Thirteen verses by the sons of Korah about wanting to be somewhere you are not. It is a pilgrim's psalm: the courts are far off, the road runs through a dry valley, and the speaker never once places himself inside. Three times it says ashrei, happy, and the first of the three, verse 5, is the line that opens Ashrei in the daily service, prefixed to Psalm 145. Track the word for house as you read. A bird finds one, the poet envies it, and by verse 11 he would rather stand in the doorway of God's house than live inside anyone else's.
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1
לַמְנַצֵּחַ עַל הַגִּתִּית
לִבְנֵי קֹרַח מִזְמוֹר
לַמְנַצֵּחַ
lam-na-TZE-ach
for the leader
עַל
al
upon
הַגִּתִּית
ha-gi-TIT
the Gittith
For the leader, on the Gittith.
לִבְנֵי
liv-NEI
for the sons of
קֹרַח
ko-RACH
Korah
מִזְמוֹר
miz-MOR
a psalm
Of the sons of Korah, a psalm.
The heading fixes three things: a direction to the musician, an unidentified instrument or tune called the Gittith, and the guild that sang it. The sons of Korah descend from the man swallowed by the earth in Numbers 16, and Numbers 26:11 states that his sons did not die with him.
2
מַה יְּדִידוֹת מִשְׁכְּנוֹתֶיךָ יְהֹוָה צְבָאוֹת
מַה
ma
how
יְּדִידוֹת
ye-di-DOT
lovely
מִשְׁכְּנוֹתֶיךָ
mish-kno-tei-CHA
Your dwelling places
יְהֹוָה
a-do-NAY
the LORD
צְבָאוֹת
tze-va-OT
of hosts
How lovely are Your dwelling places, LORD of hosts.
The whole psalm compressed into one exclamation, and it is aimed at a place rather than at a person. The plural, dwelling places, is the usual plural of grandeur for the sanctuary.
My soul has longed and even worn itself out for the courts of the LORD;
לִבִּי
li-BI
my heart
וּבְשָׂרִי
uv-sa-RI
and my flesh
יְרַנְּנוּ
ye-ran-NU
they sing out
אֶל
el
to
אֵל
el
God
חָי
chai
living
my heart and my flesh sing out to the living God.
Two verbs of wearing out, then two parts of the body singing. Longing here is physical: the soul finishes itself, and it is heart and flesh, not thought, that do the shouting.
Even a sparrow has found a house, and a swallow a nest for herself,
אֲשֶׁר
A-sher
where
שָׁתָה
sha-TA
she has set
אֶפְרֹחֶיהָ
ef-ro-chei-A
her young
where she has set her young,
אֶת
et
(object marker)
מִזְבְּחוֹתֶיךָ
miz-be-cho-tei-CHA
Your altars
יְהֹוָה
a-do-NAY
the LORD
צְבָאוֹת
tze-va-OT
of hosts
מַלְכִּי
mal-KI
my King
וֵאלֹהָי
ve-lo-HAI
and my God
at Your altars, LORD of hosts, my King and my God.
The envy is precise. A bird has a permanent address at the altar and the poet does not, and the only way he can say it is by naming God king and God in the same breath.
The first of three beatitudes. What living in the house produces is not rest but continuous praise, which is the psalm's working definition of what the place is for.
6
אַשְׁרֵי אָדָם עוֹז לוֹ בָךְ
מְסִלּוֹת בִּלְבָבָם
אַשְׁרֵי
ash-REI
happy is
אָדָם
a-DAM
a man
עוֹז
oz
strength
לוֹ
lo
to him
בָךְ
vach
in You
Happy is the man whose strength is in You,
מְסִלּוֹת
me-si-LOT
highways
בִּלְבָבָם
bil-va-VAM
in their heart
with the highways in their heart.
The second beatitude, and the turn from being there to going there. The second half has no verb at all: the roads are simply in their heart, and that is what makes them travellers.
Passing through the valley of Baca, they turn it into a place of springs;
גַּם
gam
also
בְּרָכוֹת
bra-CHOT
blessings
יַעְטֶה
ya-TE
wraps
מוֹרֶה
mo-RE
the early rain
the early rain wraps it in blessings as well.
The pilgrims change the landscape by crossing it. A dry valley becomes a place of springs under their feet, and the rain finishes what the walking began. Almost every word of this verse can be read another way.
A journey where the walking adds instead of draining: strength accumulates on the road rather than being spent on it. The verb at the end is passive, let himself be seen, the standard idiom for turning up at the sanctuary.
The longest divine title in the psalm, then two verbs for the same request. The prayer reaches the middle of the poem without yet saying what it wants.
Here is what it wants, and it is not entry. It asks God to look at the king, which puts the request in political terms and is the closest this psalm comes to naming an occasion.
For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand;
בָּחַרְתִּי
ba-char-TI
I have chosen
הִסְתּוֹפֵף
his-to-FEF
to stand at the threshold
בְּבֵית
be-VEIT
in the house of
אֱלֹהַי
e-lo-HAI
my God
מִדּוּר
mi-DUR
than to live
בְּאׇהֳלֵי
be-o-ho-LEI
in the tents of
רֶשַׁע
RE-sha
wickedness
I have chosen to stand at the threshold of the house of my God rather than live in the tents of wickedness.
The arithmetic of the psalm. One day against a thousand, and a doorway against a whole tent, and both times the smaller share of the better place wins.
He withholds no good from those who walk in wholeness.
The reason, given as two metaphors and a promise. Sun and shield are light and cover, what makes growth possible and what keeps it from being destroyed.
13
יְהֹוָה צְבָאוֹת
אַשְׁרֵי אָדָם בֹּטֵחַ בָּךְ
יְהֹוָה
a-do-NAY
the LORD
צְבָאוֹת
tze-va-OT
of hosts
LORD of hosts,
אַשְׁרֵי
ash-REI
happy is
אָדָם
a-DAM
a man
בֹּטֵחַ
bo-TE-ach
who trusts
בָּךְ
bach
in You
happy is the man who trusts in You.
The third beatitude closes the frame, and it drops the building entirely. What the pilgrim finally rests on is trust rather than a place, and the last word of the psalm is in You.
♦ PARDES analysis: פרדס
The four levels of Jewish reading of the sacred text: פשט Peshat (literal meaning), רמז Remez (symbolic allusion), דרש Drash (midrashic interpretation), סוד Sod (mystical meaning). The word פרדס means "orchard", each level is a fruit.
פשט · Peshat: literal meaning
Three beatitudes divide the poem: verse 5 for those already in the house, verse 6 for those on the road, verse 13 for anyone who trusts. Between them the movement runs one way. Verses 2 to 4 are longing at a distance, verses 6 to 8 are the journey, verses 9 and 10 are the prayer at the gate, verses 11 and 12 are the comparison that justifies the trip. Four words hold the psalm together and can be tracked by eye: house at בַיִת (va-yit, v.4), בֵיתֶךָ (vei-te-cha, v.5) and בְּבֵית (be-veit, v.11); courts at לְחַצְרוֹת (le-chatz-rot, v.3) and בַּחֲצֵרֶיךָ (ba-cha-tze-rei-cha, v.11); shield at מָגִנֵּנוּ (ma-gi-ne-nu, v.10) and וּמָגֵן (u-ma-gen, v.12); and the man of אָדָם (a-dam, v.6), who comes back at אָדָם (a-dam, v.13). Note that the speaker never puts himself inside the house. The arrival in verse 8 belongs to they, and the last thing he asks for in verse 10 is a look, not a door.
רמז · Remez: allusion
Verse 7 is the philological crux and almost every word in it is contested. הַבָּכָא (ha-ba-cha, v.7) may be a place name, Baca, or a common noun: the same consonants give the verb for weeping, which yields the valley of weeping, and 2 Samuel 5:23 has a plural form usually taken as a kind of tree, which would make it a valley of balsams and a real dry wadi. בְּרָכוֹת (bra-chot, v.7) is written with consonants that carry two vocalizations, berakhot, blessings, which is how the Masoretes pointed it, and berekhot, pools, which fits the springs in the first half of the verse better. מוֹרֶה (mo-re, v.7) is either the early rain or a teacher, both from the same root. Nothing in the verse settles any of the three, and translations diverge line by line. Two smaller points. הִסְתּוֹפֵף (his-to-fef, v.11) is a verb that occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible, built on the noun for a threshold, so it means standing in the doorway rather than going in. And אֶת (et, v.4) is the plain object marker sitting where the sense wants a preposition of place, which is why translations quietly supply at or beside in front of Your altars.
דרש · Drash: midrashic reading
Verse 5 does not stay inside this psalm. The daily prayer called Ashrei is Psalm 145 with two verses attached in front of it, and the first of those two is this one; Berakhot 4b is the passage usually cited for saying that psalm three times a day. A second reading works on the heading. Korah is swallowed by the earth in Numbers 16, and Numbers 26:11 records flatly that his sons did not die, so the guild that sings the most homesick psalm in the book descends from a man who lost his place at the sanctuary permanently and whose children kept theirs. A third reading works on verse 7: the valley is not removed and not avoided, it is converted by being walked through, and the springs can be read as something the pilgrims leave behind them for whoever walks the road next.
סוד · Sod: mystical reading
The mystical centre of this psalm is the bird, not the pilgrim. צִפּוֹר (tzi-por, v.4) and וּדְרוֹר (ud-ror, v.4) have no standing, no offering and no invitation, and they are the only creatures in the poem already at the altar, which supports a reading in which nearness is not produced by the journey the rest of the psalm describes. The dwelling places of מִשְׁכְּנוֹתֶיךָ (mish-kno-tei-cha, v.2) are plural while the house of בְּבֵית (be-veit, v.11) is singular, and one line of mystical reading treats the plural as the levels through which a single place is approached rather than as several buildings. Then there is verse 12, which calls God a sun. The book calls God a shield often; this is the only verse in Tehilim that calls Him a sun, and the pairing gives the two things a plant needs and cannot arrange for itself. The last word of the psalm is a two letter word meaning in You. Courts, house, altars and threshold have all been replaced by a preposition.
Hebrew text: Miqra according to the Masorah (MAM), after the Aleppo Codex, via Sefaria, CC BY-SA. English: The Holy Scriptures, a New Translation (JPS 1917), via Sefaria, public domain. Transliteration generated by this site's own engine (assets/translit.js).