Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 84:10

"For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, Than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." — Psalms 84:10 (ASV)

I would rather be a doorkeeper. —Better, I would rather wait on the threshold, as not worthy (Septuagint and Vulgate, “be rejected in scorn”) to enter the precincts.

The idea of “doorkeeper,” however, though not necessarily involved in the Hebrew word, is suggested in a Korahite psalm, since the Korahites were keepers of the gates of the tabernacle, and keepers of the entry.

Compare this wish with the words that a Greek poet puts into the mouth of his hero, who sweeps the threshold of Apollo’s temple:

“A pleasant task, O Phoebus, I discharge,
Before your house in reverence of your seat
Of prophecy, an honoured task to me.”

EURIPIDES, Ion, 128.