Susan Gillingham - Psalms Through the Centuries, Volume 3

Other than choral settings, several arrangements of this psalm might be cited. An unusual musical arrangement—partly because *Brahms was not an orthodox believer—his ‘Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen’ (from Ps. 84:1–2 and 4) which was used in his German Requiem , possibly composed following the death of his mother and first performed at Leipzig in 1869. The psalm is the fourth of seven movements, used as a ‘Beatitude’ (taken from one of psalm’s blessing formulae in verse 4), and this corresponds with the first and last movements, which are also Beatitudes. The arrangement of Psalm 84 sets a more joyful and earthy tone, imitating a Viennese Waltz, and contrasts with the other movements which reflect more on death. 194*Rutter also used Psalm 84 in his Psalmfest (1993). 195A more poignant arrangement is by Howard *Goodall: How Lovely are Your Dwellings / Quam Dilecta is sung by an all-female choir accompanied by a string quartet, capturing the nostalgic yearning for the presence of God, using the traditional Latin text in modern vein. 196

A Christianised appropriation of this psalm is also common in metrical psalmody: for example, Isaac *Watts composed four versions of this psalm, including the following which focusses not so much on ‘the church’, as on Christ himself: 197

The sparrow builds herself a nest,

And suffers no remove:

O make me, like the sparrows, blest

To dwell but where I love.

To sit one day beneath thine eye,

And hear thy gracious voice,

Exceeds a whole eternity

Employ’d in carnal joys.

Lord, at thy threshold I would wait

While Jesus is within,

Rather than fill a throne of state,

Or live in tents of sin.

The liturgical prominence of Psalm 84 also resulted in several seventeenth-century imitations in English poetry, but without any obvious Christian overlay. Three very different paraphrases must suffice. The first is by George *Sandys, who experimented with the idea of ‘longing for God’ (84:2) by using a trochaic (stressed, then unstressed) metre, creating 7 syllables to one line, and a rhyme for every couplet, thus creating an unevenness of expression: 198

Lord for thee I daily crie;

In thy absence hourely die.

Sparrowes there their young ones reare;

And the Summers Harbinger

By thy Alter builds her nest,

Where they take their envi’d rest.

O my King! O thou most High!

Arbiter of Victorie!

Happie men! Who spend their Dayes;

In thy Court, there sing thy Praise!

This could not be more different from his near contemporary Samuel Woodford’s version, which interprets same idea of longing for God so that, like the rest of his paraphrased psalms, it suggests a Pindaric ode, with its repeated three lines formula. Like Sandys, this was a personal contribution and unsuitable for liturgical use (as stated in his dedication to the Bishop of Winchester). The introductory verse, setting the psalm against a military background, creates a somewhat different focus from Sandys’ version: 199

Triumphant General of the Sacred Host,

Whom all the strength of Heav’n and earth obey,

Who hast a Thundering Legion in each Coast,

And Mighty Armies lifted, and in pay;

How fearfull art Thou in their head above,

Yet in Thy Temple, Lord: how full of Love?

So lovely is Thy Temple, and so fair, So like Thy self, that with desire I faint; My heart and flesh cry out to see Thee there, And could bear any thing but this restraint; My Soul dost on its old Remembrance feed, And new desires by my long absence breed.

A final example is by *Milton, who unusually chose a common metre (8–6–8–6) but combines this with his love of enjambment; the form and content suggest a private and personal tone: 200

How lovely are thy dwellings fair!

O Lord of Hoasts, how dear

The pleasant Tabernacles are!

Where thou do’st dwell so near.

My Soul doth long and almost die

The Courts O Lord to see;

My heart and flesh aloud do crie,

O living God, for thee.

There ev’n the Sparrow freed from wrong

Hath found a house of rest,

The Swallow there, to lay her young

Hath built her brooding nest…

Artistic representation has also been very much influenced by the liturgical prominence of this psalm. One of the most interesting occurrences is in synagogue architecture. In the thirteenth-century synagogue of Cordoba the walls are covered with Mudéjar stuccowork and psalm quotations, originally written in beige on a blue background, in square Hebrew characters. Ps. 84:1–3 dominates the south wall, and Pss. 13:5–6 and 26:8 follow it. Similarly the fourteenth-century synagogue, El Tránsito, in Toledo, also using Mudéjar stuccowork with fruits, flowers and geometric designs, has walls which teem with verses from the psalms, but only Psalm 84 and 100 are in complete form, dominating the east wall. In each case this fits so well with the Jewish interpretation that the psalm is about longing for the Temple in exile. 201A similar interpretation is found in the * Parma Psalter (fol. 119v) which shows a human figure set between the first word and the rest of the line, pointing to the buildings in the margin: these are of palaces with slender towers (the one on the right enclosed by a wall) and doors with golden arches, illustrating verses 1, 2 and 4: see Plate 4. 202

Other representations take up two prominent tropes. One is of the sparrow and turtle dove (or swallow) in verse 3. For example the * St Albans Psalter depicts in the capital Q (‘ Q uam dilecta tabernacula …) two trees with birds nesting in their branches; in the two nests at the top a larger bird feeds and a smaller one watches, whilst at the bottom two parent birds are feeding their young. 203A second repeated image is ‘the valley of tears’ (verse 6). A painting on this theme by Gustave Doré (1882–1883) is at the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg. This ‘Valley of Tears’ depicts the suffering and sorrow of Christ, carrying his cross, with a play of darkness and light. 204

To conclude, it is undoubtedly the liturgical use of this psalm (whether composed for worship or in memory of it) which has influenced the vast number of responses, especially in music, poetry and art. So despite the different views by Jews and Christians about the identity of ‘the house of God’, it is a psalm which has been appropriated, without much acrimony, by both traditions alike.

Psalm 85 does not mention the Temple, but like Psalm 84 its experience of dissonance is the same, and the prayer to God to ‘listen’ and ‘look’ in 84:8–9 is also found in 85:8–9. So too the reference to the glory of God ( kabod ) in 84:11 is found again in 85:9, and the motif of God ‘giving his favour’ in 84:11 is found in 85:12 As noted in the introduction to this *Korahite collection, its theme of communal loss gives it a clear correspondence with Psalm 44 in the first Korahite group.

Like Psalm 84, there is no reference to the Temple having been destroyed, as in some of the *Asaphite psalms. The two strophes (1–7 and 8–13) form a prayer and an expression of confidence in God’s answer, with the play on the literal and metaphorical use of the word shub (‘return’ or ‘restore’) in verses 1, 4 and 6. Given the prominence of penitential liturgy after the exile, it is quite possible that the psalm was also used as a prayer of repentance.

Whilst *ibn Ezra reads this psalm as a Jewish prayer for redemption after the Babylonian exile, *Rashi somewhat predictably reads it as a prayer for redemption during the Jews’ continuing exile. 205The Christian approach, however, is to read the prayers for restoration in a spiritual, not literal way: *Bede, for example, in his abbreviated Psalter, reads verse 5 as ‘Turn us, God our Jesus , and relax your anger against us’. 206Furthermore, the emphasis on ‘return’ is now also about praying for the Jews’ conversion to Christ. 207