1 To the choirmaster. Upon the gittith. Of the sons of Korah. A psalm. How lovely are your dwelling places, LORD of hosts!
Jerome · AD 420 To the choirmaster, for the winepresses, a psalm of the sons of Korah. There are three psalms which are inscribed "for the winepresses": the eighth, the eightieth, and the eighty-third. The eighth is inscribed to David, the eightieth is inscribed to Asaph, the eighty-third is inscribed as of the sons of Korah.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 If therefore you feel the passions of this world, even when you are happy, you understand now that you are in the winepress....If therefore the world smile upon you with happiness, imagine yourself in the winepress, and say, "I found trouble and heaviness, and I did call upon the name of the Lord." He said not, I found trouble, without meaning, of such a kind as was hidden: for…
Better Is One Day in Your Courts 2 My soul has longed and even fainted for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh sing aloud to the living God.
Jerome · AD 420 My heart and my flesh have exulted in the living God. Listen, heretic, to what he says. How beloved are your tabernacles, O Lord of hosts: he is speaking of the kingdom of heaven. "There are many dwelling-places with my Father," the Lord says in the Gospel.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 And what follows? "My soul longeth and faileth for the courts of the Lord" (ver. 2). It is not enough that it "longeth and faileth:" for what doth it fail? "For the courts of the Lord." The grape when pressed hath failed: but for what? So as to be changed into wine, and to flow into the vat, and into the rest of the storeroom, to be kept there in great quiet.
3 Even a bird has found a house, and a swallow a nest for herself, where she has set her young — your altars, LORD of hosts, my King and my God.
Jerome · AD 420 For indeed the sparrow has found itself a home, and the turtledove a nest for itself where it may place its young. For the moment let us interpret it simply. See what he says. I desire, O Lord, your eternal tabernacles: my soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord: I desire to have some seat and little nest for my soul and my body.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 You have heard a groan in the winepress, "My soul longs and fails for the courts of the Lord:" hear how it holds out, rejoicing in hope: "My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God." Here they have rejoiced for that cause. Whence comes rejoicing, but of hope? Wherefore have they rejoiced? "In the living God." What has rejoiced in you?
Fulgentius of Ruspe · AD 533 In heart, let us migrate from living in this world, from which we are rapidly going to migrate in the body, that that heavenly dwelling may receive us, concerning which the apostle says that we have an eternal dwelling from God, a house not made by hands, in the heavens.
4 Happy are those who dwell in your house; they will still praise you. Selah.
Jerome · AD 420 Blessed are they who dwell in your house, O Lord: that is, in the Church, whether the present one, or "the church of the firstborn." Forever and ever they will praise you. See what kind of office the martyrs have: it is that of the angels too. What they do in heaven, then, this we imitate on earth.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 ..."Blessed are those who dwell in Thy house" (ver. 4). ...If thou hast thy own house, thou art poor; if God's, thou art rich. In thy own house thou wilt fear robbers; of the house of God, He is Himself the wall.
5 Happy is the man whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways.
Jerome · AD 420 Blessed is the man whose help is from you. To begin is ours, to help is God's. He has arranged ascents in his heart. Daily he thinks how he may ascend, not how he may descend. Whoever is a sinner puts not ascents, but descents, in his heart. That is why Jacob too saw the angels ascending and descending.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 But how shall we come thither? "Happy is the man whose strength is in Thee"(ver. 5). He knew where he was, and that by reason of the frailty of his flesh he could not fly to that state of blessedness: he thought upon his own burden, as it is said elsewhere; "For the corruptible body weighs down the soul, and the earthly house depresses the understanding which has many thoughts.…
Bonaventure · AD 1257 Blessed is the man whose help is from You; he has disposed ascents in his heart, in the valley of tears, in the place which he has appointed. Since blessedness is nothing other than the enjoyment of the highest good, and the highest good is above us, no one can be made blessed unless he ascends above himself, not by a bodily ascent, but by one of the heart.
6 Passing through the Valley of Baca, they make it a spring; the early rain also wraps it with blessings.
Jerome · AD 420 In the valley of tears, in the place which he has set. We read in the book of Judges, when the angel came and preached repentance to the people, saying, You have forsaken the Lord, and the Lord will forsake you; and when the people heard this they wept, and that place was called the Valley of Tears. We have recalled the old history, so that we might flee heresy.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 What then does God supply by His grace to him whom He taketh hold of to lead him on? He goes on to say: "He hath placed steps in his heart." ...Where does it place steps? "In his heart, in the valley of weeping" (ver. 6). So here thou hast for a winepress the valley of weeping, the very pious tears in tribulation are the new wine of those that love.
7 They go from strength to strength; each appears before God in Zion.
Gregory of Nazianzus · AD 390 The Old Testament proclaimed the Father openly and the Son more obscurely. The New [Testament] manifested the Son and suggested the deity of the Spirit. Now the Spirit dwells among us and supplies us with a clearer demonstration of himself.
Bonaventure · AD 1257 It was fitting for the perfect Leader to show himself when there was opportunity to run toward the prize: and this is in the end of times, yet before the terminus, and in the approach to the final judgment, so that, spurred by the fear of judgment and drawn by the hope of reward and animated by the perfection of his example, we might vigorously and perfectly follow the Leader f…
8 LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, God of Jacob. Selah.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 And again, from the thought of those joys he returns to his own sighs. He sees what has come before in hope, and where he is in reality....Therefore returning to the groans proper to this place, he says, "O Lord God of virtues, hear my prayer: hearken, O God of Jacob" [Psalm 84:8]: for Jacob himself also You have made Israel out of Jacob.
9 Look on our shield, God, and gaze on the face of your anointed.
Jerome · AD 420 Our protector, look, O God, and look upon the face of your Christ. See what he says, And look upon the face of your Christ. And a man prays, that the Father may look upon the face of the Son. But see what he says.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "Behold, O God our defender. And look on the face of Your Christ" [Psalm 84:9]. For when does God not look upon the face of His Christ? What is this, "Look on the face of Your Christ"? By the face we are known. What is it then, Look on the face of Your Christ? Cause Your Christ to become known to all.
10 For a day in your courts is better than a thousand. I have chosen to stand at the threshold in the house of my God rather than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
Jerome · AD 420 For better is one day in your courts above thousands. See what he says, "one day." Someone thinks it should be understood thus: It is better for me to have a little in the kingdom of heaven, than here the whole, that is, in this world. This understanding, indeed, is not a bad one.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "For one day in Your courts is better than a thousand" [Psalm 84:10]. Those courts they were for which he sighed, for which he fainted. "My soul longs and fails for the courts of the Lord:" one day there is better than a thousand days.
11 For the LORD God is a sun and a shield; the LORD gives grace and glory; he does not withhold good from those who walk in blamelessness.
Jerome · AD 420 For God loves mercy and truth. Two things God loves, mercy and truth. If he were only merciful, he would provoke us all to sins: if he loved only truth, no one would have hope of repentance. For this reason he seeks two things, and tempers the one by the other. If you are a sinner, hear that God is merciful, and do not despair, and do penance.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "I have chosen to be cast away in the house of the Lord, rather than to dwell in the tents of sinners" [Psalm 84:11]. For he found the valley of weeping, he found humility by which he might rise: he knows that if he would raise himself he shall fall, if he humble himself he shall be exalted: he has chosen to be cast away, that he may be raised up.
12 LORD of hosts, happy is the man who trusts in you.
Jerome · AD 420 O Lord of hosts. See what he says, O Lord of hosts. Therefore when we have any sins in us, God, who is the Lord of hosts, is not our Lord: because the Lord is not the Lord of sinners, but of the righteous. Blessed is the man who hopes in you. He hopes in the Lord, who has no conscience of sins, who lifts free eyes to heaven.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 ..."Because God loveth mercy and truth" (ver. 12). The Lord loveth mercy, by which He first came to my help: He loveth truth, so as to give to him that believeth what He has promised. Hear in the case of the Apostle Paul, His mercy and truth, Paul who was first Saul the persecutor.