For the Chief Musician. On an instrument of Gath. A Psalm by the sons of Korah.
1 How lovely are your dwellings, LORD of Armies! 2 My soul longs, and even faints for the courts of the LORD. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. 3 Yes, the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young, near your altars, LORD of Armies, my King, and my God. 4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house. They are always praising you. Selah. 5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you; who have set their hearts on a pilgrimage. 6 Passing through the valley of Weeping, they make it a place of springs. Yes, the autumn rain covers it with blessings. 7 They go from strength to strength. Everyone of them appears before God in Zion. 8 LORD, God of Armies, hear my prayer. Listen, God of Jacob. Selah. 9 Behold, God our shield, look at the face of your anointed. 10 For a day in your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. 11 For the LORD God is a sun and a shield. The LORD will give grace and glory. He withholds no good thing from those who walk blamelessly. 12 LORD of Armies, blessed is the man who trusts in you.
Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary, 1706
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.