Ps. 84.8 (arriving at the beginning)

O Yhwh Sabaoth – Hear my prayer
give ear, O God of Jacob. 

It is certainly possible that this psalm has a type of liturgical background to it—meaning, the psalm may have had a context that indicated when certain portions of it were to be recited. For example, up to this point, it may be, the psalm was one that was sung just before entering into the Temple whereas now, the psalm turns into direct address to God because the the pilgrims have no ‘appeared before God in Zion’ (vs. 7). That, of course, is conjectural. We do not know when or how this psalm was sung. For that reason I want to bracket out those hypothesis, and focus on some of the obvious features that are now occurring. First, we need to notice that the psalm is over half way through and it is only now that the psalmist actually petitions God to ‘hear him’. This is not the first time Yhwh has been addressed, but it is the first time he has been petitioned. This shift in emphasis points to several other shifts, noticeably, the shift from describing the pilgrims in third person to describing them now in first person. Up to this point the pilgrims have been “those whose strength is in you”. Now, upon entering the Temple, it is “my prayer” and “our shield”. Both of these insights need to be set against the fact that the immediately preceding verse ended with the ‘appearance before God in Zion’. It is now, within the liturgical center, the place of the pilgrim’s yearning, that petition begins to flow forth. The pilgrims are now engaging in the ‘drama of liturgical beauty’, addressing God, asking for his blessing and speaking the praises of his presence in the Temple. They have entered into the ‘state of dwelling’. This is key as it relates to an earlier observation of ours: that arriving at the Temple is not the entering into a type of static state. Rather, to enter into the Temple is to become more active even though one has arrived at one’s destination. This petition signals the fact that arrival only begins the dialogue, the ‘face to face’ encounter with God; one does not arrive and then fall silent. In reality, silence actually pervades the state of exile, not that of communion. We could even say that the progression from the ‘state of exile’ the ‘state of dwelling’ (which is the pilgrim state) is that from silence to sound, noise to liturgy, with that progression being one of a gathering sound and liturgy (or, a ‘strength to strength’ movement from silence to sound, noise to liturgy). This strikes me as a profoundly important point as it indicates that arrival is only the beginning, not the end (just as the petition, which usually begins the psalm, now only starts once the Temple has been entered).