Discovery BoxPsalms 84:1-3 
ContextFor the music director; according to the gittith style; 2 written by the Korahites, a psalm.
84:1 How lovely is the place where you live, 3
O Lord who rules over all! 4
84:2 I desperately want to be 5
in the courts of the Lord’s temple. 6
My heart and my entire being 7 shout for joy
to the living God.
84:3 Even the birds find a home there,
and the swallow 8 builds a nest,
where she can protect her young 9
near your altars, O Lord who rules over all,
my king and my God.
Psalms 84:10
Context84:10 Certainly 10 spending just one day in your temple courts is better
than spending a thousand elsewhere. 11
I would rather stand at the entrance 12 to the temple of my God
than live 13 in the tents of the wicked.
1 sn Psalm 84. The psalmist expresses his desire to be in God’s presence in the Jerusalem temple, for the Lord is the protector of his people.
2 tn The precise meaning of the Hebrew term הַגִּתִּית (haggittit) is uncertain; it probably refers to a musical style or instrument.
3 tn Or “your dwelling place[s].” The plural form of the noun may indicate degree or quality; this is the
4 tn Traditionally, “
5 tn Heb “my soul longs, it even pines for.”
6 tn Heb “the courts of the
7 tn Heb “my flesh,” which stands for his whole person and being.
8 tn The word translated “swallow” occurs only here and in Prov 26:2.
9 tn Heb “even a bird finds a home, and a swallow a nest for herself, [in] which she places her young.”
sn The psalmist here romanticizes the temple as a place of refuge and safety. As he thinks of the birds nesting near its roof, he envisions them finding protection in God’s presence.
10 tn Or “for.”
11 tn Heb “better is a day in your courts than a thousand [spent elsewhere].”
12 tn Heb “I choose being at the entrance of the house of my God over living in the tents of the wicked.” The verb סָפַף (safaf) appears only here in the OT; it is derived from the noun סַף (saf, “threshold”). Traditionally some have interpreted this as a reference to being a doorkeeper at the temple, though some understand it to mean “lie as a beggar at the entrance to the temple” (see HALOT 765 s.v. ספף).
13 tn The verb דּוּר (dur, “to live”) occurs only here in the OT.
