Paraphrase Upon the Books of the Psalms, Book 3 · Psalm 84
The Eighty Fourth Psalm.
TO the chief Musitian upon Gittith, A Psalm for the sonns of Coreh.
Paraphrase. The eighty fourth Psalm is the panting of a pious soule toward God, a pathetical expression of the benefits and joy of his publick service, and an encouragement of the people to make the wayes of passage thither from all quarters faire and passable. It seemeth to have been composed in some time of detention from, and deprivation of those advantages and priviledges. It was set to the tune called Gittith, (see note on Psal, viii. a.) and committed to the Praefect of the Musick to be sung by the posterity of Coreh, (see Psal. xlii. 1.)
1. How amiable are thy Tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!
O omnipotent Lord, thou that rulest and dispensest all things by thine own power and wisdome, yet usest the ministery of thy celestial Angels herein, and hast whole armies of them perpetually ready for thy service, and most peculiarly makest use of their ministery in the place of thy publick worship, there to presentiate and exhibite thy selfe to thy servants, to testify by them that thou residest there, as it were in thy Majesty, to set up a glorious tent among us (a type of thy promised incarnation, inhabiting and pitching thy tent in humane flesh. Ioh. i. 14.) what condition can be so desirable or valuable, so honourable or joyous, as this, to be thus admitted unto thy presence, and injoy the divine effects and benefits of it?
2. My soule longeth, yea, even fainteth for the Courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh‖shouteth to a crieth out for the living God.
Of this none is more sensible than those which are deprived of these felicities: and this is our portion at this time, which raiseth our desires to an holy impatience, and vehement panting thirst (see Psal. xlii. 1.) a most earnest pursuit of this so great a dignity, of being, after so long an exclusion, admitted to this thy throne of grace, thy divine most comfortable presence, without which we faint and are ready to die, our life is no life, but a melancholy image of death without it. To this therefore we aspire with all our most ardent affections, and as with a shout or jubilation excite one another to the most passionate pursuit of it.
3. Yea the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for her selfe, where she may lay her yong, even thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.
Now that we are deprived of this felicity, the silly birds (whose happiness we have reason to envy) are permitted to inhabite there; no place that they seem so ambitious to choose, to build their nest and lay their young ones in, as those which were wont to be honoured with thy presence among thy servants (as if the protection which was wont to be afforded us upon our addresses to God, were by them especially hoped for there.) O that thou wouldst be pleased of thine infinite power and goodness, to afford us that dignity which those little birds, the sparrow and swallow, are now principally partakers of.
4. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house; they shall be still praising thee, Selah.
O what a blessedness doe they enjoy, that are allowed those celestial priviledges of thy constant solemn service, to divide their years betwixt praying and praising, petitioning and receiving thy mercies, and then returning their devoutest acknowledgements to thee at the solemn festivals;
5. Blessed is the man‖who hath strength in thee, whose strength is in thee,†the high wayes are in their hearts, or in the midst of them. inb. whose heart are the wayes of them:
Who place all their trust and confidence in thy aids, and seek them from thee in thy Temple, the place of thy peculiar residence; who are alwayes full of devout thoughts of going up thither to the sacred solemnities, and of fitting the high wayes for commodious passage to themselves and others, (or that have free liberty to resort thither.)
6. Who passing throughc. the*mulberry-valley, or valley of weeping, turn it into a spring, even when the raine filleth, or covereth— valley of Bacha, make it a well, the raine also filleth the pools.
Which by trenching and draining the most wett and watery valleys, make the way very passable, in the moistest season, from every corner of the land to Jerusalem.
7. They goe from‖valley to valley, the God of Gods shall appear in Sion. (see note c.) strength to strength; every one of them in Sion appeareth before God.
And so goe up cheerfully and unanimously and devoutly on their road, from one stage to another, and at length come to that amiable and desirable place, where God is so graciously pleased to exhibite and presentiate himself. (And so in the antitype of the Sanctuary, the Christian Church, there is no doubt but he will give grace, and that abundantly, to all that aske, and knock, and persevere in an holy obedience to his directions, to seek and begge it of him in Christ.)
8. O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; give eare, O God of Jacob, Selah.
Thou therefore that fittest and rulest in the midst of all thine armies of Angels, and by them sendest down thy blessings, as oft as they bear up our prayers to thee, that hast obliged thy selfe in a peculiar manner to protect this thy chosen people, and in token thereof vouchsafest to be called their God; I beseech thee to hearken to and grant this prayer of mine for the free and cheerfull return of thy people to the place of thy solemn and holy worship.
9. Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed.
Thou art our onelyonly God, our onelyonly protector and defender, we beseech thee in mercy to behold and receive the petition, to grant the prayer of our Soveraign whom thou with thine holy oile hast inaugurated, and by thy special providence appointed to be King over us.
10. For a day in thy Courts is better than a thousand: I had rather†lye at the threshold. be ad. dorekeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
It is infinitely more desirable and valuable to spend one day in thy presence, and service in the place where thou art pleased peculiarly to exhibite thy selfe, than a thousand dayes in any other condition, deprived of this priviledge and advantage; more eligible to lye at the threshold, in the most abject condition of neerness to this palace of thine, than to have all the pompe and glory of any the most splendid worldly condition, and to be withheld from this liberty, as men excommunicated and separated from thy presence.
11. For the Lord God is a sunne and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.
For this God of ours that there exhibites himself, is the spring of all light and strength, directs us in our way and defends us in it; he will not only pity and deliver, but even advance and dignify, and heap all abundance of blessings, both corporal and spiritual in this life, and eternal in another life, on all those that faithfully adhere to him, and constantly observe his commandments. (Surely God heareth not sinners, but him that is a worshipper of God, and doth his will, him he heareth, denyeth him no request which is truly for his avail to have granted him.)
12. O Lord God of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.
O thou blessed omnipotent Lord of all Majesty, how unspeakably great and valuable is that one felicity, which consists in a constant adherence to and dependance on thee? He that is thus united to the fountain of all good things, can never stand in need of any thing that is truly profitable or desirable.
Annotations on Psalm LXXXIV.
V. 3. Cryeth out] From foreign to cry aloud, foreignvociferate or jubilate, is foreign here, & it is used either for grief, but especially for joy and exultation: the Lxxii. fitly render it by foreign exceeding joy. And being here joyned with foreign to, it hath a special notation, such as is taken from the custome of mariners, or souldiers, or husbandmen; the first of which when they loose from land into the ocean, set saile with a shout; the second when they assault their enemies, incourage one another with a shout, when they have gotten the victory, express their joy with a shout; the third when they conclude their harvest, do it with a shout, called therefore proverbially (Isa. ix. 3.) the joy in harvest: And so when they went up to the feasts at Jerusalem, they went with an holy jubilation, or shout. And this seems to be the full importance of the phrase in this place, My heart and my flesh, my rational, and even carnal sensitive faculties shout to the living God, are ardently desirous of thus going up to the Sanctuary, are ready with their foreign ovations and vociferations (when they be allowed that favour) to goe up to the presence of this living God, the joy of their very life, whose gratious assistance and exhibition of himself is the only tenure they have in all kinde of prosperity.
V. 5. Hearts] The difficulties of this verse may possibly be removed by remembring the notion of foreign and foreign,foreign not only for the heart, but by metaphor (being oft applyed to those things that have no heart) for the middle. So foreign Ion. ii. 3. not into the heart, but the midst of the seas. So Deut iv. 11. the mountain burnt with fire to the foreign (not heart, but) midst of heaven. 2 Sam. xviii. 14. Absolom was alive foreign in the midst of the oake. So Jer. Li. 1. inhabitants of the foreign (not heart, but) midst of them that rise up against me. And if foreign may thus,foreign with the learned Grotius, be rendred here in the midst of them, then the passage will be clear,foreign Blessed is the man foreign, literaly strength or (as the Lxxii. and Syriack and Latine foreign—) help to him in thee, i. e. which hath in thee strength, help, or protection, being allowed liberty (as the former part of the Psalm determins the sense) to resort to Gods Sanctuary, which is sometimes called foreign, and from whence that protection and aid in all exigencies may be had. Then follows to the same sense foreign paths, foreignor highwayes, fossewayes, or causeys (from foreign to raise or pave a way with stone) foreign ascents, i. e. wayes of going up to the Sanctuary, in the midst of them, i. e. who have such highwayes, free liberty to go up to the holy assembly in the midst of them; or (if foreign must signify their hearts) who take care and look to the maintenance of these causeyes, in order to the sacred assemblies, which they that are deprived of that priviledge of going up to them most sadly bemoan the want of. When Jerusalem became the Metropolis of Judaea, the roads to it, upon civil grounds, were to be made large and passable; but when the Temple was built there, and by the law the whole nation obliged thrice every year to resort thither, this was now, upon weightier reasons, to be provided for. Especially considering that Judaea was a mountainous, uneven countrey, where the brooks in the valleys upon any fall of rain were apt to swell, so as to be hardly passable. And therefore among the causes for a foreign intercalation of a month, and alteration of the seasons of the festivals thereby, the chief that are set down by†Hilch. Kid. Maimonides, are foreign because of the wayes, (when in respect of them occasion requires it,) foreign and because of the bridges. And the same Maimonides tells us Hilch. Roths. c. 8. that for the maintenance of the wayes every year at the 15. of the monethmonth Adar, Commissioners were sent out to look to the repairs of bridges, causeyes &c. This makes it not unreasonable to suppose that the wayes to the Temple should here be mentioned, in reference to those sacred solemnities, as when Lam. i. 4. 'tis said The wayes of Zion mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts. And then as it is a felicity to have the use of these wayes, so must it also have been an act of piety in any to take care of them, that they might be serviceable to this end, for themselves and others. And to this purpose also the next verse will be best interpreted: see note c. Abu Walid seems to take foreign for strengths, and interprets it of strong and firme resolutions. Kimchi in his Roots renders it high praises. The Jewish Arab expresses the whole passage by foreign whose hearts are sincere.
6. Valley of Bacha] From foreign flevit is foreign weeping, and in Arabick foreign. And from this notion of the word the Lxxii. read foreign the valley of weeping, and the Vulgar Lachrymarum, of tears; and the Chaldee seems to follow that sense. Our latter interpreters here make use of the notion foreign foreignfor a mulberry-tree (and the Jewish Arab telling us in a note that it is a valley in Syria Damascena, yet renders it foreign, as much as to say, the valley of plumb-trees) so 2 Sam. v. 23. over against foreign the mulberry-trees; and so again v. 24. where the Chaldee reads foreign trees. The use of the word must probably be deduced from the sort of the soile where mulberry-trees grow. For of them it is observable that they use to grow (not in dry and waterless soils, as vulgar Interpreters would fansy, but) peculiarly in low grounds or valleys (non temere in montibus, saith Pliny l. xvi. c. 18.) in a fat and moist soile, say the Herbalists. And so, if that were the rendring here, the passing through the mulberry valley would fitly signify passing through a low and wet and moist place, which according to the notion of foreign is by us called a weeping ground. The Syriack here read foreign, which will best be rendred, they passed through, or by, or into profound weeping; yet thereby meaning not tears from mens eyes so probably as waters overflowing the ground by which they past; for so Job xxviii. 11. foreign he bindeth the floods from weeping, is by us duly rendred from overflowing. So again Job xxxviii. 16. we have foreign (from the same theme) the Interlinear reads fletus maris, the weeping of the sea: It signifies most probably the waters that distill from thence (as tears from the eyes) and pass by secret meatus in the earth. The Lxxii. reads foreign the spring of the sea. And then by analogy with these, we shall best render the Hebrew foreign through the valley of weeping, or the moist and weeping valley. And to make or turne that into a spring (so foreign foreignsignifies, they make it a well, or turne it into a spring,) is by casting up earth and trenching it (as the Fenns with us are drained) to render it a spring, the water whereof having gained a regular course, becomes a stream, passable in the deep of winter, when, as here it follows, the rain covers or fills the pools. So those words will best be rendred foreign yea, foreignor though, or even where the rain covers the pools. The ambiguity of the words foreign and foreign have caused very various rendrings of these words. But as foreign from one notion of foreign in Hiphil, for teaching, signifies a law-giver, and so is by the Lxxii. rendered foreign, so from another notion of it for watering, it certainly signifies rain, so Joel ii. 23. he will give foreign the rain, and again foreign the early and latter rain; and so in proportion with the valley, and the weeping, or wateriness foregoing, it must be thought to signify here. And so likewise as foreign foreignfrom foreign benedixit, signifies benediction, and is rendred by the Lxxii. foreign blessing; so not only the Chaldee foreign, but with the same points as here, the Hebrew foreign is used for a pool Jud. i. 15. give me foreign not a blessing, but the pool, for thou hast given me a south land or dry land; and so it there expresly follows, give me also foreign springs of waters. And so this well connects with the former part of this verse, they shall make the mulberry-valley or weeping-valley a spring, drain it and make it passable in a channel or water-course, and that even after the fall of the greatest rains, when the pools are swolne and fill'd highest; this being the benefit of the fosse-wayes, forementioned v. 5. This is the most probable interpretation of the verse, in perfect accord with the former, and the designe of the Psalm in magnifying the felicities of those that are allowed the liberty of the sacred assemblies at Jerusalem. And to the same sense follows in the next verse, foreign they shall walk or proceed from valley to valley (so foreign foreignsignifies 1 King. xxi. 23. foreign in the valley of Jezreel: so in the Targum Isa. xxviii. 2. foreign the valley of fatness) or perhaps from trench to trench (for so foreign foreignPsal. cxxii. 7. is rendred by the Interlinear, in antemurali tuo, in thy trench without the wall: so Lam. ii. 8. Nahum iii. 8.) expressing the convenience of their journey through all those most suspected and naturally impassable places, by the help of trenches, or by means of these fosse-wayes, foreigntill at length foreign the God of Gods shall appear, or be seen, or beheld in Sion, i. e. shall shew or reveal himself gratiously to them there; or as Jehovah jire signifies Gen. xxii. 8. shall provide, and take care of them, as he will be sure to doe of all faithfull servants of his, that address themselves to him there, in his Temple or Sanctuary.
V. 11. Doorkeeper] From foreign threshold is foreign foreignto sit or ly at or on the threshold, when one is not admitted into the house, in a vile and abject condition. The Lxxii. here renders foreign, to be cast down in the house of God, to lie as a Lazar at the door, or as the foreign in the antient Church, which lay prostrate without the door of the Church, to beseech the prayers of them that enter there, being themselves unworthy to be admitted thither. The Targum reads foreign to cleave to the house, i. e. to lie fastened to the door of the house, which is not the office of the Nethinim or door-keepers, that were admitted in, but the condition of the vilest person that is shut out of the Temple, only is admitted to lie and beg mercy at the entrance into it. And this the Psalmist much prefers before any the most flourishing worldly condition of those that are kept at a greater distance from it.