The superscription gives this psalm to the sons of Korah, and its opening cry sounds like it came from people who knew the temple from the inside. 1"How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts!" The word behind "lovely" comes from the vocabulary of love; it is the word for "beloved." 2"My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD." The whole body is involved, and the longing is aimed at a presence. The place matters because of who is found there, and anyone who has loved a house only because someone dear lives in it knows what the psalm is confessing.
Then the image everyone remembers. 3"Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself." The psalmist almost envies the birds, who have a nest at God's own altar while he stands outside. The detail that the swallow lays her young there matters too. Whoever has found a home near God wants their children to have a place there as well.
The blessings come in more than one form. 4"Blessed are those who dwell in your house," and then 5"Blessed are those whose strength is in you." One blessing is for those who have arrived and another for those still on the road, and a last one, at the end, is for anyone who trusts him. Nearness to God comes in more than one shape. A pilgrim still walking the road is counted blessed every bit as much as someone already at the altar.
Then a picture of what pilgrims do with hardship. 6"they make it a place of springs." No one is certain where Baca was. It was likely a dry and hard stretch on the way to Jerusalem, and the name sounds like weeping. The pilgrims do not just survive the crossing. They change it, and the valley of tears becomes, under their feet, a place of springs with rain pooling where there was dust. It is one of Scripture's clearest pictures of a faith that draws blessing out of hardship. 7"They go from strength to strength," growing stronger as they near the destination, when an ordinary traveler would be wearing down.
Then the verse that has outlived its original setting: 10"For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere." A doorkeeper's place beats the tents of wickedness. The comparison is proximity against distance. Standing room at his threshold is worth more than a reserved seat anywhere else.
The psalm closes with a title and a promise. 11"a sun and shield," warmth and protection in one name, and 12"blessed is the one who trusts in you." Dwelling, journeying, and trusting turn out to be three ways of describing the same nearness.
If you are in a valley right now, the psalm does not ask you to skip it. It asks what the pilgrim does inside it, and the answer is to keep walking toward the courts, and to expect springs.
Prayer
Father, how lovely is your dwelling place, and how often we settle for comfort at a distance from you. Whatever valley of weeping we are walking through, make it under our feet a place of springs. Let us go from strength to strength, and let a single day near you outweigh a thousand spent apart. Blessed is the one who trusts in you; let that be true of us. In Jesus' name, amen.