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"Oh let me,--when Thy roof my soul has hid,--
Oh let me roost and nestle there,
Then of a sinner Thou art rid,
And I of hope and fear."
In Psa. 102: we find the pelican, the owl, and the sparrow grouped together, a
threefold symbol of loneliness: "I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house
top" (7). The way in which the swallow has endeared itself to man by its habit of
building its nest under the eaves of his very roof is a commonplace in prose and poetry.
The allusions to birds and beasts in the Psalms would make an interesting study in itself.
The writer of this Psalm is most certainly an exile. His soul faints with its longing
once more to stand in the courts of the Lord. He envies the sparrow and the swallow
which make their nests under its very roof, and calls them blessed indeed who dwell in
the house of the Lord. From meditating upon the house of the Lord, the Psalmist turns to
the thought of pilgrims making their way through the valley of Baca, the vale of tears,
sustained by the strength of the Lord, and upheld by the prospect of arriving at the house
of the Lord:--
"Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee;
In whose heart are the ways of them" (Psa. 84: 5).
As translated in the A.V. the second line does not make sense. The R.V. reads: "In
whose heart are the high ways to Zion." The LXX reads: "In his heart he has purposed
to go up the valley of weeping", thereby running two verses together. Davidson's
Hebrew Lexicon reads: "They fondly think of the roads leading to Jerusalem."
This blessed hope turns the Valley of Weeping into a place of springs, and of goings
from strength to strength, until the pilgrims finally appear before God in Zion. Thus
encouraged the writer utters his third blessing:--
"Blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee" (Psa. 84: 12).
"Trust" here is "confidence". God is his Sun and Shield: the Lord will give both
grace and glory: He will not withhold any good thing from them that walk uprightly.
The remaining blessing of this book is but the anticipation of that blessed day when
the outcast and the exile shall indeed be gathered home:--
"Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound" (Psa. 89: 15).
What joyful sound? It is nothing less than the Jubile, when all forfeit is recovered, all
bondage has ceased. It is nothing less than the sound of the trumpet that means victory.
It is an anticipation of the sounding of the seventh trumpet when all the enemies of the
Lord shall fall and the kingdom of the Lord be established. The word that is translated
"joyful sound" is teruah, which is rendered, "blowing of trumpets" (Lev. 23: 24),
"trumpet of the Jubile" (Lev. 25: 9), "Shout", at the fall of Jericho (Josh. 6: 5). In the