Catholic Commentary
The Blessed Pilgrimage of Those Who Trust in God
5Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on a pilgrimage.6Passing through the valley of Weeping, they make it a place of springs. Yes, the autumn rain covers it with blessings.7They go from strength to strength. Every one of them appears before God in Zion.
Psalms 84:5–7 depicts pilgrims whose strength derives entirely from God, enabling them to transform their suffering into blessing as they journey toward the Temple. Through trust rather than despair, they move progressively stronger, culminating in encountering God in Zion, demonstrating that spiritual growth occurs through trials sustained in faith.
The valley of weeping does not disqualify you from God's blessing — it is where the springs flow.
Psalms 84:5 — "Blessed are those whose strength is in you"
The opening beatitude mirrors the structure of the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount and of Psalm 1, signaling that what follows is not merely a description but a divinely pronounced declaration of blessedness. The Hebrew 'ašrê ("blessed," "happy") carries the sense of a settled, flourishing condition — not a fleeting emotion but an ontological state conferred by one's orientation toward God. The critical phrase is "whose strength is in you": the pilgrims do not merely call upon God for assistance; their very capacity to walk at all is located within the divine life. The Hebrew word 'oz (strength, might, power) is frequently used in the Psalter for God's own saving power (cf. Ps 28:7; 29:1). The verse thus begins with a paradox that will govern the entire passage: the pilgrim's strength is not their own, yet it is genuinely theirs because it is received.
Psalms 84:6 — "Passing through the valley of Weeping, they make it a place of springs"
The "valley of Baca" (ʿēmeq habbākāʾ) is almost certainly a geographical reference to a dry, arid wadi — perhaps a specific valley on the route to Jerusalem — whose name evokes weeping or lamentation (the root bkh means "to weep"). It is the landscape of trial: the burning, tearful passage through hardship that every honest pilgrim must traverse. The miracle of the verse is the verb: they make it a place of springs. The transformation is not merely divine imposition from outside — it is something the pilgrims themselves enact, though only because their strength is God's own. The word rendered "springs" (maʿyānôt) suggests gushing, welling-up sources of fresh water, a powerful image in an arid landscape. The "early rain covers it with blessings" (the full verse in many translations adds this phrase) confirms that the transformation is ultimately the work of God's providential refreshment. Literally, the blesser of rain is God; the pilgrims cooperate with that blessing by passing through in trust rather than turning back. The spiritual sense is unmistakable: suffering does not disqualify the soul from God's blessing — rather, the soul ordered to God alchemizes suffering into grace.
Psalms 84:7 — "They go from strength to strength"
The Hebrew mēḥayil ʾel-ḥāyil (from strength/valor to strength/valor) completes the movement begun in verse 5. Ḥayil has a richer range than 'oz — it encompasses military valor, moral virtue, and vital force. The pilgrims do not arrive at the Temple depleted. They arrive stronger than when they left. This is not natural logic (journeys exhaust travelers) but theological logic: the journey undertaken in God increases the capacity to receive God. The verse ends with the most likely rendering: "each appears before God in Zion" — the pilgrimage culminates not in a destination but in an encounter, a seeing. In the literal sense, this is the great Temple pilgrimage feast; in the typological sense, it is every Eucharist; in the anagogical sense, it is the beatific vision itself.
Typological and spiritual senses: The Church Fathers read this text through the lens of Exodus typology: Israel passing through the wilderness, led by the pillar of cloud, is the archetype of every soul's passage through the "valley of tears" (lacrimarum valle, as the Salve Regina names it). The transformation of the dry valley into springs evokes Moses striking the rock (Num 20), itself a type of Christ, from whose pierced side flow the waters of baptism and the Eucharist. The progressive movement "from strength to strength" became, in patristic and medieval exegesis, the foundation for the theology of profectus spiritualis — spiritual progress — the soul's ordered ascent toward union with God.
The Catholic tradition draws several interrelated doctrines from these verses with unusual precision.
Grace and cooperation: Verse 5's paradox — strength that is "in God" yet genuinely belonging to the pilgrim — maps precisely onto the Catholic understanding of grace as articulated in the Council of Trent's Decree on Justification (Session VI): grace does not replace human agency but elevates and operates through it. The pilgrim who makes the valley a place of springs is not passive; but neither are they self-sufficient. This is the Catholic via media between Pelagianism (we earn our way) and a crude predestinarianism (we are merely pushed along).
The theology of suffering: St. Augustine, in his Expositions on the Psalms, reads the valley of weeping as the whole of mortal life — "this whole life is a valley of weeping" — and insists that its transformation into springs is the work of the Holy Spirit, who turns the tears of compunction into the waters of new life. The Catechism of the Catholic Church §1508 similarly teaches that suffering, united to Christ's Passion, participates in the redemptive economy. These verses provide the Psalmic warrant for that doctrine.
Spiritual progress (profectus): The phrase "from strength to strength" is foundational for the Catholic tradition of theosis and growth in holiness. St. Gregory of Nyssa's concept of epektasis — the soul's endless, joyful stretching toward God — finds its Psalmic home here. The CCC §2015 teaches that "the way of perfection passes by way of the Cross," confirming that the valley of tears is not a detour around sanctification but its very road. Pope Benedict XVI, in Spe Salvi §37, explicitly invokes pilgrimage through suffering as the school in which hope is refined and deepened.
Contemporary Catholics often encounter a subtle cultural pressure to equate faith with comfort — to expect that a robust prayer life will smooth the path of life rather than sanctify the roughness of it. Psalm 84:5–7 offers a direct corrective. The Psalmist does not promise that the pilgrim will avoid the valley of weeping; he promises that the one whose strength is in God will transform it.
This has concrete application in several areas of Catholic life: the parent raising a child with a serious disability, the Catholic professional enduring an unjust workplace, the young adult navigating a culture hostile to chastity, the widow who must learn a new identity. In each case, the temptation is to read ongoing difficulty as evidence of God's absence. These verses insist on the opposite: the valley is the place of springs, not despite the tears but through them.
The phrase "from strength to strength" also challenges the Catholic who has grown comfortable and static in their faith. Growth in holiness is not optional maintenance — it is the very shape of the Christian life. Practically, this might mean asking honestly: Am I stronger in virtue, prayer, and charity than I was a year ago? If not, these verses call not to guilt but to renewed surrender of one's weakness to God, who is the strength.
Commentary