water out of them, which will refresh the weary one. Do not be content with being here, in your pew, in the midst of this great congregation; but long after the living God himself, for he alone can refresh and revive your soul and spirit. Say, with David, “My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.”
Psa_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.
These little birds, so insignificant in themselves, were full of holy courage, and with sweet familiarity they came even into the sacred place. They hung upon the caves of God’s house, they even dared to make their nests there.
“
To dwell but where I love!”
Psa_84:4. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee.
The nearer to God you are in your life, the sweeter and more constant will be your song to him. They who dwell with God dwell where there must be singing.
“
And singing there must be:
Since, Lord, thy presence makes my heaven,
Whom should I sing but thee?”
Psa_84:4. Selah.
Screw up the harp strings, set the music to a higher key; lift up the heart also, let the soul rise to something sweeter still in praise of Jehovah.
Psa_84:5. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways —
Or,” Thy ways.” It is not every man who is in God’s house who is blessed; the blessed man is the one who has brought his heart with him. It is not every man who is in God’s ways who is blessed; but the man whose strength is in those ways, who throws his whole heart and soul into the worship. Half-hearted worship is dreary work, it is like a blind horse going round in a mill; but when the heart is in the service, we feel then as if we could dance for joy in the presence of the Lord our God: “Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee, in whose heart are thy ways.”
Psa_84:6-7. 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.
We do not know at this date what that valley of Baca was, for the land has been to so large an extent destroyed. This ancient song retains the name of the valley of Baca, but it does not explain to us where or what the place was. Peradventure, it was a dry and thirsty valley in which, in order to pass through it at all, the pilgrims digged wells that there might be refreshment for their journey. There are many such valleys on the road to heaven, —dark and lonesome, dry and barren, — but God’s people learn to dig wells there. Only mark that, though we dig the wells, the water to fill them does not rise up from the bottom, it falls down from above: “The rain also filleth the pools.” In the kingdom of heaven, there are some analogies with the kingdom of nature; but there are a great many heavenly things that have no earthly analogy at all, and you cannot with any accuracy argue from natural laws into the spiritual world. For instance, we have “an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast,” and we throw that anchor up: “which entereth into that within the vail.” Whereas earthly mariners drop their anchors down into the sea, we fling ours up into heaven. That is odd, but it is true; so, we dig a well, but it does not get filled from the bottom: “The rain also filleth the pools.” This is a new kind of well, and it teaches us that we must use the means, but that everything depends upon God. We have not to depend upon the means, but upon the God of the means: “The rain also filleth the pools.” See, further, brethren, what the way to heaven is; it is a growing way, an increasing way: “They go from strength to strength.” Those who begin in their own strength go from weakness to weakness; but (hose who know their own weakness, and trust in the Almighty God, shall go from strength to strength. In the natural world, as we grow older, we get weaker; but in the moral and spiritual world, when it is as it should be, the older we grow, the stronger we become in God and in the power of his might. What a mercy it is to be on the road to heaven, which is a road ever upwards! From step to step, from hill to hill, from mount to mount, they climb who shall ultimately end their pilgrimage in the King’s palace above: “Every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.”
Psa_84:8-9. O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah. Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed.
See what a rise there is in the music here, from “Hear my prayer,” to “Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed.” “When thou canst not look on me, look on thine Anointed.”
“
Look through Jesus’ wounds on me.”
Psa_84:10. For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand.
That is, better than a thousand spent anywhere else. You see, we have not yet come to the country where we can keep at God’s public worship all the year together, we have to get it a day at a time. Have you not often wished that there were seven Sundays in the week? I am sure that you have when God has fed your souls, and made your spirits merry in the house of prayer.
Then have you sighed for the land —
“
And Sabbaths have no end.”
Psa_84:10. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
As I said before, the sons of Korah were door-keepers to the house of the Lord, and this Psalm is for them. You know that our poor door-keepers generally have many to find fault with them, somebody or other is sure to feel disobliged; door-keeping is no very remunerative work, no very easy and pleasing task; “yet,” says David, King David himself, — “I would take off my crown of gold, and turn pew-opener; I would wish to be even a door-keeper in the house of the Lord, so long as I might but be with my God; and that position would be far better than feasting and rioting in royal pavilions with the wicked.”
Psa_84:11. 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.
Take notice of the whole of that last sentence; do not go and quote half of it, and say, “God has promised that he will withhold no good thing.” It is only promised to “them that walk uprightly”; and if you walk crookedly, the promise does not belong to you. It is upright walking that brings downright blessing. You shall lack no good thing from God, when your whole heart is made good towards God.
Psa_84:12. O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.
May all of us know this blessedness! Amen.