Today's Featured Psalm
Psalm 84

Read this Psalm

To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah.

1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
   O LORD of hosts!
2 My soul longs, yes, faints
   for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
   to the living God.

3 Even the sparrow finds a home,
   and the swallow a nest for herself,
   where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O LORD of hosts,
   my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house,
   ever singing your praise! Selah

5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
   in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
6 As they go through the Valley of Baca
   they make it a place of springs;
   the early rain also covers it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength;
   each one appears before God in Zion.

8 O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer;
   give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah
9 Behold our shield, O God;
   look on the face of your anointed!

10 For a day in your courts is better
   than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
   than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
   the LORD bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
   from those who walk uprightly.
12 O LORD of hosts,
   blessed is the one who trusts in you!

Scripture taken from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Psalm Devotional
Tabernacles of Grace

On Jan. 26, 1681, two young women, Isobel Alison and Marion Harvie, sang Psalm 84 on a scaffold in Edinburgh, Scotland. They faced execution for agreeing with the Covenanters’ declaration of King Charles II as a usurper of the crown rights of Jesus Christ. Whatever you think of the civil and religious conflict in 17th Century Scotland, there is something intrinsically tyrannical about a regime that can kill servant girls for their theological views—especially sound views of the Lordship of Christ in relation to the pretensions of earthly rulers. What a glorious testimony to sing this wonderful psalm in the full flow of hope in Christ when a noose is wrapped around the neck.

Psalm 84 is about loving God’s house and enjoying God’s presence on both sides of eternity. The psalmist speaks in the context of the centrality of the temple in Jerusalem to the life of God’s people and expounds the experience of public worship according to God’s ordinances.

You are blessed in longing for God’s house (vv. 1-4). The psalmist isn’t “in church.” The temple is far off. The synagogue is not yet an institution. As he lives his daily life, his heart and mind turn to Jerusalem, to God’s house and his desire to be there to worship the Lord. He notes three things in particular:

Listen to this Psalm

Zion album art How Lovely, Lord (Psalm 84A)
The Book of Psalms for Worship | Zion
Zion album art Advancing Still (Psalm 84B)
The Book of Psalms for Worship | Zion
Refuge album art Your Dwelling Places, Lord (Psalm 84C)
The Book of Psalms for Worship | Refuge
Communion album art O Hear My Prayer (Psalm 84D)
The Book of Psalms for Worship | Communion
Power of Praise album art Advancing Still from Strength to Strength (Psalm 84B)
The Book of Psalms for Singing | Power of Praise