Psalm 84: Sparrows in the House of God

The Korahites who signed this song knew the temple from the inside. According to 1 Chronicles 9:19, the sons of Korah served as gatekeepers, the guild responsible for opening the doors before dawn and closing them after the last evening sacrifice. Remember that this same family had survived the judgment of Numbers 16, when Korah their ancestor had been swallowed by the earth for grasping at priesthood that was not his. Generations later, his descendants are not hoarding privilege; they are stationed at the threshold, watching pilgrims arrive from Galilee and Judah and the diaspora, swinging great cedar doors open at sunrise. When this psalm calls God's dwelling "lovely" (the Hebrew "yedidot" carries the warmth of beloved, dear, longed-for), it is the voice of men who watched sparrows nest in the eaves of the sanctuary and who envied them their nearness.

The Valley of Baca in verse 6 is one of the most tender images in the Psalter. "Baca" can mean "weeping" or it can name the balsam tree, which weeps a sticky resin when its bark is cut. Either reading fits: pilgrims walking up to Zion three times a year would pass through dry, harsh country, often under a punishing sun, sometimes with sick children or aging parents at their side. The psalmist says that those whose strength is in the LORD do not avoid the weeping valley; they pass through it, and as they go they make it a place of springs. The early rains fill the cisterns. The grief of the journey waters something. This is not a promise that the valley disappears; it is a promise that pilgrims who keep walking turn the dry place into a place where others will later drink.

"Better one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere" is pilgrim arithmetic. A first-temple worshiper traveled for days, slept in the open, paid the costs of the journey three times a year, and got perhaps a single afternoon at the altar before the long walk home. The psalmist is doing the math out loud: the ratio still favors the courts of God. That last verse, "a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere," is the kind of thing you say when you have just tasted what you came for and are preparing for the road back. Modern readers, who can open a Bible at any moment, easily lose this hunger. The Korahites recovered it once a year by walking for it.