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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.


29 Thou shalt hide thy face, and they shall be afraid In these words, the Psalmist declares, that we stand or fall according to the will of God. We continue to live, so long as he sustains us by his power; but no sooner does he withdraw his life-giving spirit than we die. Even Plato knew this, who so often teaches that, properly speaking, there is but one God, and that all things subsist, or have their being only in him. Nor do I doubt, that it was the will of God, by means of that heathen writer, to awaken all men to the knowledge, that they derive their life from another source than from themselves. In the first place, the Psalmist asserts, that if God hide his face they are afraid; and, secondly, that if he take away their spirit they die, and return to their dust; by which words he points out, that when God vouchsafes to look upon us, that look gives us life, and that as long as his serene countenance shines, it inspires all the creatures with life. Our blindness then is doubly inexcusable, if we do not on our part cast our eyes upon that goodness which gives life to the whole world. The prophet describes step by step the destruction of living creatures, upon God’s withdrawing from them his secret energy, that from the contrast he may the better commend that continued inspiration, by which all things are maintained in life and rigor. He could have gone farther, and have asserted, that all things, unless upheld in being by God, would return to nothing; but he was content with affirming in general and popular language, that whatever is not cherished by Him falls into corruption. He again declares, that the world is daily renewed, because God sends forth his spirit In the propagation of living creatures, we doubtless see continually a new creation of the world. In now calling that God’s spirit, which he before represented as the spirit of living creatures, there is no contradiction. God sendeth forth that spirit which remains with him whither he pleases; and as soon as he has sent it forth, all things are created. In this way, what was his own he makes to be ours. But this gives no countenance to the old dream of the Manicheeans, which that filthy dog Servetus has made still worse in our own day. The Manicheeans said that the soul of man is a particle of the Divine Spirit, and is propagated from it as the shoot of a tree; but this base man has had the audacity to assert, that oxen, asses, and dogs, are parts of the divine essence. The Manichees at least had this pretext for their error, that the soul was created after the image of God; but to maintain this with respect to swine and cattle, is in the highest degree monstrous and detestable. Nothing was farther from the prophet’s intention, than to divide the spirit of God into parts, so that a portion of it should dwell essentially in every living creature. But he termed that the spirit of God which proceeds from him. By the way, he instructs us, that it is ours, because it is given us, that it may quicken us. The amount of what is stated is, that when we see the world daily decaying, and daily renewed, the life-giving power of God is reflected to us herein as in a mirror. All the deaths which take place among living creatures, are just so many examples of our nothingness, so to speak; and when others are produced and grow up in their room, we have in that presented to us a renewal of the world. Since then the world daily dies, and is daily renewed in its various parts, the manifest conclusion is, that it subsists only by a secret virtue derived from God.


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