Psalms 84:5

Psa 84:5 Blessed [is] the man whose strength [is] in thee; in whose heart [are] the ways [of them].

Ver. 5. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee] i.e. Who is enabled by thee, both in body and mind, to come from the place of his abode to the solemn feasts.

In whose heart are the ways of them] Here the old translation, In whose heart are thy ways, is far better, i.e. As he bringeth his body to the ordinances, so he hath thy ways or laws engraven in his heart.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa_84:5-7

Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee.

Soul strength

I. It springs from a special connection with God. Whose strength is in Thee. In what does a souls strength consist?

1. Disinterested love.

2. Sympathy with right. The stronger the sympathy with right, the more mighty.

3. Concentration of faculties.

4. Uplifting hope. All these elements are to be found in God, must come from Him; and where they are there is strength of soul, the sublimest Strength of all.

II. It changes the unpropitious in circumstances into blessings. Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well.

III. It involves a progress in the journey of life. They go from strength to strength. The nearer the pilgrim advanced towards the Temple, the more strength he got, by companionship, exercise, and resolution.

IV. It enables the soul to reach at last the very presence of the eternal. Every one of them in Zion appeareth before God. (Homilist.)

In whose heart are the ways.

Ways in the heart

This mans heart is not like the trackless desert or the wild waste. There are ways in it, ways of truth and righteousness and goodness, and these show that the spiritual and moral energies of the man have been, and are, at work. Now, the man is happy who has ways in his heart, for spiritual culture is the secret of spiritual blessedness, compared with which all other happiness is an empty dream, a passing shadow, and nothing more. Blessed is he in whose heart are ways.

I. The way of repentance. The work of grace begins with this.

II. The way to heaven. But when we speak of a thing being in the heart we mean more than that it is known to us; we mean that we love it. And in this sense the way to heaven is in the believers heart. Every child feels happy when he is on his way home, and so does every true husband, and every true wife, and every true parent, and so does every pious pilgrim feel as he journeys to his home in the skies.

III. The way of holiness.

IV. The way of prayer. Just as the quickened seed seems to know to grow upwards, or, at least, is drawn upwards, and gently finds its way through the soil, so the heart, quickened by grace, rises heavenward. (A. Scott.)

Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well.--

The valley of Baca

The pilgrim band, says Perowne, rich in hope, forget the trials and difficulties of the way. Hope changes the rugged and stony waste into living fountains. The vale blossoms as if the sweet rain of heaven had covered it with blessings. Hope sustains them at every step. From station to station they renew their strength as they draw nearer the end of their journey, till at last they appear before God. Delight in the end is thus described as rendering the way to it, however toilsome in itself, delightful too. A deep religious sentiments-such is the thought--has power to change the minds estimate of things without, and thus to render the painful pleasant and the pleasant doubly blest.

I. We may see this in the increased interest which spiritual religion imparts to the idea of life, and the view of the present world. What the sun is to the earth, God is to the souls of His rational creatures. The soul has an atmosphere which behoves to be filled with Heavens own sunlight. We cannot be blessed without Him. It is the opening of the eye upon His glory that changes the aspect of existence (Psa_36:9).

II. We may trace this further, in reference to the exercises and duties of religion. See Hannah--with what joy she anticipated the day when she should perform her vow. See that student in a far-off land toiling at the acquisition of a foreign and sometimes barbarous tongue, presenting little when acquired to gratify his taste, and nothing to gain for him the worlds renown, but one in which he may be able to preach among the heathen the unsearchable riches of Christ!

III. The same principle applies to the sadness and suffering through which God may lead. The very thought is sustaining, that affliction, instead of rising out of the dust, or springing forth out of the ground, comes from the hand of God. But this is not all. Piety, devout feeling towards God, looks at the ends to be attained by Divine dealings. It is to pass through the crucible of the Almighty refiner. It is to receive the discipline of the Father of Spirits.

IV. This extends also to the hour of death. Humanity shrinks from dissolution; but religious feeling sustains even there, for now the aspect of death is changed. It is dissolution to the body, but it is emancipation to the soul. And it is the passage to life. It is the gateway home to God, to the fatherland, to the joys unutterable and eternal. (E. T. Prust.)

The pilgrims in the valley of Baca

I. The description given of the righteous people of God.

1. The state of their souls before God.

(1) Strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.

(2) Thoughts and affections interested with Divine and spiritual subjects; conversation in heaven.

2. The general tenor of their conduct in the world. To all such men this barren wilderness becomes a place of spiritual refreshment and purification.

(1) They cordially believe the assurance that, though the Lord causes grief, yet doth He not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men; that He chastens us only for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness. Under this impression they are mainly solicitous that their afflictions should produce in them the benefit which is designed.

(2) The mercies and comforts which God bestows, they receive with devout and thankful hearts, as designed to cheer and support them on their way, and to inspire them with a thirst for more exalted blessings.

II. The success and happiness which attend them (Psa_84:7).

1. Their successful progress. Whether the way be rough or smooth; whether their road now lies through the valley of weeping, or whether they are permitted to drink of the cup of heavenly consolation; in any case, we are commissioned to say to the righteous, that at least it is well with their souls. They are instructed how to derive spiritual support and nourishment from every circumstance of life; as the bee extracts its honey even from the most unsavoury flowers.

2. The happy termination of their journey. They may be scattered far and wide from each ether, as they pass along their destined course: they must be prepared, from time to time, to lose for a season their friends and companions by the way. Some will get before, and leave us weeping in the vale. But still they all shall meet again. (E. Whieldon, M. A.)

Happy pilgrims

Rightly rendered, the first words of these verses are not a calm, prosaic statement, but an emotional exclamation. The psalmists tone would be more truly represented if we read, How blessed is the man, or Oh! the blessednesses, for that is the literal rendering of the Hebrew words, the blessedness of the man whose strength is Thee.

I. The blessedness of the pilgrim-spirit. Amplius, the dying Xaviers word, further afield, is the motto of all noble life--scientist, scholar, artist, man of letters, man of affairs: all come under the same law, that unless there is something before them which has dominated their hearts, and draws their whole being towards it, their lives want salt, want nobility, want freshness, and a green scum comes over the pool. To live is to aspire; to cease to aspire is to die. Well then, looking all round our horizon, there stands out one path for aspiration which is clearly blessed to tread. There are needs in all our hearts, deep longings, terrible wounds, dreary solitudes, which can only be appeased and healed and companioned when we are pressing nearer and nearer God, that Infinite and Divine Source of all blessedness, of all peace and good. To possess God is life; to feel after God is life, too. For that aim is sure, as we shall see, to be Satisfied.

II. The blessedness of the pilgrims experience. Passing through the valley of weeping they make it a place of springs, the rain also covereth it with blessings. No doubt the poet is referring here to the actual facts of the pilgrimage to Zion. No doubt, on some one of the roads, there lay a gloomy gorge, the name of which was the Valley of Weeping; either because it dimly commemorated some half-forgotten tragedy long ago, or, more probably, because it was and and frowning and full of difficulty for the travellers on the march. The psalmist uses that name with a lofty imaginative freedom, which itself confirms the view that there is something deeper in the psalm than the mere external circumstances of the pilgrimages to the Holy City. If we have in our hearts, as our chief aim, the desire to get closer to God, then our sorrows and our tears will become sources of refreshment and fertility. Ah! How different all our troubles, large and little, look when we take as our great aim in life what is Gods great purpose in giving us life, viz. that we should be moulded into His likeness and enriched by the possession of Himself. But that is not all. If, with the pilgrims hearts, we rightly use our sorrows, we shall not be left to find refreshment and fertilizing power only in ourselves, but the benediction of the rain from heaven will come down, and the great Spirit of God will fall upon our hearts, not in a flood that drowns, but broken up into a beneficent mist that falls quietly upon us, and brings with itself the assurance of fertility. And so the secret of turning the desert into abundance, and tears into blessings, lies in having the pilgrims heart.

III. The blessedness of the pilgrims advance. They go from strength to strength. I do not know whether the psalmist means to use that word strength in the significance which it also has in old English, of a fortified place, so that the metaphor would be that from one camp of security, one fortress, to another, they journey safe always, because of their protection; or whether he means to use it rather in its plain and simple sense, according to which the significance would be that these happy pilgrims do not get worn out on the journey, as is the wont of men that set out, for instance, from some far corner of India to Mecca; and come in battered and travel-stained, and half dead with their privations, but that the further they go the stronger they become; and on the road gain more vigour than they could ever have gained by ease and indulgence in their homes. But, whichever of these two meanings we may be disposed to adopt, the great thought that comes out of both of them is identical--viz, that this is one of the distinguishing Joys of a Christian career of pressing forward to closer communion and conformity with our Lord and Master, in whom God is manifested--viz, that we grow day by day in strength, and that effort does not weaken, but invigorates.

IV. The blessedness of the pilgrims arrival. Every one of them in Zion appeareth before God. Then there is one road on which whosoever travels is sure to get to his goal. On all others caravans get lost, overwhelmed in a sandstorm, or slain by robbers; and the bleached bones of men and camels lie there on the sand for centuries. This caravan always gets there. For no man ever wanted God that did not possess Him, and the measure of our desire is the prophecy of our possession. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The vale of tears

1. Some have said that Baca is a real place--bearing, down even to modern times, a somewhat similar designation--a plain now called Wady Baker, lying in Northern Palestine, on the direct route of the pilgrims who came up to the Passover Feasts. In explanation of the name, which certainly means weeping, they tell the story of a Bedouin who, fleeing before his enemy, lost here his favourite dromedary, and fell into tears, not only because of his broken attachment, but because of his inevitable capture in the deprivation of his means of escape.

2. Others have said that the reference is to any valley of Baca-trees, or mulberries. These would be of frequent occurrence on any line of travel around Jerusalem, and would be sought for defence in the middle of the day, when the suns rays were hottest, and for the encampment at night, when the company made a halt. And in order to explain the allusion in the name, they remind us of the fact that the mulberry-tree, whenever any one of its twigs or leaves is wounded, exudes from the cut copious drops of thick sap, falling like tears on the sward beneath.

3. Still others say that this language is wholly figurative. There may, or may not, be an indirect allusion to some locality or some familiar landscape; but the meaning is simply tropical. It is intended to present an image of human life. The old Latin Vulgate, and all the ancient versions, render the expression--in valle lachrymarum. There originated our common metaphor, when we call this world a vale of tears.

I. Every true Christian must expect to have his own private valley of Baca. No two believers can see or travel the same path. Every Christian has his personal path of experience. But even this shows the intelligence which is resident in our trials. Nothing happens; all is ordered. And one of our arguments to prove we are in the true way is found in the discovery that it leads through roughness and confusion. If it ever grows easy and luxurious, we may fear we have wandered. And this is the way along which our Saviour went before us. He was a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

II. Every true Christian must expect to pass through his valley of Baca. Jerusalem lay on the top of a hill. It was surrounded with mountains, traversed by ravines and gorges. Straight up over them the festival-pilgrims forced their advance. And these were the times when they sang their cheerfullest psalm--this one among them. There is no mountain without its valley. Our finest off-looks of experience are found when we have risen to the summit of the hardest passes, And felt upon our foreheads bare the benedictions of the air. And by the grace of God rests have been allowed by the way. Notable seasons of remembrance have we all of halts for refreshment we have already enjoyed.

III. Every true christian must expect to find a well in each valley of Baca. In every sorrow there is some mitigation. Sometimes, again, trouble opens sluices of joy in our experience quite new. It was one of the incidents in the Crimean war, that a soldier lay famishing with thirst, and complaining bitterly, as a cannon-ball tore past him, that he was still left under fire. Meantime the missile of iron buried itself in the cliff-side behind him, splintered the rock, disclosed a spring, and sent close to his hot lips a full stream of water for his refreshment. Most of us have watched almost breathlessly as some tremendous providence shattered hope, or health, or comfort, or home, and yet found we were still alive afterwards, and indeed surrounded with blessings of which we never knew the existence before, and never felt the power till now.

IV. Every true Christian may force even the valley of Baca to become his well. The moment any Christian in simple-hearted confidence commits himself to Divine providence, he discovers the absolutely limitless reach of that statement with which this wonderful old psalm closes: The Lord God is a sun and shield, etc. This positive self-surrender is one of the conditions of forcing sorrow to minister comfort. It is compelling the weapon, which slays thousands of Philistines, to pour forth a fountain for our thirst. And the other condition is habitual repose on Divine wisdom. Trust in God cannot be exercised by fits and starts. It is not a thing of impulse, but of steady, every-day principle. With these two conditions met, any believer can turn his valleys of weeping into fountains of refreshment always.

V. Every true Christian will find his valley of Baca ending on the mount of God (Psa_84:7). Then he will understand it at last. It may not have been what he would have chosen; but its discipline was profitable, and now its end is peace--eternal, sacred, sure. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ver. 5. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee. Having spoken of the blessedness of those who reside in the house of God, he now speaks of those who are favoured to visit it at appointed seasons, going upon pilgrimage with their devout brethren: he is not, however, indiscriminate in his eulogy, but speaks only of those who heartily attend to the sacred festivals. The blessedness of sacred worship belongs not to half hearted, listless worshippers, but to those who throw all their energies into it. Neither prayer, nor praise, nor the hearing of the word will be pleasant or profitable to persons who have left their hearts behind them. A company of pilgrims who had left their hearts at home would be no better than a caravan of carcasses, quite unfit to blend with living saints in adoring the living God.

In whose heart are the ways of them, or far better,

in whose heart are thy ways. Those who love the ways of God are blessed. When we have God's ways in our hearts, and our heart in his ways, we are what and where we should be, and hence we shall enjoy the divine approval.

Ver. 5. In whose heart are thy ways. That is, who love the ways that lead to thy house. Earnest Hawkins.

Ver. 5. In whose heart are the ways of them. Literally, The steeps are on their hearts. The steep ascents on which the tabernacle stood. Horsley renders, They are bent on climbing the steep ascents. Perhaps the (Heb.) were more properly the raised causeways or stairs leading up to Mount Zion, or all through the mountain country on the road to Jerusalem. John Fry.

Ver. 5. In whose heart are the ways. The natural heart is a pathless wilderness, full of cliffs and precipices. When the heart is renewed by grace, a road is made, a highway is prepared for our God. See Isa 40:3-4. Frederick Fysh.

Ver. 5. Man is blessed,

I. When his strength is in God. Strength to believe,

strength to obey, strength to suffer.

II. When God's ways are in him. In whose heart, etc.

When the doctrines, precepts, and promises of God are

deeply engraved upon the heart. G. R.

Ver. 5. The preciousness of intensity and enthusiasm in religious belief, worship, and life.

Ver. 5-7. The blessed people are described,

1. By their earnest desire and resolution to take this journey, though they dwelt far off from the tabernacle, Ps 84:5.

2. By their painful passage, yet some refreshments by the way, Ps 84:6.

3. By their constant progress, till they came to the place they aimed at, Ps 84:7. T. Manton.

Psalms 84:6*

Ver. 5-7. The blessed people are described,

1. By their earnest desire and resolution to take this journey, though they dwelt far off from the tabernacle, Ps 84:5.

2. By their painful passage, yet some refreshments by the way, Ps 84:6.

3. By their constant progress, till they came to the place they aimed at, Ps 84:7. T. Manton.

Ver. 5-7. See Psalms on "Ps 84:5" for further information.

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Psa 84:5. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee — Who trusteth in thee as his only refuge, strength, and portion. Or, who had strength in, or rather, for, (as the Hebrew ב, beth, frequently signifies,) thee; that is, who hath (or who useth, for having is sometimes put for using: see Mat 13:12; 1Co 7:2) ability of body, and mind for thee, and for thy service; or for that journey, which he here seems to insinuate, and which in the following words he particularly describes. For it must be remembered, that all the males of Israel were required to come to the tabernacle or temple thrice every year, Exo 34:23-24; and that some of them lived at a great distance, and consequently, if they went, had to take a long and troublesome journey, which also might sometimes be attended with danger, and other inconveniences; and therefore such as wanted either courage or bodily strength, might be discouraged, or hindered from undertaking it, and so might be deprived of the benefit of enjoying God in his solemn and public worship. Which, though in some cases it might not be their sin, yet surely was a great affliction and infelicity; and, consequently, it was a blessed thing to be free from those impediments, as the psalmist here observes. In whose heart are the ways of them — That is, of those men, who passing, &c., as in Psa 84:6. But these words, of them, are not in the Hebrew; and, as several learned men have observed, disturb or obscure the sense. Others therefore seem to render the clause better, and more agreeably to the Hebrew text, thus: In whose heart are thy ways, (the pronoun thy being often understood,) namely, those ways which lead to thy house; or, the ways, so called, by way of eminence, the ways of, or to, Zion, (as they are called, Lam 1:4,) as appears from Psa 84:7. Thus the meaning is, Blessed are they whose thoughts and affections are strongly fixed upon the highways leading to Zion, and upon their journeys thither; who have both strength of body, as is said in the former clause, and readiness of mind, as is here added, to go to Zion; which are the two qualifications requisite for that journey. Blessed are they whose hearts are so set upon Zion, that they are, from time to time, exciting themselves and others, saying, Arise, let us go up to Zion, unto the Lord our God, Jer 31:6. “Such a company of sojourners are true Christians going up to the heavenly Jerusalem: such ought to be their trust in God, and such the subject of their thoughts.” — Horne.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

6. (Psa 84:5) Happy the man who (has) strength in thee, (who have) highways in their heart. The original consists of several exclamations or ejaculations—happy man!—(there is) strength to him in thee!—(there are) highways in their heart? This last unusual and obscure expression is supposed by some to mean, in whose thoughts, (or affections) are the highways to Jerusalem, i.e. who still think of going up to worship there. But another explanation, which agrees far better, both with the immediate context and with usage and analogy, supposes the figure to be identical with that in Psa 50:23, Pro 16:17, Isa 40:3-4, where the removal of all moral or spiritual hindrances to God's revisiting his people and communing with them, is poetically represented as the opening, levelling, and raising of a causeway through a pathless wilderness or otherwise impracticable ground. The word translated highways is determined, both by etymology and usage, to denote not a mere beaten track or footpath, but a road artificially constructed, and raised above the level of the ground through which it passes. The sudden change of number in the last clause shews that man is a generic or collective term.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psalms

HAPPY PILGRIMS

Psa 84:5 - Psa 84:7.

Rightly rendered, the first words of these verses are not a calm, prosaic statement, but an emotional exclamation. The Psalmist’s tone would be more truly represented if we read, ‘How blessed is the man,’ or ‘Oh, the blessednesses!’ for that is the literal rendering of the Hebrew words, ‘of the man whose strength is Thee.’

There are three such exclamations in this psalm, the consideration of which leads us far into the understanding of its deepest meaning. The first of them is this, ‘How blessed are they that dwell in Thy house!’ Of course the direct allusion is to actual presence in the actual Temple at Jerusalem. But these old psalmists, though they attached more importance to external forms than we do, were not so bound by them, even at their stage of development of the religious life, as that they conceived that no communion with God was possible apart from the form, or that the form itself was communion with God. We can see gleaming through all their words, though only gleaming through them, the same truth which Jesus Christ couched in the immortal phrase-the charter of the Church’s emancipation from all externalisms-’neither in this mountain, nor yet in Jerusalem, shall men worship the Father.’ To ‘dwell in the house of the Lord’ is not only to be present in bodily form in the Temple-the Psalmist did not think that it was only that-but to possess communion with Him, of which the external presence is but the symbol, the shadow, and the means.

But there is another blessing. To be there is blessing, to wish to be there is no less so.-’Blessed are the men in whose heart are the ways.’ The joyous company that went up from every corner of the land to the feasts in Jerusalem made the paths ring with their songs as they travelled, and as the prophet says about another matter, ‘they went up to Zion with songs and joy upon their heads,’ and so the search after is only a shade less blessed-if it be even that-than the possession of communion with God.

But there is a third blessedness in our psalm. ‘Oh! the blessedness of the man that trusteth in Thee.’ That includes and explains both the others. It confirms what I have said, that we do great injustice to the beauty and the spirituality of the Old Testament religion, if we conceive of it as slavishly tied to external forms. And it suggests the thought that in trust there lie both the previous elements, for he that trusts possesses, and he that trustingly possesses is thereby impelled as trustingly to seek for, larger gifts.

So, then, I turn to this outline sketch of the happy pilgrims on the road, and desire to gather from it, as simply as may be, the stimulating thoughts which it suggests to us.

I. Let me ask you, then, following the words which I have read to you, to look with me, first at the blessedness of the pilgrims’ spirit.

‘Blessed are the men in whose heart are the ways.’ A singular expression, and yet a very eloquent and significant one! ‘The ways’ are, of course, the various roads which, from every corner of the land, lead to the Temple, and the thought suggested is that the men whom the Psalmist pronounces blessed, and in whose blessednesses his longing heart desires to share, are the men who are restless till they are on the path, whose eyes are ever travelling to the goal, who have a ‘divine discontent’ with distance from God, and who know the impulse and the sting that sends them ever travelling on the path that leads to Him.

On any lower level it is perfectly true that the very salt of life is aspiration after an unattained ideal; that there is nothing that so keeps a man young, strong, buoyant, and fits him for nobilities of action, as that there shall be gleaming for ever before him in the beckoning distance a horizon that moves ever as he moves. When we cease to be the slaves of unattained ideals in any department, it is time for us to die; indeed, we are dead already. There are men in every civilised country, with the gipsy strain in their blood, who never can be at rest until they are in motion, to whom a settled abode is irksome, and to whom the notion of blessedness is that they shall be out in the free plains. ‘Amplius,’ the dying Xavier’s word, ‘further afield,’ is the motto of all noble life-scientist, scholar, artist, man of letters, man of affairs; all come under the same law, that unless there is something before them which has dominated their hearts, and draws their whole being towards it, their lives want salt, want nobility, want freshness, and a green scum comes over the pool. We all know that. To live is to aspire; to cease to aspire is to die.

Well then, looking all round our horizon there stands out one path for aspiration which is clearly blessed to tread-one path, and one path alone. For, oh brethren! there are needs in all our hearts, deep longings, terrible wounds, dreary solitudes, which can only be appeased and healed and companioned when we are pressing nearer and nearer God, that infinite and divine Source of all blessedness, of all peace and good. To possess God is life; to feel after God is life, too. For that aim is sure, as we shall see, to be satisfied. That aim gives, and it is the only one which does give, adequate occupation for every power of a man’s soul; that aim brings, simultaneously with its being entertained, its being satisfied; for, as I have already said, in the one act of faith there lie both these elements of blessedness-the possession of, and the seeking after, God. The religious life is distinguished from all others in two respects; one is the contemporaneousness and co-existence of desire and fruition, and the other is the impossibility that fruition shall ever be so complete and perfect as that desire shall die. And because thus all my nature may reach out its yearnings to Him, and in reaching out may find that after which it feels, and yet, finding it, must feel after it all the more; therefore, high above all other delights of search, high above all other blessednesses of pilgrimage, high above all the buoyancy and concentration of aim and contempt of hindrances which pour into a soul, before which the unattained ideal burns beckoning and inviting, there stands the blessedness of the man ‘in whose heart are the ways’ which lead to God in Zion.

II. And now notice the blessedness of the pilgrims’ experience.

If you use the Revised Version you will see the changes upon the Authorised which it makes, following the stream of modern critics and commentators, and which may thus be reproduced: ‘Passing through the Valley of Weeping, they make it a place of springs, the rain also covereth it with blessings.’ No doubt the poet is referring here to the actual facts of the pilgrimage to Zion, No doubt, on some one of the roads, there lay a gloomy gorge, the name of which was the Valley of Weeping; either because it dimly commemorated some half-forgotten tragedy long ago, or, more probably, because it was arid and frowning and full of difficulty for the travellers on the march. The Psalmist uses that name with a lofty imaginative freedom, which itself confirms the view that I have taken, that there is something deeper in the psalm than the mere external circumstances of the pilgrimages to the Holy City. For, he says, ‘passing through the Valley of Weeping, they make it a place of springs.’ They, as it were, pour their tears into the wells, and they become sources of refreshment and fertility.

But there are other kinds of moisture than tears and fountains. And so he goes on: ‘the rain also’ from above ‘covereth it with blessings’; the blessings being, I suppose, the waving crops which the poet’s imagination conceives of as springing up all over the else arid ground. Irrigated thus by the pilgrims’ labour, and rained upon thus by God’s gift from heaven, ‘the wilderness rejoices and blossoms as the rose.’

Now, translate that-it scarcely needs translation, I suppose, to anybody who will read the psalm with the least touch of a poetic imagination-translate that, and it just comes to this. If we have in our hearts, as our chief aim, the desire to get closer to God, then our sorrows and our tears will become sources of refreshment and fertility. Ah! how different all our troubles, large and little, look when we take as our great aim in life what is God’s great purpose in giving us life-viz. that we should be moulded into His likeness and enriched by the possession of Himself. That takes the sting out of sorrow, and although it leaves us in no morbid condition of insensibility, it yet makes it possible for us to gather our tears into reservoirs which shall be to us the sources of many a blessing, and many a thankfulness. He puts them into His bottle; we have to put them into our wells. And be sure of this, that if we understood better the meaning of life, that it was all intended to be our road to God, and if we judged of things more from that point of view, we should less frequently be brought to stand by what we call the mysteries of Providence and more able to wring out of them all the rich honey which is stored in them all for us. Not the least of the blessednesses of the pilgrim heart is its power of transmitting the pilgrim’s tears into the pilgrim’s wells. Brothers! do you bring such thoughts to bear on the disappointments, anxieties, sorrows, losses that befall you, be they great or small? If you do, you will have learned, better than I can say it, how strangely grief changes its aspect when it is looked upon as the helper and servant to our progress towards God.

But that is not all. If, with the pilgrims’ hearts, we rightly use our sorrows, we shall not be left to find refreshment and fertilising power only in ourselves, but the benediction of the rain from heaven will come down, and the great Spirit of God will fall upon our hearts, not in a flood that drowns, but broken up into a beneficent mist that falls quietly upon us, and brings with itself the assurance of fertility. And so the secret of turning the desert into abundance, and tears into blessings, lies in having the pilgrim’s heart.

III. Notice the blessedness of the pilgrims’ advance.

‘They go from strength to strength.’ I do not know whether the Psalmist means to use that word ‘strength’ in the significance which it also has in old English, of a fortified place, so that the metaphor would be that from one camp of security, one fortress to another, they journey safe always, because of their protection; or whether he means to use it rather in its plain and simple sense, according to which the significance would be that these happy pilgrims do not get worn out on the journey, as is the wont of men that set out, for instance, from some far corner of India to Mecca, and come in battered and travel-stained, and half dead with their privations, but that the further they go the stronger they become; and on the road gain more vigour than they could ever have gained by ease and indulgence in their homes. But, whichever of these two meanings we may be disposed to adopt, the great thought that comes out of both of them is identical-viz. that this is one of the distinguishing joys of a Christian career of pressing forward to closer communion and conformity with our Lord and Master, in whom God is manifested-viz. that we grow day by day in strength, and that effort does not weaken, but invigorates.

And now I have to put a very plain question. Is that growing strength anything like the general characteristic of us professing Christians? I wonder how many people there are listening to me now that have been members of Christian churches for half a century almost, but are not a bit better than they were away back in the years that they have almost forgotten? I wonder in how many of our cases there has been an arrested development, like that which you will sometimes see in deformed people, the lower limbs all but atrophied? I wonder how many of us are babes of forty years old, and from how many of our minds the very conception of continual growth, as an essential of Christian life, has altogether vanished? Brother! are you any further than you were ten years ago?

I remember once, long ago, when I was on board a sailing ship, that we had baffling winds as we tried to run up the coast; and morning after morning for a week we used to come up on deck, and there were the same windmill, and the same church-tower that we had seen last night, and the night before and the night before that. That is the sort of voyage that a great many of you Christian people are making. There may be motion; there is no progress. Round and round and round you go. That is not the way to get to Zion. ‘They go from strength to strength,’ and unless you are doing that, you know little about the blessedness of the pilgrim heart.

IV. Lastly, note the blessedness of the pilgrims’ arrival.

‘Every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.’ Then there is one road on which whosoever travels is sure to reach his goal. On all others caravans get lost, overwhelmed in a sandstorm, or slain by robbers; and the bleached bones of men and camels lie there on the sand for centuries. This caravan always arrives. For no man ever wanted God who did not possess Him, and the measure of our desire is the prophecy of our possession. Surely it is worth while, even from the point of view of self-interest, to forsake all these lower aims in which success is absolutely problematical, or, while pursuing them as far as duty and necessity require, in and through them, as well as above and beyond them, to press towards the one aim in which failure is impossible. You cannot say about say other course-’Blessed is the man that enters on it, for he is sure to reach what he desires.’ Other goals are elusive; the golden circlet may never drop upon your locks. But there is one path on which all that you seek you shall have, and you are on it if ‘in your hearts are the ways.’

I need not say a word about the ultimate fulfilment of this great promise of our text; how that there is not only in our psalm, gleaming through it, a reference to the communion of earth rather than to the external Presence in the sanctuary, but there is also hinted, though less consciously, to the Psalmist himself, yet necessarily from the nature of the case the perfecting of that earthly communion in the higher house of the Lord in the heavenly Zion. Are all these desires, these longings, these efforts after God which make the nobleness and the blessedness of a life on earth, and which are always satisfied, and yet never satiated, to be crushed into nothingness by the accident of bodily dissolution? Then, then, the darkest of all clouds is drawn over the face of God, and we are brought into a state of absolute intellectual bewilderment as to what life, futile and frail, has been for at all. No, brother! God never gives mouths but He sends meat to fill them; and He has not suffered His children to long after Him, to press after Him, only in order that the partial fulfilment of their desires and yearnings which is possible upon earth should be all their experience.

‘He thinks he was not made to die,

And Thou hast made him; Thou art just.’

Be sure that ‘every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.’

So, brethren! let us take the pilgrim scrip and staff; and be sure of this, that the old blessed word will be fulfilled, that we shall not be lost in the wilderness, where there is no way, nor grope and search after elusive and fleeting good; but that ‘the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

84:5-7 The pilgrimage to Jerusalem reenacted the Exodus, when God marvelously provided for his people (see 78:15-16; 105:41). The psalmist imagines the pains of travel turning to the joy of arrival.

84:5 Travelers needed strength to meet the challenges of pilgrimage by foot along unpaved paths, in all kinds of weather and with the possibility of assaults.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Who trusteth nothing in himself, but in thee only, and learneth of thee to rule his life.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 5. The man whose strength is in thee]

"Who life and strength from thee derives;

And by thee moves and in thee lives."

In whose heart are the ways of them] This is no sense. The original, however, is obscure: מסלות בלבבם mesilloth bilebabam, "the high ways are in their hearts;" that is, the roads winding to thy temple. Perhaps there is a reference here to the high roads leading to the cities of refuge. We wish to escape from the hands and dominion of these murderers, and the roads that lead to Jerusalem and the temple we think on with delight; our hearts are with them, we long to be travelling on them.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

5 Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee. David again informs us, that the purpose for which he desired liberty of access to the sanctuary was, not merely to gratify his eyes with what was to be seen there, but to make progress in faith. To lean with the whole heart upon God, is to attain to no ordinary degree of advancement: and this cannot be attained by any man, unless all his pride is laid prostrate in the dust, and his heart truly humbled. In proposing to himself this way of seeking God, David’s object is to borrow from him by prayer the strength of which he feels himself to be destitute. The concluding clause of the verse, the ways are in their hearts, is by some interpreted as meaning, That those are happy who walk in the way which God has appointed; for nothing is more injurious to a man than to trust in his own understanding. It is not improperly said of the law, “This is the way, walk ye in it,” Isaiah 30:21. Whenever then men turn aside, however little it may be, from the divine law, they go astray, and become entangled in perverse errors. But it is more appropriate to restrict the clause to the scope of the passage, and to understand it as implying, that those are happy whose highest ambition it is to have God as the guide of their life, and who therefore desire to draw near to him. God, as we have formerly observed, is not satisfied with mere outward ceremonies. What he desires is, to rule and keep in subjection to himself all whom he invites to his tabernacle. Whoever then has learned how great a blessedness it is to rely upon God, will put forth all the desires and faculties of his mind, that with all speed he may hasten to Him.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(5) Blessed is the man.—Or collective, men, as the suffix, their hearts, shows.

Ways.—From a root meaning to cast up—and so highways marked by the heaps of stone piled up at the side (Isa_57:14). In Jer_18:15 mere footways or bypaths are contrasted, and so the highway lends itself as a metaphor for the way of peace and righteousness (Pro_12:28), as it is taken here by the Chaldee and some modern expositors. But this moral intention is secondary to the actual desire to join the pilgrim band towards Sion, and this the verse describes in words which are echoed exactly in our own Chaucer:

“So pricketh hem Nature in her corages (in their hearts)

Than longen folk to go on pilgrimages.”

The well-known and deeply loved route to the sacred shrine is in their minds, their hearts are set upon it.

(5-7) In these verses, as in the analogous picture (Isa_35:6-8; comp. Hos_2:15-16), there is a blending of the real and the figurative; the actual journey towards Sion is represented as accompanied with ideal blessings of peace and refreshment. It is improbable that the poet would turn abruptly from the description of the swallows in the Temple to what looks like a description of a real journey, with a locality, or at all events a district, which was well known, introduced by its proper name, and yet intend only a figurative reference. On the other hand, it is quite in the Hebrew manner to mix up the ideal with the actual, and to present the spiritual side by side with the literal. We have, then, here recorded the actual experience of a pilgrim’s route. But quite naturally and correctly has the world seen in it a description of the pilgrimage of life, and drawn from it many a sweet and consoling lesson.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5. Happy are the men whose strength is in thee;

In whose hearts are the highways (to Zion).

Happy are those whose minds are wholly set on pilgrimage to Zion. The phrase is peculiar and to Zion must be supplied; but this is preferable to rendering highways are in their hearts, and explaining highways as a metaphor for right ways of life. The Targ., in whose hearts is confidence, is probably only a free paraphrase. Wellhausen would follow the LXX, and read goings up, i.e. pilgrimages. See Introd. p. xxix.

5–8. Yet not only those are happy, who reside within the precincts of the Temple, but those who in the strength of God surmounting every obstacle appear in His Presence and offer their prayers.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Who passing through the valley of Baca,.... Kimchi interprets it a valley of springs, or fountains, taking the word to be of the same signification as in Job 38:16, and mention being made of a well and pools in it, or of mulberry trees, which grow, as he says, in a place where there is no water, and such a place was this; and therefore pools or ditches were dug in it, and built of stone, to catch rain water for the supply of travellers; and so Aben Ezra says, it is the name of a place or valley where were trees, called mulberries; and is by some thought to be the same with the valley of Rephaim, where we read of mulberry trees, Sa2 5:22, the Septuagint render it "the valley of weeping", and the Vulgate Latin version "the valley of tears"; which have led some interpreters to think of Bochim, a place so called from the children of Israel weeping there, Jdg 2:1, it does not seem to design any particular place, through which all the males could not pass from the different parts of the land of Israel, as they came to Zion at the three grand festivals; but any difficult and troublesome place, any rough valley, or dry and thirsty land, where there was no water: so saints are passengers, travellers, or pilgrims, in this world, and often pass through a valley; are in a low valley, through the weakness of grace; a rough one, through affliction; and a dark one, through desertion and temptation; and a valley of weeping and tears, on account both of outward and inward trials. The way to Zion, or to the house and ordinances of God below, lies through the valley of weeping; none come rightly thither but who come weeping over their sins and unworthiness; or by repentance towards God, and by looking by faith to Christ whom they have pierced, and mourning for it; see Jer 50:4 and the way to Zion above lies through a vale of tears, shed in plenty by reason of sin, a man's own, original and actual, the sins of professors and profane, by reason of Satan's temptations, the hidings of God's face, and the distresses, divisions, and declensions of Zion; yet relief is afforded, help is given, refreshment is had, in this valley, for such passengers:

they make it a well; either the valley a well with their tears, an hyperbolical expression, like that in Lam 2:18 or they account it as such, a dry valley, as if it was a well watered place; look upon all their toil and labour in going to the house of God as a pleasure; and esteem all reproach, afflictions, and persecutions, they meet with from the world, or relations, for the sake of religion, as riches and honours; or they find a supply, which is kindly and graciously given, even rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of valleys, streams of divine love, and precious promises in a wilderness, Isa 41:18 "or make him a well" (a): that is, God himself; they account of him as such; they find him to be so, and make use of him as one, who is a well of living waters; such are his love, his covenant, and his grace; such are his Son and his fulness, his Spirit, the gifts and graces of it; all which yield a rich supply:

the rain also filleth the pools; of the word and ordinances: "or the rain covereth with blessings" (b); the rain of divine love covers the passengers with spiritual blessings, which flow from it; Christ, whose coming is compared to the rain, brings a train of blessings with him to his people; and the Gospel, which drops as the rain, and distils as the dew, is full of the blessings of Christ; is a glorious revelation of them, and is the means of conveying them to the saints; or the "teacher covereth", or "is covered with blessings" (c); the great Teacher of all, God, Father, Son, and Spirit; the Father teaches all his children to great profit and advantage, and covers or blesses them with all spiritual blessings; the Son is a teacher come from God, and is covered or loaded with the blessings of goodness, and communicates them to his disciples and followers; and the Spirit teacheth all things, and takes of the things of Christ, the blessings of his grace, and covers his people with them; and all under teachers, ministers of the Gospel, are clothed with salvation, and come forth in the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ.

(a) "fontem constituunt eum", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Ainsworth; "Deum ipsum", Piscator, Gejerus, Michaelis. (b) "quam in benedictionibus operit pluvia", Cocceius. (c) "Benedictionibus operietur docens", Montanus; "benedictiones induit doctor", Gejerus, Michaelis; so Gussetius, p. 725.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee - Not merely are they blessed who dwell there permanently, but the man also whose heart is there; who feels that his strength is in God alone who loves to go there when opportunity is afforded him, treading his way to Zion. The idea is, that all strength must come from God; that this Strength is to be obtained by waiting on him (compare the notes at Isa 40:31), and that, therefore, it is a privilege thus to wait on God. Compare Psa 84:7.

In whose heart are the ways of them - literally, “The ways in their heart.” DeWette renders this, “Who thinketh on the ways, or paths, to Jerusalem.” The word “ways” may refer either to the ways or paths that lead to the place of worship, or the ways to God and to heaven. As the allusion, however, is evidently to those who were accustomed to go up to the place of public worship, the meaning is, that the man is blessed or happy whose heart is on those ways; who thinks on them; who makes preparation for going up; who purposes thus to go up to worship. The sense is enfeebled in our translation by the insertion of the words “of them.” The literal translation is better: “The ways, that is, the paths, the going up, the journey, to the place of public worship, are in their heart.” Their affections; their thoughts are there. The word rendered ways, means commonly a raised way, a highway, but it may refer to any public path. It would be applicable to what we call a turnpike (road), as a way thrown up for public use. The allusion is to the ways or paths by which the people commonly went up to the place of public worship; and the idea may be well expressed in the language of Watts:

“I love her gates, I love the road.”

The sentiment thus expressed finds a response in thousands of hearts: in the happiness - the peace - the joy - with which true worshippers go to the house of God. In the mind of the writer of the psalm this would have an additional beauty and attractiveness as being associated with the thought of the multitudes thronging that path - the groups - the companies - the families - that crowded the way to the place of public worship on their great festal occasions.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Whose strength is in thee; who trusteth in thee as his only strength, and refuge, and portion. Or, who hath strength in (or rather for, as the Hebrew prefix beth is frequently used, as hath been noted again and again) thee, i.e. who hath (or who useth; for having is sometimes put for using; of which see Mat 13:12; 1Co 7:2) ability of body and mind for thee, and for thy service; or for that journey which here he seems to insinuate, and in the following words and verses he particularly describes. For it must be considered that all the males of Israel were obliged to come to the tabernacle or temple thrice in a year, Exo 34:23,24, and that some of them lived at a great distance, and consequently were to take a long and troublesome journey, which also might at some times and places be accompanied with hazards and other inconveniences; and therefore such as wanted either courage or bodily strength might be discouraged or hindered from undertaking it, and from the enjoyment of God in his solemn and public worship; which though in some cases it might not be their sin, yet surely it was a great affliction and infelicity; and consequently it was a blessed thing to be freed from those impediments, as the psalmist here observes.

In whose heart are the ways of them, i.e. of these men; for though man be thee singular number, it is understood collectively of all that sort or company of men. But these words, of them, are not in the Hebrew, and, as some learned men have observed, seem to disturb or darken the sense. Others therefore seem to render the words better and more agreeably to the Hebrew text,

in whose heart are thy (which pronoun is oft understood)

ways, to wit, those ways which lead to thy house; or, the ways, so called emphatically, or by way of eminency, the ways of (or, to) Zion, as they are called Lam 1:4, as is evident from Psa 84:7. So the meaning is, Blessed are they whose thoughts and affections are much and strongly fixed upon the highways, and their journeys to Zion, who have both strength of body, as is said in the former branch, and readiness of heart, as is here added, to go to Zion; which are the two qualifications requisite for their journey. Blessed are they whose hearts are set upon Zion and their journeys thither; that are continually, or from time to time, stirring up and bespeaking themselves and others, as they did, Jer 31:6, Arise ye, let us go up to Zion unto the Lord our God. As when a man’s heart is knit in true friendship to one that lives at some distance from him, he is oft thinking with great desire and delight of the place where he dwelleth, and of the way leading to it.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

5. In whose heart are the ways of them—Hebrew, The highways are in their hearts. The “ways,” or highways, are the roads, or pilgrim routes, leading to Jerusalem, “the ways of Zion,” Lam_1:4 :—the principal roads taken in going up to the annual feasts. The true worshipper loved these “ways” and delighted to travel them; they were “in” his “heart,” because they led to the sanctuary, the dwelling-place of Jehovah. In the enthusiastic periods of their history, the Moslems took great care of the pilgrim routes to Mecca, and to provide khans, or resting stations, along the way.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee. God is the "Strength" of all who trust in him. The psalmist seems to mean that mere dwelling in the house of God is not enough for blessedness. Trust in God having God for one"s Strength is also requisite (comp. ver. 12). In whose heart are the ways of them; literally, in whose heart are highways. The "highways" intended are probably those of holiness. (comp. Pro_16:17 and Isa_35:8)

Vers. 5, 6. The joy of the pilgrims.

In these verses there is a blending of the real and the figurative; the actual journey towards Zion is represented as accompanied with ideal blessings of peace and refreshment. The poet has thought of the blessedness of those who dwell constantly in God"s house. Now he thinks of the blessedness of those who are permitted to go there, and to tarry there for a while. And this leads him to recall what happy times he had known, even in the journeys to Jerusalem. Perowne says of the pilgrims to Zion, "Every spot of the familiar read, every station at which they have rested, lives in their heart. The path may be dry and dusty, through a lonely and sorrowful valley, but nevertheless they love it. The pilgrim band, rich in hope, forget the trials and difficulties of the way; hope changes the rugged and stony waste into living fountains." The valley of Baca was the valley which led up from Jordan toward Jerusalem, and whose famous balsam trees wept balms. The thought for our consideration is this the hearts that are truly set on God, and filled with desire to join in God"s worship, will cheerfully bear, and successfully master, all the difficulties that may be in their way. They make the very "valley of Baca" refreshing as a spring.

I THE CHRISTIAN PILGRIM FINDS HIS WAY LIES THROUGH VALLEYS OF BACA. Two explanations of this valley are given. Some say it means "wet, marshy places;" others say, "dry, sandy places." Clearly it means something trying and difficult for pilgrims. We know well that there are difficulties in the way of our effort to live the godly life; valleys of Baca in our pilgrim route to the eternal temple of the holy.

1. There are valleys of weeping; sorrows, both outward and inward (valleys of balsam, or weeping).

2. Valleys of unrelieved want; desert places. Illustrate the ever-varied, ever-unquenchable thirst of the spiritual life.

II A BRAVE, EARNEST SPIRIT WILL MAKE A WAY THROUGH THESE VALLEYS OF BACA. Times of trouble we must have, but everything depends on the spirit in which we approach them, and deal with them. The true heart is helped to triumph over the difficulties of the way, by keeping ever in mind the end it has in view. Lead on to show how the heaven of established holiness, and near communion with God, becomes the inspiration to overcoming the difficulties of the way.

III GOD RESPONDS TO THE EARNEST MAN IN THE VALLEYS OF BACA. If they dig pools in the desert, God will be sure to fill them with his genial rains. God is to us in blessing as we are to him in trust. R.T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Whose strength - Who trusteth in thee as his only strength. Thy ways - Blessed are they whose hearts are set upon Zion and their journey is thither.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

This second half takes up the "blessed" of the distichic epode (epoodo's) of the first, and consequently joins member to member chain-like on to it. Many hindrances must be cleared away if the poet is to get back to Zion, his true home; but his longing carries the surety within itself of its fulfilment: blessed, yea in himself blessed, is the man, who has his strength (עוז only here plene) in God, so that, consequently, the strength of Him to whom all things are possible is mighty in his weakness. What is said in Psa 84:6 is less adapted to be the object of the being called blessed than the result of that blessed relationship to God. What follows shows that the "high-roads" are not to be understood according to Isa 40:3., or any other passage, as an ethical, notional figure (Venema, Hengstenberg, Hitzig, and others), but according to Isa 33:8 (cf. Jer 31:21), with Aben-Ezra, Vatablus, and the majority of expositors, of the roads leading towards Zion; not, however, as referring to the return from the Exile, but to the going up to a festival: the pilgrim-high-roads with their separate halting-places (stations) were constantly present to the mind of such persons. And though they may be driven never so far away from them, they will nevertheless reach the goal of their longing. The most gloomy present becomes bright to them: passing through even a terrible wilderness, they turn it (ישׁיתהו) into a place of springs, their joyous hope and the infinite beauty of the goal, which is worth any amount of toil and trouble, afford them enlivening comfort, refreshing strengthening in the midst of the arid steppe. עמק הבּכא does not signify the "Valley of weeping," as Hupfeld at last renders it (lxx κοιλάδα τοῦ κλαυθμῶνος), although Burckhardt found a [Arab.] wâdı̂ 'l-bk' (Valley of weeping) in the neighbourhood of Sinai. In Hebrew "weeping" is בּכי, בּכה, בּכוּת, not בּכא, Rnan, in the fourth chapter of his Vie de Jsus, understands the expression to mean the last station of those who journey from northern Palestine on this side of the Jordan towards Jerusalem, viz., Ain el-Haramı̂je, in a narrow and gloomy valley where a black stream of water flows out of the rocks in which graves are dug, so that consequently עמק הככא signifies Valley of tears or of trickling waters. But such trickling out of the rock is also called בּכי, Job 28:11, and not בּכא. This latter is the singular to בּכאים in Sa2 5:24 (cf. נכאים, צבאים, Psa 103:21), the name of a tree, and, according to the old Jewish lexicographers, of the mulberry-tree (Talmudic תּוּת, Arab. tût); but according to the designation, of a tree from which some kind of fluid flows, and such a tree is the Arab. baka'un, resembling the balsam-tree, which is very common in the arid valley of Mecca, and therefore might also have given its name to some arid valley of the Holy Land (vid., Winer's Realwrterbuch, s.v. Bacha), and, according to Sa2 5:22-25, to one belonging, as it would appear, to the line of valley which leads from the coasts of the Philistines to Jerusalem. What is spoken of in passages like Isa 35:7; Isa 41:18, as being wrought by the omnipotence of God, who brings His people home to Zion, appears here as the result of the power of faith in those who, keeping the same end of their journeyings in view, pass through the unfruitful sterile valley. That other side, however, also does not remain unexpressed. Not only does their faith bring forth water out of the sand and rock of the desert, but God also on His part lovingly anticipates their love, and rewardingly anticipates their faithfulness: a gentle rain, like that which refreshes the sown fields in the autumn, descends from above and enwraps it (viz., the Valley of Baca) in a fulness of blessing (יעטּה, Hiphil with two accusatives, of which one is to be supplied: cf. on the figure, Ps 65:14). The arid steppe becomes resplendent with a flowery festive garment (Isa 35:1.), not to outward appearance, but to them spiritually, in a manner none the less true and real. And whereas under ordinary circumstances the strength of the traveller diminishes in proportion as he has traversed more and more of his toilsome road, with them it is the very reverse; they go from strength to strength (cf. on the expression, Jer 9:2; Jer 12:2), i.e., they receive strength for strength (cf. on the subject-matter, Isa 40:31; Joh 1:16), and that an ever increasing strength, the nearer they come to the desired goal, which also they cannot fail to reach. The pilgrim-band (this is the subject to יראה), going on from strength to (אל) strength, at last reaches, attains to (אל instead of the אל־פּני used in other instances) Elohim in Zion. Having reached this final goal, the pilgrim-band pours forth its heart in the language of prayer such as we have in Psa 84:9, and the music here strikes up and blends its sympathetic tones with this converse of the church with its God.

The poet, however, who in spirit accompanies them on their pilgrimage, is now all the more painfully conscious of being at the present time far removed from this goal, and in the next strophe prays for relief. He calls God מגנּנוּ (as in Psa 59:12), for without His protection David's cause is lost. May He then behold (ראה, used just as absolutely as in Ch2 24:22, cf. Lam 3:50), and look upon the face of His anointed, which looks up to Him out of the depth of its reproach. The position of the words shows that מגנּנוּ is not to be regarded as the object to ראה, according to Psa 89:19 (cf. Ps 47:10) and in opposition to the accentuation, for why should it not then have been אלהים ראה מגננו? The confirmation (Psa 84:11) puts the fact that we have before us a Psalm belonging to the time of David's persecution by Absalom beyond all doubt. Manifestly, when his king prevails, the poet will at the same time (cf. David's language, Sa2 15:25) be restored to the sanctuary. A single day of his life in the courts of God is accounted by him as better than a thousand other days (מאלף with Olewejored and preceded by Rebia parvum). He would rather lie down on the threshold (concerning the significance of this הסתּופף in the mouth of a Korahite, vid., supra, p. 311) in the house of his God than dwell within in the tents of ungodliness (not "palaces," as one might have expected, if the house of God had at that time been a palace). For how worthless is the pleasure and concealment to be had there, when compared with the salvation and protection which Jahve Elohim affords to His saints! This is the only instance in which God is directly called a sun (שׁמשׁ) in the sacred writings (cf. Sir. 42:16). He is called a shield as protecting those who flee to Him and rendering them inaccessible to their foes, and a sun as the Being who dwells in an unapproachable light, which, going forth from Him in love towards men, is particularized as חן and כבוד, as the gentle and overpowering light of the grace and glory (χάρις and δόξα) of the Father of Lights. The highest good is self-communicative (communicativum sui). The God of salvation does not refuse any good thing to those who walk בּתמים (בּדרך תמים, Psa 101:6; cf. on Psa 15:2). Upon all receptive ones, i.e., all those who are desirous and capable of receiving His blessings, He freely bestows them out of the abundance of His good things. Strophe and anti-strophe are doubled in this second half of the song. The epode closely resembles that which follows the first half. And this closing ashrê is not followed by any Sela. The music is hushed. The song dies away with an iambic cadence into a waiting expectant stillness.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

Blessed is the man

Here "man" refers to people in general. (See: Generic Noun Phrases and When Masculine Words Include Women)

whose strength is in you

God is spoken of as if strength was actually found in him. AT: "whom you strengthen" (See: Metaphor)

in whose heart are the highways up to Zion

This expression is about heart-felt desire. AT: "Who love to go up to Zion" or "Who earnestly wish go up to Zion" (See: Metaphor)

highways

roads built higher than the surrounding ground

up to Zion

The temple was in Jerusalem on the top of the highest hill, called Mount Zion.

the Valley of Tears

This refers to a dry, arid place. Some Bible versions have "the Valley of Baca." The word "Baca" means "weeping."

The early rains

This means the rain that falls in autumn before the cold season. This is during the months of October and November on Western calendars.

blessings

Here the word "blessings" is a metonym for the pools of water that make people who live in dry lands happy. AT: "pools of water that make them happy"

translationWords

strength

Zion

fountain

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Fortunate is he who will yet merit to dwell in Your house, and they will yet praise you in its midst.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.