Bird's-eye view
This psalm is a song of pilgrimage. It is the cry of a worshiper who is at a distance from the central sanctuary, from the place where God has put His name, and he is longing to be there. This is not the song of a man who is being dragged to church. This is the song of a man who is heartsick for the courts of the Lord. The whole psalm breathes with a fervent desire for corporate worship, for the gathering of the saints in the house of God. Our text today focuses on the blessing that attends the pilgrim on his journey toward God's house. It is a journey that takes him through hardship, but it is a hardship transformed by the destination. The pilgrim's heart is already in Zion, even while his feet are still on the road, and this changes everything about the road itself.
The central theme here is that the Christian life is a journey, a pilgrimage toward a heavenly city, the New Jerusalem. The blessings described are not the blessings of arrival, but the blessings of the road. The strength is found in God, the path is etched on the heart, the valleys of weeping become springs of life, and the journey itself is one of increasing, compounding strength. It all culminates in an appearance before God in Zion, which is the goal of every true believer. This is a psalm about the profound spiritual principle that where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And if your heart is in Zion, then the road to Zion, no matter how arduous, becomes a blessed highway.
Outline
- 1. The Blessed Pilgrim (v. 5)
- a. Strength Found in God (v. 5a)
- b. The Heart's Highway (v. 5b)
- 2. The Transformed Journey (v. 6)
- a. The Valley of Weeping (v. 6a)
- b. A Place of Springs (v. 6b)
- c. The Covering of Early Rain (v. 6c)
- 3. The Culminating Arrival (v. 7)
- a. From Strength to Strength (v. 7a)
- b. Appearing Before God (v. 7b)
Clause-by-Clause Commentary
v. 5 How blessed is the man whose strength is in You, In whose heart are the highways to Zion!
The psalmist begins with a beatitude, a declaration of blessedness. But who is the blessed man? He is not the man who is strong in himself, not the man who relies on his own grit or resources. The blessed man is the one whose strength is in You. This is foundational. All true spiritual strength, the kind that can sustain a man on a long and difficult pilgrimage, is borrowed strength. It is strength that comes from God. We are weak, but He is strong. The beginning of a blessed life is the recognition of our utter dependence upon God for everything, especially the strength to seek Him. This is not a one-time transaction, but a continual drawing from an inexhaustible well. The pilgrim is blessed because he has learned where the true source of power is.
The second clause describes the internal orientation of this blessed man: In whose heart are the highways to Zion! This is a marvelous picture. The path to God's house is not just on a map; it is inscribed on his very heart. His affections, his desires, his thoughts are all oriented toward Zion, the place of God's presence among His people. He is a pilgrim not just in his outward actions, but in his inward disposition. The destination governs the man. Before he takes a single step, his heart is already there. This is what it means to be heavenly-minded. It is not an ethereal detachment from the world, but a radical orientation of the heart that makes the journey through this world purposeful and directed. The highways are in his heart, which means his whole being is aligned with the goal of appearing before God.
v. 6 Passing through the valley of Baca they make it a spring; The early rain also wraps it up with blessings.
Every pilgrimage has its difficult stretches. The road to Zion is not a sanitized walk through a pleasant park. It goes through the valley of Baca. The word "Baca" means weeping. This is the valley of tears, of sorrow, of hardship and trial. It is a desolate place. The world is full of such valleys, and no believer is exempt from passing through them. But notice what the pilgrims do. They do not simply endure the valley; they transform it. They make it a spring. Out of their own passage through sorrow, they dig wells. Their faith in the midst of trial becomes a source of refreshment, not just for themselves, but for those who follow. This is a profound principle of the Christian life. Our sufferings are not meaningless. When endured in faith, they become occasions for God to bring forth life-giving water in the most arid of places.
And God does not leave them to their own devices. As they dig the wells, God fills them. The early rain also wraps it up with blessings. The pilgrim's faithful effort in the midst of sorrow is met with God's gracious provision from above. The early rains were crucial in the ancient Near East for preparing the ground for planting. Here, the imagery suggests that God sends His blessing to cover and fill the very places of weeping. The combination is potent: human faithfulness in trial and divine grace from heaven. The valley of weeping becomes a place of unexpected blessing, a testimony to the God who can make springs in the desert.
v. 7 They go from strength to strength, Each one of them appears before God in Zion.
The result of this journey through the valley of Baca is not exhaustion, but exhilaration. The normal experience of a long journey is that you go from strength to weakness. You start fresh and end up depleted. But the divine economy of the pilgrim is precisely the reverse. They go from strength to strength. Their strength grows as they get closer to their goal. The trials they face, which would normally drain a person, actually become the means by which their spiritual muscles are developed. The strength they draw from God (v. 5) is not a static quantity; it is a dynamic, growing reality. The process of the pilgrimage itself is sanctifying and strengthening. The closer they get to God, the stronger they become.
And what is the final destination? What is the goal of this entire arduous, yet blessed, journey? Each one of them appears before God in Zion. The pilgrimage is not aimless wandering. It has a definite end. The goal is a personal, corporate appearance before the living God. All the highways in the heart, all the wells in the valley, all the increasing strength on the road points to this one great climax: standing in the presence of God with His people. This was the goal for the Old Testament saint journeying to the earthly Jerusalem, and it is the ultimate goal for the New Testament saint, who journeys toward the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. The whole of the Christian life is this pilgrimage, and the great promise is that every true pilgrim, without exception, will complete the journey and appear before God in Zion.