happiness · noun, common masculine plural construct
man
אָ֭דָם'A.dom
H120
ruddy i.e. a human being (an individual or the species · noun, common masculine singular absolute
strength
עֽוֹז'oz-
H5797
strength in various applications (force · noun, common masculine singular absolute
heart
בִּלְבָבָֽםbil.va.Vam
H3824
the heart (as the most interior organ) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
ways
מְ֝סִלּ֗וֹתme.si.Lot
H4546
a thoroughfare (as turnpiked) · noun, common feminine plural absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 28:7-8 The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will…
2 Corinthians 12:9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory…
Zechariah 10:12 And I will strengthen them in the LORD; and they shall walk up and down in his name, saith the LORD.
Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
Psalms 40:8 I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.
Micah 4:2 And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will…
Psalms 55:14 We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company.
Jeremiah 31:33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inwar…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 84:1-7
The psalmist here, being by force restrained from waiting upon God in public ordinances, by the want of them is brought under a more sensible conviction than ever of the worth of them. Observe,
I. The wonderful beauty he saw in holy institutions (Psa 84:1): How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! Some think that he here calls God the Lord of hosts (that is, in a special manner of the angels, the heavenly hosts) because of the presence of the angels in God's sanctuary; they attended the Shechinah, and were (as some think) signified by the cherubim. God is the Lord of these hosts, and his the tabernacle is: it is spoken of as more than one (thy tabernacles) because there were several…
Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee, Or, "for thee", as some choose to render the words; who have bodily strength from the Lord, for his worship and service, to go up to his house, and serve him: this, with what follows in the two next verses, seem to refer to the males in Israel going up from different parts of the land to Jerusalem to worship, who had strength so to do; when the women and children, for want thereof, stayed at home, which was their infelicity, as it was the happiness of the males that they had ability for such a journey and service: the Targum is,
"whose strength is in thy Word;''
the essential Word, the Messiah, who have spiritual strength in and from him; see…
Psalm 84:5-7
5. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; the ways are in their hearts. 6. They passing through the valley of weeping, [460] will together make it a fountain; [461] the rain also will cover the cisterns, [or reservoirs.] [462] 7. They will go from strength to strength; [463] the God of gods will be seen in Zion.
5 Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee. David again informs us, that the purpose for which he desired liberty of access to the sanctuary was, not merely to gratify his eyes with what was to be seen there, but to make progress in faith. To lean with the whole heart upon God, is to attain to no ordinary degree of advancement: and this cannot be attained by…
The Church Fathers
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. He has arranged ascents in his heart: what is his own — he thinks the good, but the accomplishment he leaves to God. It is ours to arrange, his to bring to completion.
Blessed is the man whose help is from you. We indeed desire your tabernacles and courts and house: but this very thing, that we may be able to attain it, is not of our own strength, but of your help. He has arranged ascents in his heart. Who has arranged ascents in his heart? Blessed is the man whose help is from the Lord: he has arranged ascents in his heart. Whoever is holy is daily stretched out toward the things before, and forgets the things that are past. For this reason there are also said in the Psalter the fifteen psalms of the steps, and the first is said, "To the Lord when I was in tribulation I cried out." And in the second, "I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from where my help shall come." And in the third, "I was glad in the things that were said to me." And he always proceeds, and advances, and ascends to loftier things. What he says is this. He has arranged ascents in his heart. Happy is he who daily advances, who does not consider what he did yesterday, but what he may do and advance in today. The holy man places ascents in his heart, the sinner descents. As he who is holy daily advances, so he who is a sinner daily decreases. Blessed is the man who arranges ascents in his heart. See the sequence of the Scriptures.
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." The Spirit calls upward, the weight of the flesh calls back again downward: between the double effort to raise and to weigh down, a kind of struggle ensues: this struggle goes toward the pressure of the winepress. Hear how the Apostle describes this same struggle of the winepress, for he was himself afflicted there, there he was pressed. ..."Miserable man that I am: who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord." ..."For I delight in the Law of God according to the inner man." But what shall I do? how shall I fly? how shall I arrive thither? "I see another law in my members," etc. ...And as in the words of the Apostle, that difficulty and that almost inextricable struggle is alleviated by the addition, "The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord;" so here, when he sighed in the ardent longing for the house of God, and those praises of God, and when a kind of despair arose at the feeling of the burden of the body and the weight of the flesh, again he awoke to hope, and said (ver. 5), "Blessed is the man whose taking up is in Thee."
Dictionary and topics
Gittith — A stringed instrument of music. This word is found in the titles of Ps. 8, 81, 84. In these places the LXX. render the word by “on the wine-fats.” The Targum explains by “on the harp which David…
Music, Instrumental — Among instruments of music used by the Hebrews a principal place is given to stringed instruments. These were, (1.) The kinnor, the “harp.” (2.) The nebel, “a skin bottle,” rendered “psaltery.” (3.)…
Blessed, The · Whose strength is in the Lord — Whose strength is in the Lord
Blessing · SPIRITUAL, FROM GOD — SPIRITUAL, FROM GOD
Faith · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Temple, The First · Was called: Zion — Was called: Zion
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
This second half takes up the "blessed" of the distichic epode (epoodo's) of the first, and consequently joins member to member chain-like on to it. Many hindrances must be cleared away if the poet is to get back to Zion, his true home; but his longing carries the surety within itself of its fulfilment: blessed, yea in himself blessed, is the man, who has his strength (עוז only here plene) in God, so that, consequently, the strength of Him to whom all things are possible is mighty in his weakness. What is said in Psa 84:6 is less adapted to be the object of the being called blessed than the result of that blessed relationship to God. What follows shows that the "high-roads" are not to be und…
The pilgrimage to Jerusalem reenacted the Exodus, when God marvelously provided for his people (see 78:15-16; 105:41). The psalmist imagines the pains of travel turning to the joy of arrival.
84:5 Travelers needed strength to meet the challenges of pilgrimage by foot along unpaved paths, in all kinds of weather and with the possibility of assaults.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 84:5
Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them.
Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee. Having spoken of the blessedness of those who reside in the house of God, he now speaks of those who are favoured to visit it at appointed seasons, going upon pilgrimage with their devout brethren: he is not, however, indiscriminate in his eulogy, but speaks only of those who heartily attend to the sacred festivals. The blessedness of sacred worship belongs not to half hearted, listless worshippers, but to those who throw all their energies into it. Neither prayer, nor praise, nor the hearing of the word will be pleasant or profitable to persons who have left thei…
