1 My soul, bless Jehovah,Jehovah my God, Thou art exceeding great,Thou hast clothed Thyself with honour and majesty;2 Covering Thyself with light as with a garment,Stretching out the heavens like a curtain.3 Who lays the beams of His chambers in the waters,Who makes clouds His chariot,Who walks on the wings of the wind,4 Making winds His messengers,Flaming fire His servants.5 He sets fast the earth upon its foundations,[That] it should not be moved for ever and aye.6 [With] the deep as [with] a garment Thou didst cover it,Above the mountains stood the waters.7 At Thy rebuke they fled,At the voice of Thy thunder they were scared away.8 —Up rose the mountains, down sank the valleys—To the place which Thou hadst founded for them.9 A bound hast Thou set [that] they should not pass over,Nor return to cover the earth.10 He sends forth springs into the glens,Between the hills they take their way.11 They give drink to every beast of the field,The wild asses slake their thirst.12 Above them dwell the birds of heaven,From between the branches do they give their note.13 He waters the mountains from His chambers,With the fruit of Thy works the earth is satisfied.14 He makes grass to spring for the cattle,And the green herb for the service of men,To bring forth bread from the earth,15 And that wine may gladden the heart of feeble man;To cause his face to shine with oil,And that bread may sustain the heart of feeble man.16 The trees of Jehovah are satisfied,The cedars of Lebanon which He has planted,17 Wherein the birds nest;The stork—the cypresses are her house.18 The high mountains are for the wild goats,The rocks are a refuge for the conies.19 He has made the moon for (i.e., to measure) seasons,The sun knows its going down.20 Thou appointest darkness and it is night,Wherein all the beasts of the forest creep forth.21 The young lions roar for their prey,And to seek from God their meat.22 The sun rises—they steal away,And lay them down in their dens.23 Forth goes man to his workAnd to his labour till evening.24 How manifold are Thy works, Jehovah!In wisdom hast Thou made them all,The earth is full of Thy possessions.25 Yonder [is] the sea, great and spread on either hand,There are creeping things without number,Living creatures small and great.26 There the ships go on,[There is] that Leviathan whom Thou hast formed to sport in it.27 All these look to Thee,To give their food in its season.28 Thou givest to them—they gather;Thou openest Thy hand—they are filled [with] good.29 Thou hidest Thy face—they are panic-struck;Thou withdrawest their breath—they expire,And return to their dust.30 Thou sendest forth Thy breath—they are created,And Thou renewest the face of the earth.31 Let the glory of Jehovah endure for ever,Let Jehovah rejoice in His works.32 Who looks on the earth and it trembles,He touches the mountains and they smoke.33 Let me sing to Jehovah while I live,Let me harp to my God while I have being.34 Be my meditation sweet to Him!I, I will rejoice in Jehovah.35 Be sinners consumed from the earth,And the wicked be no more!Bless Jehovah, my soul!Hallelujah!
1 My soul, bless Jehovah,Jehovah my God, Thou art exceeding great,Thou hast clothed Thyself with honour and majesty;2 Covering Thyself with light as with a garment,Stretching out the heavens like a curtain.3 Who lays the beams of His chambers in the waters,Who makes clouds His chariot,Who walks on the wings of the wind,4 Making winds His messengers,Flaming fire His servants.
5 He sets fast the earth upon its foundations,[That] it should not be moved for ever and aye.6 [With] the deep as [with] a garment Thou didst cover it,Above the mountains stood the waters.7 At Thy rebuke they fled,At the voice of Thy thunder they were scared away.8 —Up rose the mountains, down sank the valleys—To the place which Thou hadst founded for them.9 A bound hast Thou set [that] they should not pass over,Nor return to cover the earth.
10 He sends forth springs into the glens,Between the hills they take their way.11 They give drink to every beast of the field,The wild asses slake their thirst.12 Above them dwell the birds of heaven,From between the branches do they give their note.13 He waters the mountains from His chambers,With the fruit of Thy works the earth is satisfied.14 He makes grass to spring for the cattle,And the green herb for the service of men,To bring forth bread from the earth,15 And that wine may gladden the heart of feeble man;To cause his face to shine with oil,And that bread may sustain the heart of feeble man.16 The trees of Jehovah are satisfied,The cedars of Lebanon which He has planted,17 Wherein the birds nest;The stork—the cypresses are her house.18 The high mountains are for the wild goats,The rocks are a refuge for the conies.
19 He has made the moon for (i.e., to measure) seasons,The sun knows its going down.20 Thou appointest darkness and it is night,Wherein all the beasts of the forest creep forth.21 The young lions roar for their prey,And to seek from God their meat.22 The sun rises—they steal away,And lay them down in their dens.23 Forth goes man to his workAnd to his labour till evening.24 How manifold are Thy works, Jehovah!In wisdom hast Thou made them all,The earth is full of Thy possessions.25 Yonder [is] the sea, great and spread on either hand,There are creeping things without number,Living creatures small and great.26 There the ships go on,[There is] that Leviathan whom Thou hast formed to sport in it.27 All these look to Thee,To give their food in its season.28 Thou givest to them—they gather;Thou openest Thy hand—they are filled [with] good.29 Thou hidest Thy face—they are panic-struck;Thou withdrawest their breath—they expire,And return to their dust.30 Thou sendest forth Thy breath—they are created,And Thou renewest the face of the earth.
31 Let the glory of Jehovah endure for ever,Let Jehovah rejoice in His works.32 Who looks on the earth and it trembles,He touches the mountains and they smoke.33 Let me sing to Jehovah while I live,Let me harp to my God while I have being.34 Be my meditation sweet to Him!I, I will rejoice in Jehovah.35 Be sinners consumed from the earth,And the wicked be no more!Bless Jehovah, my soul!Hallelujah!
Like the preceding psalm, this one begins and ends with the psalmist's call to his soul to bless Jehovah. The inference has been drawn that both psalms have the same author, but that is much too large a conclusion from such a fact. The true lesson from it is that Nature, when looked at by an eye that sees it to be full of God, yields material for devout gratitude no less than do His fatherly "mercies to them that fear Him." The key-note of the psalm is struck in ver. 24, which breaks into an exclamation concerning the manifoldness of God's works and the wisdom that has shaped them all. The psalm is a gallery of vivid Nature-pictures, touched with wonderful grace and sureness of hand. Clearness of vision and sympathy with every living thing make the swift outlines inimitably firm and lovely. The poet's mind is like a crystal mirror, in which the Cosmos is reflected. He is true to the uniform Old Testament point of view, and regards Nature neither from the scientific nor æsthetic standpoint. To him it is the garment of God, the apocalypse of a present Deity, whose sustaining energy is but the prolongation of His creative act. All creatures depend on Him; His continuous action is their life. He rejoices in His works. The Creation narrative in Genesis underlies the psalm, and is in the main followed, though not slavishly.
Ver. 1 would be normal in structure if the initial invocation were omitted, and as ver. 35 would also be complete without it, the suggestion that it is, in both verses, a liturgical addition is plausible. Theverse sums up the whole of the creative act in one grand thought. In that act the invisible God has arrayed Himself in splendour and glory, making visible these inherent attributes. That is the deepest meaning of Creation. The Universe is the garment of God.
This general idea lays the foundation for the following picture of the process of creation which is coloured by reminiscences of Genesis. Here, as there, Light is the first-born of Heaven; but the influence of the preceding thought shapes the language, and Light is regarded as God's vesture. The Uncreated Light, who is darkness to our eyes, arrays Himself in created light, which reveals while it veils Him. Everywhere diffused, all-penetrating, all-gladdening, it tells of the Presence in which all creatures live. This clause is the poetic rendering of the work of the first creative day. The next clause in like manner deals with that of the second. The mighty arch of heaven is lifted and expanded over earth, as easily as a man draws the cloth or skin sides and canopy of his circular tent over its framework. But our roof is His floor; and, according to Genesis, the firmament (lit. expanse) separates the waters above from those beneath. So the psalm pictures the Divine Architect as laying the beams of Hisupper chambers(for so the word means) in these waters, above the tent roof. The fluid is solid at His will, and the most mobile becomes fixed enough to be the foundation of His royal abode. The custom of having chambers on the roof, for privacy and freshness, suggests the image.
In these introductory verses the poet is dealing with the grander instances of creative power, especially as realised in the heavens. Not till ver. 5 does he drop to earth. His first theme is God's dominion over theelemental forces, and so he goes on to represent the clouds as His chariot, the wind as bearing Him on its swift pinions, and, as the parallelism requires, the winds as His messengers, and devouring fire as His servants. The rendering of ver. 4 adopted in Hebrews from the LXX. is less relevant to the psalmist's purpose of gathering all the forces which sweep through the wide heavens into one company of obedient servants of God, than that adopted above, and now generally recognised. It is to be observed that the verbs in vv. 2-4 are participles, which express continuous action. These creative acts were not done once for all, but are going on still and always. Preservation is continued creation.
With ver. 6 we pass to the work of the third of the Genesis days, and the verb is in the form which describes a historical fact. The earth is conceived of as formed, and already moulded into mountains and valleys, but all covered with "the deep" like a vesture—a sadly different one from the robe of Light which He wears. That weltering deep is bidden back to its future appointed bounds; and the process is grandly described, as if the waters were sentient, and, panic-struck at God's voice, took to flight. Ver. 8athrows in a vivid touch, to the disturbance of grammatical smoothness. The poet has the scene before his eye, and as the waters flee he sees the earth emerging, the mountains soaring, and the vales sinking, and he breaks his sentence, as if in wonder at the lovely apparition, but returns, in ver. 8b, to tell whither the fugitive waters fled—namely, to the ocean-depths. There they are hemmed in by God's will, and, as was promised to Noah, shall not again run wasting over a drowned world.
The picture of the emerging earth, with its variations of valleys and mountains, remains before the psalmist's eye throughout vv. 10-18, which describe how it is clothed and peopled. These effects are due to the beneficent ministry of the same element, when guided and restrained by God, which swathed the world with desolation. Water runs through the vales, and rain falls on the mountains. Therefore the former bear herbs and corn, vines and olives, and the latter are clothed with trees not planted by human hand, the mighty cedars which spread their broad shelves of steadfast green high up among the clouds. "Everything lives whithersoever water cometh," as Easterns know. Therefore round the drinking-places in the vales thirsty creatures gather, birds flit and sing; up among the cedars are peaceful nests, and inaccessible cliffs have their sure-footed inhabitants. All depend on water, and water is God's gift. The psalmist's view of Nature is characteristic in the direct ascription of all its processes to God. He makes the springs flow, and sends rain on the peaks. Equally characteristic is the absence of any expression of a sense of beauty in the sparkling streams tinkling down the gloomy wadies, or in the rain-storms darkening the hills, or in the green mantle of earth, or in the bright creatures. The psalmist is thinking of use, not of beauty. And yet it is a poet's clear and kindly eye which looks upon all, and sees the central characteristic of each,—the eager drinking of the wild ass; the music of the birds blending with the brawling of the stream, and sweeter because the singers are hidden among the branches; the freshly watered earth, "satisfied" with "the fruit of Thy works" (i.e., the rain which God has sent from His "upper chambers"), the manifold gifts which by Hiswondrous alchemy are produced from the ground by help of one agency, water; the forest trees with their foliage glistening, as if glad for the rain; the stork on her nest; the goats on the mountains; the "conies" (for which we have no popular name) hurrying to their holes in the cliffs. Man appears as depending, like the lower creatures, on the fruit of the ground; but he has more varied supplies, bread and wine and oil, and these not only satisfy material wants, but "gladden" and "strengthen" the heart. According to some, the word rendered "service" in ver. 14 means "tillage," a meaning which is supported by ver. 23, where the same word is rendered "labour," and which fits in well with the next clause of ver. 14, "to bring forth bread from the earth," which would describe the purpose of the tillage. His prerogative of labour is man's special differentia in creation. It is a token of his superiority to the happy, careless creatures who toil not nor spin. Earth does not yield him its best products without his co-operation. There would thus be an allusion to him as the only worker in creation, similar to that in ver. 23, and to the reference to the "ships" in ver. 26. But probably the meaning of "service," which is suggested by the parallelism, and does not introduce the new thought of co-operation with Nature or God, is to be preferred. The construction is somewhat difficult, but the rendering of vv. 14, 15, given above seems best. The two clauses with infinitive verbs (to bring forthandto cause to shine) are each followed by a clause in which the construction is varied into that with a finite verb, the meaning remaining the same; and all four clauses express the Divine purpose in causing vegetation to spring. Then the psalmist looks up once more to thehills. "The trees of Jehovah" are so called, not so much because they are great, as because, unlike vines and olives, they have not been planted or tended by man, nor belong to him. Far above the valleys, where men and the cattle dependent on him live on earth's cultivated bounties, the unowned woods stand and drink God's gift of rain, while wild creatures lead free lives amid mountains and rocks.
With ver. 19 the psalmist passes to the fourth day, but thinks of moon and sun only in relation to the alternation of day and night as affecting creatural life on earth. The moon is named first, because the Hebrew day began with the evening. It is themeasurer, by whose phases seasons (or, according to some,festivals) are reckoned. The sun is a punctual servant, knowing the hour to set and duly keeping it. "Thou appointest darkness and it is night." God wills, and His will effects material changes. He says to His servant Night, "Come," and she "comes." The psalmist had peopled the vales and mountains of his picture. Everywhere he had seen life fitted to its environment; and night is populous too. He had outlined swift sketches of tame and wild creatures, and now he half shows us beasts of prey stealing through the gloom. He puts his finger on two characteristics—their stealthy motions, and their cries which made night hideous. Even their roar was a kind of prayer, though they knew it not; it was God from whom they sought their food. It would not have answered the purpose to have spoken of "all the loves, Now sleeping in those quiet groves." The poet desired to show how there were creatures that found possibilities of happy life in all the variety of conditions fashioned by the creative Hand, which was thus shown to be moved by Wisdomand Love. The sunrise sends these nocturnal animals back to their dens, and the world is ready for man. "The sun looked over the mountain's rim," and the beasts of prey slunk to their lairs, and man's day of toil began—the mark of his pre-eminence, God's gift for his good, by which he uses creation for its highest end and fulfils God's purpose. Grateful is the evening rest when the day has been filled with strenuous toil.
The picture of earth and its inhabitants is now complete, and the dominant thought which it leaves on the psalmist's heart is cast into the exultant and wondering exclamation of ver. 24. The variety as well as multitude of the forms in which God's creative idea is embodied, the Wisdom which shapes all, His ownership of all, are the impressions made by the devout contemplation of Nature. The scientist and the artist are left free to pursue their respective lines of investigation and impression; but scientist and artist must rise to the psalmist's point of view, if they are to learn the deepest lesson from the ordered kingdoms of Nature and from the beauty which floods the world.
With the exclamation in ver. 24 the psalmist has finished his picture of the earth, which he had seen as if emerging from the abyss, and watched as it was gradually clothed with fertility and peopled with happy life. He turns, in vv. 25, 26, to the other half of his Vision of Creation, and portrays the gathered and curbed waters which he now calls the "sea." As always in Scripture, it is described as it looks to a landsman, gazing out on it from the safe shore. The characteristics specified betray unfamiliarity with maritime pursuits. The far-stretching roll of the waters away out to the horizon, the mystery veiling the strange lives swarming in its depths, the extreme contrasts inthe magnitude of its inhabitants, strike the poet. He sees "the stately ships go on." The introduction of these into the picture is unexpected. We should have looked for an instance of the "small" creatures, to pair off with the "great" one, Leviathan, in the next words. "A modern poet," says Cheyne,in loc., "would have joined the mighty whale to the fairy nautilus." It has been suggested that "ship" here is a name for the nautilus, which is common in the Eastern Mediterranean. The suggestion is a tempting one, as fitting in more smoothly with the antithesis ofsmallandgreatin the previous clause. But, in the absence of any proof that the word has any other meaning than "ship," the suggestion cannot be taken as more than a probable conjecture. The introduction of "ships" into the picture is quite in harmony with the allusions to man's works in the former parts of the psalm, such as ver. 23, and possibly ver. 14. The psalmist seems to intend to insert such reference to man, the only toiler, in all his pictures. "Leviathan" is probably here the whale. Ewald, Hitzig, Baethgen, Kay, and Cheyne follow the LXX. and Vulgate in reading "Leviathan whom Thou hast formed to sport with him," and take the words to refer to Job xli. 5. The thought would then be that God's power can control the mightiest creatures' plunges; but "the two preceding 'there's are in favour of the usual interpretation, 'therein'" (Hupfeld), and consequently of taking the "sporting" to be that of the unwieldy gambols of the sea-monster.
Verses 27-30 mass all creatures of earth and sea, including man, as alike dependent on God for sustenance and for life. Dumbly these look expectant to Him, though man only knows to whom all living eyesare directed. The swift clauses in vv. 28-30, without connecting particles, vividly represent the Divine acts as immediately followed by the creatural consequences. To this psalmist the links in the chain were of little consequence. His thoughts were fixed on its two ends—the Hand that sent its power thrilling through the links, and the result realised in the creature's life. All natural phenomena are issues of God's present will. Preservation is as much His act, as inexplicable without Him, as creation. There would be nothing to "gather" unless He "gave." All sorts of supplies, which make the "good" of physical life, are in His hand, whether they be the food of the wild asses by the streams, or of the conies among the cliffs, or of the young lions in the night, or of Leviathan tumbling amidst the waves, or of toiling man. Nor is it only the nourishment of life which comes straight from God to all, but life itself depends on His continual inbreathing. His face is creation's light; breath from Him is its life. The withdrawal of it is death. Every change in creatural condition is wrought by Him. He is the only Fountain of Life, and the reservoir of all the forces that minister to life or to inanimate being. But the psalmist will not end his contemplations with the thought of the fair creation returning to nothingness. Therefore he adds another verse (30); which tells of "life re-orient out of dust." Individuals pass; the type remains. New generations spring. The yearly miracle of Spring brings greenness over the snow-covered or brown pastures and green shoots from stiffened boughs. Many of last year's birds are dead, but there are nests in the cypresses, and twitterings among the branches in the wadies. Life, not death, prevails in God's world.
So the psalmist gathers all up into a burst of praise. He desires that the glory of God, which accrues to Him from His works, may ever be rendered through devout recognition of Him as working them all by man, the only creature who can be the spokesman of creation. He further desires that, as God at first saw that all was "very good," He may ever continue thus to rejoice in His works, or, in other words, that these may fulfil His purpose. Possibly His rejoicing in His works is regarded as following upon man's giving glory to Him for them. That rejoicing, which is the manifestation both of His love and of His satisfaction, is all the more desired, because, if His works donotplease Him, there lies in Him a dread abyss of destructive power, which could sweep them into nothingness. Superficial readers may feel that the tone of ver. 32 strikes a discord, but it is a discord which can be resolved into deeper harmony. One frown from God, and the solid earth trembles, as conscious to its depths of His displeasure. One touch of the hand that is filled with good, and the mountains smoke. Creation perishes if He is displeased. Well then may the psalmist pray that He may for ever rejoice in His works, and make them live by His smile.
Very beautifully and profoundly does the psalmist ask, in vv. 33, 34, that some echo of the Divine joy may gladden his own heart, and that his praise may be coeval with God's glory and his own life. This is the Divine purpose in creation—that God may rejoice in it and chiefly in man its crown, and that man may rejoice in Him. Such sweet commerce is possible between heaven and earth; and they have learned the lesson of creative power and love aright who by it have been led to share in the joy of God. The psalmhas been shaped in part by reminiscences of the creative days of creation. It ends with the Divine Sabbath, and with the prayer, which is also a hope, that man may enter into God's rest.
But there is one discordant note in creation's full-toned hymn, "the fair music that all creatures made." There are sinners on earth; and the last prayer of the psalmist is that that blot may be removed, and so nothing may mar the realisation of God's ideal, nor be left to lessen the completeness of His delight in His work. And so the psalm ends, as it began, with the singer's call to his own soul to bless Jehovah.
This is the first psalm which closes with Hallelujah (Praise Jehovah). It is appended to the two following psalms, which close Book IV., and is again found in Book V., in Psalms cxi.-cxiii., cxv.-cxvii., and in the final group, Psalms cxlvi.-cl. It is probably a liturgical addition.
1 Give thanks to Jehovah, call on His name,Make known among the peoples His deeds.2 Sing to Him, harp to Him,Speak musingly of all His wonders.3 Glory in His holy name,Glad be the heart of them that seek Jehovah!4 Inquire after Jehovah and His strength,Seek His face continually.5 Remember His wonders which He has done,His marvels and the judgments of His mouth.6 O seed of Abraham His servant,Sons of Jacob, His chosen ones.7 He, Jehovah, is our God,In all the earth are His judgments.8 He remembers His covenant for ever,The word which He commanded for a thousand generations;9 Which He made with Abraham,And His oath to Isaac.10 And He established it with Jacob for a statute,To Israel for an everlasting covenant,11 Saying, "To thee will I give the land of Canaan,[As] your measured allotment;"12 Whilst they were easily counted,Very few, and but sojourners therein;13 And they went about from nation to nation,From [one] kingdom to another people.14 He suffered no man to oppress them,And reproved kings for their sakes;15 [Saying], "Touch not Mine anointed ones,And to My prophets do no harm."16 And He called for a famine on the land,Every staff of bread He broke.17 He sent before them a man,For a slave was Joseph sold.18 They afflicted his feet with the fetter,He was put in irons.19 Till the time [when] his word came [to pass],The promise of Jehovah tested him.20 The king sent and loosed him,The ruler of peoples, and let him go.21 He made him lord over his house,And ruler over all his substance;22 To bind princes at his pleasure,And to make his elders wise.23 So Israel came to Egypt,And Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.24 And He made His people fruitful exceedingly,And made them stronger than their foes.25 He turned their heart to hate His people,To deal craftily with His servants.26 He sent Moses His servant,[And] Aaron whom He had chosen.27 They set [forth] among them His signs,And wonders in the land of Ham.28 He sent darkness, and made it dark,And they rebelled not against His words.29 He turned their waters to blood,And slew their fish.30 Their land swarmed [with] frogs,In the chambers of their kings.31 He spake and the gad-fly came,Gnats in all their borders.32 He gave hail [for] their rains,Flaming fire in their land.33 And He smote their vine and their fig-tree,And broke the trees of their borders.34 He spoke and the locust came,And caterpillar-locusts without number,35 And ate up every herb in their land,And ate up the fruit of their ground.36 And He smote every first-born in their land,The firstlings of all their strength.37 And He brought them out with silver and gold,And there was not one among His tribes who stumbled.38 Glad was Egypt at their departure,For the fear of them had fallen upon them.39 He spread a cloud for a covering,And fire to light the night.40 They asked and He brought quails,And [with] bread from heaven He satisfied them.41 He opened the rock and forth gushed waters,They flowed through the deserts, a river.42 For He remembered His holy word,[And] Abraham His servant;43 And He brought out His people [with] joy,With glad cries His chosen [ones];44 And He gave them the lands of the nations,And they took possession of the toil of the peoples,45 To the end that they might observe His statutes,And keep His laws.Hallelujah!
1 Give thanks to Jehovah, call on His name,Make known among the peoples His deeds.2 Sing to Him, harp to Him,Speak musingly of all His wonders.3 Glory in His holy name,Glad be the heart of them that seek Jehovah!4 Inquire after Jehovah and His strength,Seek His face continually.5 Remember His wonders which He has done,His marvels and the judgments of His mouth.6 O seed of Abraham His servant,Sons of Jacob, His chosen ones.
7 He, Jehovah, is our God,In all the earth are His judgments.8 He remembers His covenant for ever,The word which He commanded for a thousand generations;9 Which He made with Abraham,And His oath to Isaac.10 And He established it with Jacob for a statute,To Israel for an everlasting covenant,11 Saying, "To thee will I give the land of Canaan,[As] your measured allotment;"12 Whilst they were easily counted,Very few, and but sojourners therein;13 And they went about from nation to nation,From [one] kingdom to another people.14 He suffered no man to oppress them,And reproved kings for their sakes;15 [Saying], "Touch not Mine anointed ones,And to My prophets do no harm."
16 And He called for a famine on the land,Every staff of bread He broke.17 He sent before them a man,For a slave was Joseph sold.18 They afflicted his feet with the fetter,He was put in irons.19 Till the time [when] his word came [to pass],The promise of Jehovah tested him.20 The king sent and loosed him,The ruler of peoples, and let him go.21 He made him lord over his house,And ruler over all his substance;22 To bind princes at his pleasure,And to make his elders wise.
23 So Israel came to Egypt,And Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.24 And He made His people fruitful exceedingly,And made them stronger than their foes.25 He turned their heart to hate His people,To deal craftily with His servants.26 He sent Moses His servant,[And] Aaron whom He had chosen.27 They set [forth] among them His signs,And wonders in the land of Ham.
28 He sent darkness, and made it dark,And they rebelled not against His words.29 He turned their waters to blood,And slew their fish.30 Their land swarmed [with] frogs,In the chambers of their kings.31 He spake and the gad-fly came,Gnats in all their borders.32 He gave hail [for] their rains,Flaming fire in their land.33 And He smote their vine and their fig-tree,And broke the trees of their borders.34 He spoke and the locust came,And caterpillar-locusts without number,35 And ate up every herb in their land,And ate up the fruit of their ground.36 And He smote every first-born in their land,The firstlings of all their strength.37 And He brought them out with silver and gold,And there was not one among His tribes who stumbled.38 Glad was Egypt at their departure,For the fear of them had fallen upon them.39 He spread a cloud for a covering,And fire to light the night.40 They asked and He brought quails,And [with] bread from heaven He satisfied them.41 He opened the rock and forth gushed waters,They flowed through the deserts, a river.42 For He remembered His holy word,[And] Abraham His servant;43 And He brought out His people [with] joy,With glad cries His chosen [ones];44 And He gave them the lands of the nations,And they took possession of the toil of the peoples,45 To the end that they might observe His statutes,And keep His laws.Hallelujah!
It is a reasonable conjecture that the Hallelujah at the end of Psalm civ., where it is superfluous, properly belongs to this psalm, which would then be assimilated to Psalm cvi., which is obviously a companion psalm. Both are retrospective and didactic; but Psalm cv. deals entirely with God's unfailing faithfulness to Israel, while Psalm cvi. sets forth the sad contrast presented by Israel's continual faithlessness to God. Each theme is made more impressive by being pursued separately, and then set over against the other. The long series of God's mercies massed together here confronts the dark uniformity of Israel's unworthy requital of them there. Half of the sky is pure blue and radiant sunshine; half is piled with unbroken clouds. Nothing drives home the consciousness of sin so surely as contemplation of God's loving acts. Probably this psalm, like others of similar contents, is of late date. The habit of historical retrospect for religious purposes is likely to belong to times remote from the events recorded. Vv. 1-15 are found in 1 Chron. xvi. as part of the hymn at David's settingup of the Ark on Zion. But that hymn is unmistakably a compilation from extant psalms, and cannot be taken as deciding the Davidic authorship of the psalm.
Vv. 1-6 are a ringing summons to extol and contemplate God's great deeds for Israel. They are full of exultation, and, in their reiterated short clauses, are like the joyful cries of a herald bringing good tidings to Zion. There is a beautiful progress of thought in these verses. They begin with the call to thank and praise Jehovah and to proclaim His doings among the people. That recognition of Israel's office as the world's evangelist does not require the supposition that the nation was dispersed in captivity, but simply shows that the singer understood the reason for the long series of mercies heaped on it. It is significant that God's "deeds" are Israel's message to the world. By such deeds His "name" is spoken. What God has done is the best revelation of what God is. His messengers are not to speak their own thoughts about Him, but to tell the story of His acts and let these speak for Him. Revelation is not a set of propositions, but a history of Divine facts. The foundation of audible praise and proclamation is contemplation. Therefore the exhortation in ver. 2bfollows, which means not merely "speak," but may be translated, as in margin of the Revised Version, "meditate," and is probably best rendered so as to combine both ideas, "musingly speak." Let not the words be mere words, but feel the great deeds which you proclaim. In like manner, ver. 3 calls upon the heralds to "glory" for themselves in the name of Jehovah, and to make efforts to possess Him more fully and to rejoice in finding Him. Aspiration after clearer and closer knowledge and experience of God should ever underlie glad pealing forth of Hisname. If it does not, eloquent tongues will fall silent, and Israel's proclamation will be cold and powerless. To seek Jehovah is to find His strength investing our feebleness. To turn our faces towards His in devout desire is to have our faces made bright by reflected light. And one chief way of seeking Jehovah is the remembrance of His merciful wonders of old, "He hath made His wonderful works to be remembered" (Psalm cxi. 4), and His design in them is that men should have solid basis for their hopes, and be thereby encouraged to seek Him, as well as be taught what He is. Thus the psalmist reaches his main theme, which is to build a memorial of these deeds for an everlasting possession. The "wonders" referred to in ver. 5 are chiefly those wrought in Egypt, as the subsequent verses show.
Ver. 6 contains, in the names given to Israel, the reason for their obeying the preceding summonses. Their hereditary relation to God gives them the material, and imposes on them the obligation and the honour, of being "secretaries of God's praise." In ver. 6a"His servant" may be intended to designate the nation, as it often does in Isa. xl.-lxvi. "His chosen ones" in ver. 6bwould then be an exact parallel; but the recurrence of the expression in ver. 42, with the individual reference, makes that reference more probable here.
The fundamental fact underlying all Israel's experience of God's care is His own loving will, which, self-moved, entered into covenant obligations, so that thereafter His mercies are ensured by His veracity, no less than by His kindness. Hence the psalm begins its proper theme by hymning the faithfulness of God to His oath, and painting the insignificance of the beginnings of the nation, as showing that the ground ofGod's covenant relation was laid in Himself, not in them. Israel's consciousness of holding a special relation to God never obscured, in the minds of psalmists and prophets, the twin truth that all the earth waited on Him, and was the theatre of His manifestations. Baser souls might hug themselves on their prerogative. The nobler spirits ever confessed that it laid on them duties to the world, and that God had not left Himself without witness in any land. These two truths have often been rent asunder, both in Israel and in Christendom, but each needs the other for its full comprehension. "Jehovah is our God" may become the war-cry of bitter hostility to them that are without, or of contempt, which is quite as irreligious. "In all the earth are His judgments" may lead to a vague theism, incredulous of special revelation. He who is most truly penetrated with the first will be most joyfully ready to proclaim the second of these sister-thoughts, and will neither shut up all God's mercies within the circle of revelation, nor lose sight of His clearest utterances while looking on His more diffused and less perfect ones.
The obligations under which God has come to Israel are represented as a covenant, a word and an oath. In all the general idea of explicit declaration of Divine purpose, which henceforth becomes binding on God by reason of His faithfulness, is contained; but the conception of acovenantimplies mutual obligations, failure to discharge which on one side relieves the other contracting party from his promise, while that of awordsimply includes the notion of articulate utterance, and that of anoathadds the thought of a solemn sanction and a pledge given. God swears by Himself—that is, His own character is the guarantee of Hispromise. These various designations are thus heaped together, in order to heighten the thought of the firmness of His promise. It stands "for ever," "to a thousand generations"; it is an "everlasting covenant." The psalmist triumphs, as it were, in the manifold repetition of it. Each of the fathers of the nation had it confirmed to himself,—Abraham; Isaac when, ready to flee from the land in famine, he had renewed to him (Gen. xxvi. 3) the oath which he had first heard as he stood, trembling but unharmed, by the rude altar where the ram lay in his stead (Gen. xxii. 16); Jacob as he lay beneath the stars at Bethel. With Jacob (Israel) the singer passes from the individuals to the nation, as is shown by the alternation of "thee" and "you" in ver. 11.
The lowly condition of the recipients of the promise not only exalts the love which chose them, but the power which preserved them and fulfilled it. And if, as may be the case, the psalm is exilic or post-exilic, its picture of ancient days is like a mirror, reflecting present depression and bidding the downcast be of good cheer. He who made a strong nation out of that little horde of wanderers must have been moved by His own heart, not by anything in them; and what He did long ago He can do to-day. God's past is the prophecy of God's future. Literally rendered, ver. 12aruns "Whilst they were men of number,"i.e., easily numbered (Gen. xxxiv. 30, where Jacob uses the same phrase). "Very few" inbis literally "like a little," and may either apply to number or to worth. It is used in the latter sense, in reference to "the heart of the wicked," in Prov. x. 20, and may have the same meaning here. That little band of wanderers, who went about as sojourners among the kinglets of Canaan and Philistia,with occasional visits to Egypt, seemed very vulnerable; but God was, as He had promised to the first of them at a moment of extreme peril, their "shield," and in their lives there were instances of strange protection afforded them, which curbed kings, as in the case of Abram in Egypt (Gen. xii.) and Gerar (Gen. xx.), and of Isaac in the latter place (Gen. xxvi.). The patriarchs were not, technically speaking, "anointed," but they had that of which anointing was but a symbol. They were Divinely set apart and endowed for their tasks, and, as consecrated to God's service, their persons were inviolable. In a very profound sense all God's servants are thus anointed, and are "immortal till their work is done." "Prophets" in the narrower sense of the word the patriarchs were not, but Abraham is called so by God in one of the places already referred to (Gen. xx. 7). Prior to prophetic utterance is prophetic inspiration; and these men received Divine communications, and were, in a special degree, possessed of the counsels of Heaven. The designation is equivalent to Abraham's name of the "friend of God." Thus both titles, which guaranteed a charmed, invulnerable life to their bearers, go deep into the permanent privileges of God-trusting souls. All such "have an anointing from the Holy One," and receive whispers from His lips. They are all under the ægis of His protection, and for their sakes kings of many a dynasty and age have been rebuked.
In vv. 16-22 the history of Joseph is poetically and summarily treated, as a link in the chain of providences which brought about the fulfilment of the Covenant. Possibly the singer is thinking about a captive Israel in the present, while speaking about a captive Joseph in the past. In God's dealings humiliation and afflictionare often, he thinks, the precursors of glory and triumph. Calamities prepare the way for prosperity. So it was in that old time; and so it is still. In thisrésuméof the history of Joseph, the points signalised are God's direct agency in the whole—the errand on which Joseph was sent ("before them") as a forerunner to "prepare a place for them," the severity of his sufferings, the trial of his faith by the contrast which his condition presented to what God had promised, and his final exaltation. The description of Joseph's imprisonment adds some dark touches to the account in Genesis, whether these are due to poetic idealising or to tradition. In ver. 18bsome would translate "Iron came over his soul." So Delitzsch, following the Vulgate ("Ferrum pertransiit animam ejus"), and the picturesque Prayer-Book Version, "The iron entered into his soul." But the original is against this, as the word forironis masculine and the verb is feminine, agreeing with the feminine nounsoul. The clause is simply a parallel to the preceding. "His soul" is best taken as a mere periphrasis forhe, though it may be used emphatically to suggest that "his soul entered, whole and entire, in its resolve to obey God, into the cruel torture" (Kay). The meaning is conveyed by the free rendering above.
Ver. 19 is also ambiguous, from the uncertainty as to whose word is intended ina. It may be either God's or Joseph's. The latter is the more probable, as there appears to be an intentional contrast between "His word" ina, and "the promise of Jehovah" inb. If this explanation is adopted, a choice is still possible between Joseph's interpretation of his fellow-prisoners' dreams, the fulfilment of which led to his liberation, and his earlier word recounting his own dreams, whichled to his being sold by his brethren. In any case, the thought of the verse is a great and ever true one, that God's promise, while it remains unfulfilled, and seems contradicted by present facts, serves as a test of the genuineness and firmness of a man's reliance on Him and it. That promise is by the psalmist almost personified, as putting Joseph to the test. Such testing is the deepest meaning of all afflictions. Fire will burn off a thin plating of silver from a copper coin and reveal the base metal beneath, but it will only brighten into a glow the one which is all silver.
There is a ring of triumph in the singer's voice as he tells of the honour and power heaped on the captive, and of how the king of many nations "sent," as the mightier King in heaven had done (vv. 20 and 17), and not only liberated but exalted him, giving him, whose soul had been bound in fetters, power to "bind princes according to his soul," and to instruct and command the elders of Egypt.
Vv. 23-27 carry on the story to the next step in the evolution of God's purposes. The long years of the sojourn in Egypt are summarily dealt with, as they are in the narrative in Genesis and Exodus, and the salient points of its close alone are touched—the numerical growth of the people, the consequent hostility of the Egyptians, and the mission of Moses and Aaron. The direct ascription to God of all the incidents mentioned is to be noted. The psalmist sees only one hand moving, and has no hesitation in tracing to God the turning of the Egyptians' hearts to hatred. Many commentators, both old and new, try to weaken the expression, by the explanation that the hatred was "indirectly the work of God, inasmuch as He lent increasing might to the people" (Delitzsch). But the psalmist meansmuch more than this, just as Exodus does in attributing the hardening of Pharaoh's heart to God.
Ver. 27, according to the existing text, breaks the series of verses beginning with a singular verb of which God is the subject, which stretch with only one other interruption from ver. 24 to ver. 37. It seems most probable, therefore, that the LXX. is right in readingHeinstead ofThey. The change is but the omission of one letter, and the error supposed is a frequent one. The word literally meanssetorplanted, anddidis an explanation rather than a rendering. The whole expression is remarkable. Literally, we should translate "He" (or "They") "set among them words" (or "matters") "of His signs"; but this would be unintelligible, and we must have recourse to reproduction of the meaning rather than of the words.
If "words of His signs" is not merely pleonastic, it may be rendered, as by Kay, "His long record of signs," or as by Cheyne, "His varied signs." But it is better to take the expression as suggesting that themiracleswere indeedwords, as being declarations of God's will and commands to let His people go. The phrase in ver. 5, "the judgments of His mouth," would then be roughly parallel. God's deeds are words. His signs have tongues. "He speaks and it is done"; but also, "He does and it is spoken." The expression, however, may be like Psalm lxv. 4, where the same form of phrase is applied to sins, and where it seems to mean "deeds of iniquity." It would then mean here "His works which were signs."
The following enumeration of the "signs" does not follow the order in Exodus, but begins with the ninth plague, perhaps because of its severity, and then in the main adheres to the original sequence, though it invertsthe order of the third and forth plagues (flies and gnats or mosquitoes, not "lice") and omits the fifth and sixth. The reason for this divergence is far from clear, but it may be noted that the first two in the psalmist's order attack the elements; the next three (frogs, flies, gnats) have to do with animal life; and the next two (hail and locusts), which embrace both these categories, are considered chiefly as affecting vegetable products. The emphasis is laid in all on God's direct act.Hesends darkness,Heturns the waters into blood, and so on. The only other point needing notice in these verses is the statement in ver. 28b. "They rebelled not against His word," which obviously is true only in reference to Moses and Aaron, who shrank not from their perilous embassage.
The tenth plague is briefly told, for the psalm is hurrying on to the triumphant climax of the Exodus, when, enriched with silver and gold, the tribes went forth, strong for their desert march, and Egypt rejoiced to see the last of them, "for they said, We be all dead men" (Exod. xii. 33). There may be a veiled hope in this exultant picture of the Exodus, that present oppression will end in like manner. The wilderness sojourn is so treated in ver. 39sqq.as to bring into sight only the leading instances, sung in many psalms, of God's protection, without one disturbing reference to the sins and failures which darkened the forty years. These are spread out at length, without flattery or minimising, in the next psalm; but here the theme is God's wonders. Therefore, the pillar of cloud which guided, covered, and illumined the camp, the miracles which provided food and water, are touched on in vv. 39-41, and then the psalmist gathers up the lessons which he would teach in three great thoughts. The reason for God's mercifuldealings with His people is His remembrance of His covenant, and of His servant Abraham, whose faith made a claim on God, for the fulfilment which would vindicate it. That covenant has been amply fulfilled, for Israel came forth with ringing songs, and took possession of lands which they had not tilled, and houses which they had not built. The purpose of covenant and fulfilment is that the nation, thus admitted into special relations with God, should by His mercies be drawn to keep His commandments, and in obedience find rest and closer fellowship with its God. The psalmist had learned that God gives before He demands or commands, and that "Love," springing from grateful reception of His benefits, "is the fulfilling of the Law." He anticipates the full Christian exhortation, "I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice."