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Psalm 84 has several liturgical associations. For example, in all three strophes (1–4, 5–7, 8–12) the term ‘Lord of Hosts’, reminiscent of the prophet Isaiah’s vision of God in the Temple in Isaiah 6, occurs (verses 1, 3, 8 and 12). The motif of ‘blessed’ at the end of the first strophe (verse 4), the beginning of the second (verse 5) and the end of the third (verse 12) also suggests liturgical influence. It is unclear whether the suppliant is literally entering the Temple, or whether, like its counterpart, in the first *Korahite collection, Psalms 42–43, the psalm has been composed far from it, using liturgical language in memory of the Temple; this would continue the theme of ongoing exile which is throughout Book Three. *Kimḥi, for example, sees Psalm 84 as about David fleeing from Saul to live in Philistia, where he longed to be in the sanctuary of God (at this stage, not the Jerusalem Temple, as yet unbuilt), and so argues that the early setting corresponds with the present Jewish experience of Diaspora without a Temple. According to Kimḥi this makes sense of the reference to the homing instincts of the birds in the sanctuary (verse 3).¹⁸²

Verse 3 is a one of the three most debated verses in the reception of this psalm. Whereas the ‘home’ and ‘nest’ are, in Jewish reception, an allusion to the Temple, in Christian reception they refer to the church—according to *Jerome, a place of rest for the body and soul, inaugurated through Christ.¹⁸³ Another issue is whether verse 3 is about a future (eternal) rest or an imminent (this-worldly) one. Many Jews read the verse in the latter way. *Rashi, for example, understands the ‘sparrow’ as a metaphor for the congregation of Israel, still not having found a home.¹⁸⁴ He also reads ‘the tents of wickedness’ in verse 11 (Eng. v. 10) in the light of Ps. 83:6 (‘the tents of Edom’). Reading Edom/Esau as European Christendom, Rashi thus argues that this psalm is about Jerusalem as the proper home of the Jews alone.¹⁸⁵ However, not surprisingly, a Christian reading, using Heb. 13:14 as an example, reads verses 3 and 4 as not only about the church but about the Christian’s pilgrimage towards a heavenly sanctuary. *Calvin, for example, notes how the blessings of pilgrimage (verses 4 and 5) are also interspersed with great hardships through the ‘Valley of Baca’ (verse 6), yet the final verse of the psalm ends with a final blessing and confident prayer.¹⁸⁶

A second disputed verse is 84:6. Here both the *Septuagint and *Vulgate translate ‘Baca’ metaphorically as a ‘valley of tears’, taken from the Hebrew b-k-h, ‘to weep’. It could however refer literally to a pilgrimage to the Temple through a Valley called Baca. *Targum, meanwhile, identifies baka’ with the bitter-tasting balsam shrub grown in the valley of the same name (see 2 Sam. 5:23–24), and so views it as a reference to *Gehenna and the bitter experience of being transported from a near-death experience back to life. ‘The wicked who pass through the valleys of Gehenna weep tears; they make it as a spring.’¹⁸⁷

Verse 9 (‘look on the face of your anointed’) also has an interesting reception history. *Aquinas (of whom it is said verse 10 inspired his choice to become a *Dominican friar) read this as the voice of Christ in the psalm, praying to the Father on behalf of the Church, and advises this psalm be read alongside the Gospel of Matthew.¹⁸⁸ *Rashi, in order to counter a Christian reading, inserts ‘David’ before the ‘anointed one’, thus giving the verse a historical focus.¹⁸⁹

It is not surprising that this psalm has played a prominent role in Jewish liturgy. It is often used at Jewish weddings and indeed opens the marriage service of the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain.¹⁹⁰ Its theme of yearning for the Temple also gives it a place in the *Siddurim: verse 5 is often cited after the *Pesuke de-Zimra and the Torah reading and before Psalm 145 in the *Ashkenazi morning service, and in the Sephardic tradition the psalm opens the afternoon service.¹⁹¹

The psalm also plays a prominent liturgical part in different Christian traditions, mainly by reading the ‘dwelling place’ (verse 1) and the ‘house of my God’ (verse 10) as the church. The hymn ‘Jerusalem the Golden!/The glory of the elect!/O dear and future vision/that eager hearts expect…’, written by the twelfth-century Benedictine monk, *Bernard of Cluny, may have been influenced by this psalm, along with Psalms 48 and 87.¹⁹² It was traditionally sung in its entirety at *Matins during the Feast of Corpus Christi, and verse 1 is a communion *antiphon in Lenten services in the western churches. ‘Rorate Caeli Desuper’ (‘Drop Down Ye Heavens From Above’), a Plainsong version known also as ‘Advent Prose’, expressing longing for the Messiah (as in Ps. 84:9) combines texts from Isaiah 45 with parts of this psalm; the arrangements for this liturgy by *Byrd and da *Palestrina are perhaps the best known. Byrd also arranged a setting of this psalm in English, in his 1588 Psalms, Sonnets and Songs of Gladness and Pietie.*Schütz also used this psalm in his Psalms of David, to be sung with *SATB and basso seguente.¹⁹³ Other choral settings to this psalm abound, including *Lyte’s ‘Pleasant are thy courts above’; *Weelkes’, *Parry’s and *Vaughan Williams’ different arrangements of *Coverdale’s ‘O How Amiable are thy Dwellings’ from the *BCP; and *Howells’ ‘One Thing Have I Desired’, all of which capture the spirit of this psalm in English.

Other than choral settings, several arrangements of this psalm might be cited. An unusual musical arrangement—partly because *Brahms was not an orthodox believer—his ‘Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen’ (from Ps. 84:1–2 and 4) which was used in his German Requiem, possibly composed following the death of his mother and first performed at Leipzig in 1869. The psalm is the fourth of seven movements, used as a ‘Beatitude’ (taken from one of psalm’s blessing formulae in verse 4), and this corresponds with the first and last movements, which are also Beatitudes. The arrangement of Psalm 84 sets a more joyful and earthy tone, imitating a Viennese Waltz, and contrasts with the other movements which reflect more on death.¹⁹⁴ *Rutter also used Psalm 84 in his Psalmfest (1993).¹⁹⁵ A more poignant arrangement is by Howard *Goodall: How Lovely are Your Dwellings/Quam Dilecta is sung by an all-female choir accompanied by a string quartet, capturing the nostalgic yearning for the presence of God, using the traditional Latin text in modern vein.¹⁹⁶

A Christianised appropriation of this psalm is also common in metrical psalmody: for example, Isaac *Watts composed four versions of this psalm, including the following which focusses not so much on ‘the church’, as on Christ himself:¹⁹⁷

The sparrow builds herself a nest,

And suffers no remove:

O make me, like the sparrows, blest

To dwell but where I love.

To sit one day beneath thine eye,

And hear thy gracious voice,

Exceeds a whole eternity

Employ’d in carnal joys.

Lord, at thy threshold I would wait

While Jesus is within,

Rather than fill a throne of state,

Or live in tents of sin.

The liturgical prominence of Psalm 84 also resulted in several seventeenth-century imitations in English poetry, but without any obvious Christian overlay. Three very different paraphrases must suffice. The first is by George *Sandys, who experimented with the idea of ‘longing for God’ (84:2) by using a trochaic (stressed, then unstressed) metre, creating 7 syllables to one line, and a rhyme for every couplet, thus creating an unevenness of expression:¹⁹⁸

Lord for thee I daily crie;

In thy absence hourely die.

Sparrowes there their young ones reare;

And the Summers Harbinger

By thy Alter builds her nest,

Where they take their envi’d rest.

O my King! O thou most High!

Arbiter of Victorie!

Happie men! Who spend their Dayes;

In thy Court, there sing thy Praise!

This could not be more different from his near contemporary Samuel Woodford’s version, which interprets same idea of longing for God so that, like the rest of his paraphrased psalms, it suggests a Pindaric ode, with its repeated three lines formula. Like Sandys, this was a personal contribution and unsuitable for liturgical use (as stated in his dedication to the Bishop of Winchester). The introductory verse, setting the psalm against a military background, creates a somewhat different focus from Sandys’ version:¹⁹⁹

Triumphant General of the Sacred Host,

Whom all the strength of Heav’n and earth obey,

Who hast a Thundering Legion in each Coast,

And Mighty Armies lifted, and in pay;

How fearfull art Thou in their head above,

Yet in Thy Temple, Lord: how full of Love?

So lovely is Thy Temple, and so fair, So like Thy self, that with desire I faint; My heart and flesh cry out to see Thee there, And could bear any thing but this restraint; My Soul dost on its old Remembrance feed, And new desires by my long absence breed.

A final example is by *Milton, who unusually chose a common metre (8–6–8–6) but combines this with his love of enjambment; the form and content suggest a private and personal tone:²⁰⁰

How lovely are thy dwellings fair!

O Lord of Hoasts, how dear

The pleasant Tabernacles are!

Where thou do’st dwell so near.

My Soul doth long and almost die

The Courts O Lord to see;

My heart and flesh aloud do crie,

O living God, for thee.

There ev’n the Sparrow freed from wrong

Hath found a house of rest,

The Swallow there, to lay her young

Hath built her brooding nest…

Artistic representation has also been very much influenced by the liturgical prominence of this psalm. One of the most interesting occurrences is in synagogue architecture. In the thirteenth-century synagogue of Cordoba the walls are covered with Mudéjar stuccowork and psalm quotations, originally written in beige on a blue background, in square Hebrew characters. Ps. 84:1–3 dominates the south wall, and Pss. 13:5–6 and 26:8 follow it. Similarly the fourteenth-century synagogue, El Tránsito, in Toledo, also using Mudéjar stuccowork with fruits, flowers and geometric designs, has walls which teem with verses from the psalms, but only Psalm 84 and 100 are in complete form, dominating the east wall. In each case this fits so well with the Jewish interpretation that the psalm is about longing for the Temple in exile.²⁰¹ A similar interpretation is found in the *Parma Psalter (fol. 119v) which shows a human figure set between the first word and the rest of the line, pointing to the buildings in the margin: these are of palaces with slender towers (the one on the right enclosed by a wall) and doors with golden arches, illustrating verses 1, 2 and 4: see Plate 4.²⁰²

Other representations take up two prominent tropes. One is of the sparrow and turtle dove (or swallow) in verse 3. For example the *St Albans Psalter depicts in the capital Q (‘Quam dilecta tabernacula…) two trees with birds nesting in their branches; in the two nests at the top a larger bird feeds and a smaller one watches, whilst at the bottom two parent birds are feeding their young.²⁰³ A second repeated image is ‘the valley of tears’ (verse 6). A painting on this theme by Gustave Doré (1882–1883) is at the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg. This ‘Valley of Tears’ depicts the suffering and sorrow of Christ, carrying his cross, with a play of darkness and light.²⁰⁴

To conclude, it is undoubtedly the liturgical use of this psalm (whether composed for worship or in memory of it) which has influenced the vast number of responses, especially in music, poetry and art. So despite the different views by Jews and Christians about the identity of ‘the house of God’, it is a psalm which has been appropriated, without much acrimony, by both traditions alike.