Reference: Baca
American
Tears, or weeping, Ps 84:6. It is not necessary to understand here that there was really a valley so called. The psalmist, at a distance from Jerusalem, is speaking of the happiness of those who are permitted to make the usual pilgrimages to that city in order to worship Jehovah in the temple: they love the ways which lead thither; yea, though they must pass through rough and dreary paths, even a vale of tears, yet such are their hope and joy of heart, that all this is to them as a well-watered country, a land crowned with the blessings of early rain.
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Fausets
(Ps 84:6). "Valley of Baca". i.e. "the vale of tears" (compare Bochim, Jg 2:5, "the place of weepers.") The Hebrew form in Ps 84:6 means "mulberry trees." The Hebrew poet, by a play on the name, refers to the similarly sounding word for "tears." The Baca (mulberry) trees delight in a dry valley; such as the ravine of Hinnom below mount Zion, where the bacaim (mulberry trees) are expressly mentioned on the ridge separating the valley of Rephaim from that of Hinnom (2Sa 5:23).
Abulfadl says Baca is the Arabic for a balsam-like shrub with round large fruit, from which if a leaf be plucked a tear-like drop exudes. As the valley of Baca represents a valley of drought spiritually and dejection, where the only water is that of "tears," so the pilgrim's "making it a well" (by having "his strength in Jehovah") symbolizes ever flowing comfort and salvation (Joh 4:14; Isa 12:3; compare Ps 23:4). David, to whom Psalm 84 refers, passed through such a valley of drought and tears when, fleeing from Absalom, he went up mount Olivet weeping as he went.
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Smith
Ba'ca
(weeping), The Valley of, A valley in Palestine, through which the exiled Psalmist sees in vision the pilgrims passing in their march towards the sanctuary of Jehovah at Zion.
That it was a real locality is most probable from the use of the definite article before the name. The rendering of the Targum is Gehenna, i.e. the Ge-Hinnom or ravine below Mount Zion. This locality agrees well with the mention of became (Authorized Version "mulberry") trees in