HOW PLEASANT IS THY DWELLING,
O LORD
THIS is a genuine pilgrim-song—full of enthusiastic love and longing for Sion and its sacred ceremonial, and for the Holy-City, Jerusalem. It should be read in close connection with Ps 122 and with Ps 96 and Ps 87. In verses 2-4 a layman, who may only enter the Courts of the Temple tells of his vehement longing for the holy places. He has come from far away, and now in Jerusalem he is at home again, and compares his mood to that of the bird, that, after long absence, has found again its nest and its young.
In verse 5 the psalm turns to the praise of the Levites and priests—the dwellers in the House of the Lord.
Yet, as verse 6 tells us, not only are they happy that dwell ever in God’s House: they also are happy who, when far away, set their heart on visiting the Holy City, trusting in God’s help to carry out their plan. Even though their path to the Sanctuary (verse 7) may pass through dark valleys and arid steppes, God will make springs to flow for them, and turn the desert into fertile land, and upborne by the thought of their goal, they will be conscious of no hindrance or peril on their way. So will they march forward, not growing weary but rather gathering strength as they go, until they come into the presence of God in Sion (8) .
Arrived in the Temple the pilgrims make their prayer. It is not chiefly for themselves. They beseech God to look graciously on His Anointed—either the King, or the people—so that all may be well with Israel.
In verse 11 the singer turns back to the delight of his soul in the nearness of Yahweh (cf. Ps 27:4). Even though, as a layman he cannot enter the inner Temple, a day for him in the Temple Courts is worth a thousand days in his own dwelling far away. He would fain dwell even on the threshold of the Temple for ever. For there (12) he has security and happiness, peace and divine favour.
If it is true, as many critics hold, that the psalms which speak of eager longing to revisit the Temple express the spirit of the Judaism of the Diaspora, we must date this and similar psalms in the post-Exilic period. But as there is no convincing reason for supposing that there was no Diaspora before the Exile, or that pious Jews were not wont to return from foreign lands in the pre-Exilic period to celebrate the great feasts in Jerusalem, we cannot take the post-Exilic dating as assured.
The Divine Lamp 