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104. Psalm 104

¹ Praise the LORD, my soul.

LORD my God, you are very great;
you are clothed with splendor and majesty.

    ² The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment;
   he stretches out the heavens like a tent
    ³ and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.
He makes the clouds his chariot
   and rides on the wings of the wind.
⁴ He makes winds his messengers, Or angels
   flames of fire his servants.

    ⁵ He set the earth on its foundations;
   it can never be moved.
⁶ You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment;
   the waters stood above the mountains.
⁷ But at your rebuke the waters fled,
   at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
⁸ they flowed over the mountains,
   they went down into the valleys,
   to the place you assigned for them.
⁹ You set a boundary they cannot cross;
   never again will they cover the earth.

    ¹⁰ He makes springs pour water into the ravines;
   it flows between the mountains.
¹¹ They give water to all the beasts of the field;
   the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
¹² The birds of the sky nest by the waters;
   they sing among the branches.
¹³ He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
   the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work.
¹⁴ He makes grass grow for the cattle,
   and plants for people to cultivate—
   bringing forth food from the earth:
¹⁵ wine that gladdens human hearts,
   oil to make their faces shine,
   and bread that sustains their hearts.
¹⁶ The trees of the LORD are well watered,
   the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
¹⁷ There the birds make their nests;
   the stork has its home in the junipers.
¹⁸ The high mountains belong to the wild goats;
   the crags are a refuge for the hyrax.

    ¹⁹ He made the moon to mark the seasons,
   and the sun knows when to go down.
²⁰ You bring darkness, it becomes night,
   and all the beasts of the forest prowl.
²¹ The lions roar for their prey
   and seek their food from God.
²² The sun rises, and they steal away;
   they return and lie down in their dens.
²³ Then people go out to their work,
   to their labor until evening.

    ²⁴ How many are your works, LORD!
   In wisdom you made them all;
   the earth is full of your creatures.
²⁵ There is the sea, vast and spacious,
   teeming with creatures beyond number—
   living things both large and small.
²⁶ There the ships go to and fro,
   and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.

    ²⁷ All creatures look to you
   to give them their food at the proper time.
²⁸ When you give it to them,
   they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
   they are satisfied with good things.
²⁹ When you hide your face,
   they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
   they die and return to the dust.
³⁰ When you send your Spirit,
   they are created,
   and you renew the face of the ground.

    ³¹ May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
   may the LORD rejoice in his works—
³² he who looks at the earth, and it trembles,
   who touches the mountains, and they smoke.

    ³³ I will sing to the LORD all my life;
   I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
³⁴ May my meditation be pleasing to him,
   as I rejoice in the LORD.
³⁵ But may sinners vanish from the earth
   and the wicked be no more.

Praise the LORD, my soul.

Praise the LORD. Hebrew Hallelu Yah; in the Septuagint this line stands at the beginning of Psalm 105.

The same subject is prosecuted in the 13th verse, where it is said that God watereth the mountains from his chambers It is no ordinary miracle that the mountains, which seem to be condemned to perpetual drought, and which, in a manner, are suspended in the air, nevertheless abound in pastures. The prophet, therefore, justly concludes that this fruitfulness proceeds from nothing else but the agency of God, who is their secret cultivator. Labour cannot indeed, in the proper sense, be attributed to God, but still it is not without reason applied to him, for, by merely blessing the earth from the place of his repose, he works more efficaciously than if all the men in the world were to waste themselves by incessant labor.

14. Making grass to grow for cattle The Psalmist now comes to men, of whom God vouchsafes to take a special care as his children. After having spoken of the brute creation, he declares, that corn is produced, and bread made of it, for the nourishment of the human race; and he mentions in addition to this, wine and oil, two things which not only supply the need of mankind, but also contribute to their cheerful enjoyment of life. Some understand the Hebrew word לעבדת, laäbodath, which I have rendered for the service, to denote the labor which men bestow in husbandry; for while grass grows on the mountains of itself, and without human labor, corn and herbs, which are sown, can only be produced, as is well known, by the labor and sweat of men. According to them the meaning is, that God blesses the toil of men in the cultivation of the fields. But this being too strained an interpretation, it is better to understand the word service, in the ordinary sense of the term. With respect to the word bread, I do not object to the view of those who understand it in a restricted sense, although it probably includes all kinds of food; only I dislike the opinion of those who exclude bread. There is no force in the reason which they allege for taking this view, namely, that in the following verse another use of bread is added, when it is said, that it strengthens the heart of man; for there the same thing is expressed in different words. The prophet, in stating that God causeth the earth to bring forth herbs for the support of men, intends to say that the earth supplies them not only with food in corn, but also with other herbs and fruits; for the means of our sustenance is not limited exclusively to one kind of food.