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Scott's Reference Library
Psalm 84:1 through Psalm 84:12 (NIV)
1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
O LORD Almighty!
2 My soul yearns, even faints,
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh cry out
for the living God.
3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may have her young—
a place near your altar,
O LORD Almighty, my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house;
they are ever praising you.
Selah
5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.
8 Hear my prayer, O LORD God Almighty;
listen to me, O God of Jacob.
Selah
9 Look upon our shield, O God;
look with favor on your anointed one.
10 Better is one day in your courts
than a thousand elsewhere;
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
the LORD bestows favor and honor;
no good thing does he withhold
from those whose walk is blameless.
12 O LORD Almighty,
blessed is the man who trusts in you.
Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible
VERSES 1-7
The ordinances of God are the believer’s solace in this evil world; in them he
enjoys the presence of the living God: this causes him to regret his absence
from them. They are to his soul as the nest to the bird. Yet they are only an
earnest of the happiness of heaven; but how can men desire to enter that holy
habitation, who complain of Divine ordinances as wearisome? Those are truly
happy, who go forth, and go on in the exercise of religion, in the strength of
the grace of Jesus Christ, from whom all our sufficiency is. The pilgrims to the
heavenly city may have to pass through many a valley of weeping, and many a
thirsty desert; but wells of salvation shall be opened for them, and
consolations sent for their support. Those that press forward in their Christian
course, shall find God add grace to their graces. And those who grow in grace,
shall be perfect in glory.
VERSES 8-12
In all our addresses to God, we must desire that he would look on Christ, his
Anointed One, and accept us for his sake: we must look to Him with faith, and
then God will with favour look upon the face of the Anointed: we, without him,
dare not show our faces. The psalmist pleads love to God’s ordinances. Let us
account one day in God’s courts better than a thousand spent elsewhere; and deem
the meanest place in his service preferable to the highest earthly preferment.
We are here in darkness, but if God be our God, he will be to us a Sun, to
enlighten and enliven us, to guide and direct us. We are here in danger, but he
will be to us a Shield, to secure us from the fiery darts that fly thick about
us. Through he has not promised to give riches and dignities, he has promised to
give grace and glory to all that seek them in his appointed way. And what is
grace, but heaven begun below, in the knowledge, love, and service of God? What
is glory, but the completion of this happiness, in being made like to him, and
in fully enjoying him for ever? Let it be our care to walk uprightly, and then
let us trust God to give us every thing that is good for us. If we cannot go to
the house of the Lord, we may go by faith to the Lord of the house; in him we
shall be happy, and may be easy. That man is really happy, whatever his outward
circumstances may be, who trusts in the Lord of hosts, the God of Jacob.