Some of the language of Psalm 84 suggests that it may have been sung by God’s people as they made pilgrimage to Jerusalem; the pilgrimage may even have been led by the king. One of the places the people pass through on the way to the temple is “the valley of Baka,” which can be translated as “The Valley of Tears.” It may have been a literal place, or a metaphorical reminder of the people’s suffering. But either way, the song reminds those who sing it of the beauty that can spring up along the way.

When reading Psalm 84, one gets the sense that the psalmist feels a bit rootless when away from the temple, almost envying those who get to spend more time there. That includes not only those with priestly duties, but…the birds. Sparrows and swallows have made their nests there. Did the Korahites think of their twittering as praise? We might also think of how Jesus used the image of tiny sparrows to teach his followers about the tender care of God.

Typically, we speak casually of “going to church” without thinking about the meaning of what we’re saying. As you may already know, however, the New Testament word that’s translated as “church” doesn’t refer to a building; it refers to a people. Still, how should we understand a song like Psalm 84, in which the psalmist aches to be in the temple? The psalmist isn’t longing for the building per se, but for the presence of God. And that should give us pause when we think of the New Testament image of believers as temples of the Holy Spirit…

Eleven psalms in the Psalter are attributed to the sons of Korah, including Psalm 84, a song that expresses a deep yearning for the temple. Who were the Korahites? Their tragic story of ambition, rebellion, and divine retribution is told in Numbers 16—a story that tainted the family name. But that reputation would eventually be redeemed. Whereas before, the Korahites weren’t content to be Levites, Psalm 84 reflects instead their joyous return to Levitical duty.

For many of us living in the modern world, the very idea of idolatry may sound a bit quaint; who, for example, has a little statue of a fertility goddess sitting in their living room? But every culture in every age has its own form of idolatry. In Psalm 135, we may not be able to relate to the psalmist’s description of handmade statues of silver and gold, but we should pay attention to the warning that follows: “Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them” (vs. 8). Here, we’ll explore in practical terms what idolatry might mean in our high-tech Information Age.

Telling family stories can be what some have called a “performance of identity”: no matter how many times the stories have been told, retelling them reminds of who we are as a family. Something similar might be said about Psalms 135 and 136. Some parts of the history recited there may be unfamiliar to us, such as the references to kings named Sihon and Og. But the stories would have been familiar to the people assembled to worship, giving them yet one more reason to say, “His love endures forever.”

Psalms 135 and 136 have to be read together; they’re like two sides of the same poetic coin. Together, they form a tribute to the faithful love of God—a theme that’s especially obvious in Psalm 136. That psalm reads like a liturgical call and response, in which a worship leader would call out a piece of Israel’s history, a reminder of God’s goodness to his people, and the congregation responds in unison, “His love endures forever.” We may sometimes struggle to be faithful to our own promises to love, but faithful love is intrinsic to God’s very nature.

One of the most definitive—and to the disciples, frightening!—demonstrations of Jesus’ power was his ability to calm a raging storm at sea merely by rebuking the wind and waves. They had not yet fully understood who Jesus was, and the miracle left them asking, “Who is this guy?” But I also wonder whether they knew and remembered the words of the psalmist, in which God is described as the one “who stilled the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, and the turmoil of the nations” (Psalm 65:7).