Psalms 19:3

[There is] no speech nor language [where] their voice is not heard,.... Not the voice of the day and night; as if the sense was, that there is no people, of any speech or language under the sun, but

There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.

Or, understood, as the verb oft signifies, as 42:23 ; for the hearing of it would have been insignificant without the understanding of it, in which the force of the argument lies. The sense is, There are divers nations in the world, which have several languages, so that one cannot discourse with or be understood by another; but the heavens are such a universal and admirable teacher, that they can speak to all people under them, and be clearly understood by all. No nation, or people, saith that wise and learned heathen, Tully, is so barbarous and sottish, as, when they look up to the heavens, not to perceive that there is a, God, or to imagine that those things are the effect of blind chance, which are made with such wonderful art and wisdom, that it requires extraordinary art to understand their excellent orders and course. But this verse is by divers learned men otherwise translated, not without an elegant gradation, as some observe. They have no speech nor word, nor is any voice or heard in or from them. Then follow the next verse by way of opposition, yet their line, &c. Or thus, They have no speech nor words, (which is supposed to be here said by way of prolepsis, to soften and explain his former expressions of the heavens, declaring and speaking,) yet (or, but without them) their voice is heard or understood.

Psalms 19:3 [There is] no speech nor language, [where] their voice is not heard.Ver. 3. There is no speech nor language where their voice] And yet few hear these universal preachers, these Regii Professores, these real expositors of the divinity, as one styleth them, who do preach to all people at once, Non solum diserte sed et exerte, at surdis plerumque fabulam, they are by the most as little respected as is the cuckoo in June.

(3) There is no speech.—The literal rendering is Not speech, not words, their voice is not heard. Explaining this is (1) the English version (Bible and Prayer Book) and (if intelligible at all) the LXX. and Vulg.: “There is no speech nor language without their (the heavens’) speech being heard (i.e., understood).” But this gives an inadmissible sense to davar, which does not mean language, but a spoken word. Besides, it was not a likely thought for the psalmist, that the Divine tradition of the heavens, while it travels over the whole earth, would be everywhere intelligible. (2) “It is not speech, it is not words whose voice is inaudible,” i.e., unintelligible, but, on the contrary, it is a manifestation to all the world. But the parallelism is against this. The line “their voice is not heard” is but the rhythmic echo of there is no speech nor word.” (3) We therefore keep close to the literal rendering, There is no speech, there are no (uttered) words, their voice is inaudible; understanding the poet to say, that the manifestation of the Creator’s glory, which he has just imagined the heavens proclaiming, and of which each succeeding day hands on the tale, is not made in audible words. The communication of the sky is eloquent, but mute; its voice is for the heart and emotion, not the ear. So Addison— “What though in solemn silence all Move round this dark terrestrial ball, What though no real voice or sound Amidst their radiant orbs be found? In reason’s ear they all rejoice And utter forth a glorious voice, For ever singing as they shine The hand that made us is Divine.”

Verse 3. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.] Leave out the expletives here, which pervert the sense; and what remains is a tolerable translation of the original: - אין אמר ואין דברים בלי נשמע קולם Ein omer veein debarim, beli nishma kolam. "No speech, and no words; their voice without hearing." בכל הארץ יצא קום ובקצה תבל מליהם Bechol haarets yatsa kavvam: Ubiktsey thebel milleyhem. "Into all the earth hath gone out their sound; and to the extremity of the habitable world, their eloquence." The word קו kau, which we translate line, is rendered sonus, by the Vulgate, and φθαγγος, sound, by the Septuagint; and St. Paul, Romans 10:18, uses the same term. Perhaps the idea here is taken from a stretched cord, that emits a sound on being struck; and hence both ideas may be included in the same word; and קום kavvam may be either their line, or cord, or their sound. But I rather think that the Hebrew word originally meant sound or noise; for in Arabic the verb [Arabic] kavaha signifies he called out, cried, clamavit. The sense of the whole is this, as Bishop Horne has well expressed it: - "Although the heavens are thus appointed to teach, yet it is not by articulate sounds that they do it. They are not endowed, like man, with the faculty of speech; but they address themselves to the mind of the intelligent beholder in another way, and that, when understood, a no less forcible way, the way of picture or representation. The instruction which the heavens spread abroad is as universal as their substance, which extends itself in lines, or rays. By this means their words, or rather their significant actions or operations, מליהם, are everywhere present; and thereby they preach to all the nations the power and wisdom, the mercy and lovingkindness, of the Lord." St. Paul applies this as a prophecy relative to the universal spread of the Gospel of Christ, Romans 10:18; for God designed that the light of the Gospel should be diffused wheresoever the light of the celestial luminaries shone; and be as useful and beneficent, in a moral point of view, as that is in a natural. All the inhabitants of the earth shall benefit by the Gospel of Christ, as they all benefit by the solar, lunar, and stellar light. And, indeed, all have thus benefited, even where the words are not yet come. "Jesus is the true Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world." His light, and the voice of his Spirit, have already gone through the earth; and his words, and the words of his apostles, are by means of the Bible and missionaries going out to all the extremities of the habitable globe. On these words I shall conclude with the translation of my old Psalter: - Ver. 1. Hevens telles the joy of God; and the werkes of his handes schewis the firmament. Ver. 2. Day til day riftes word; and nyght til nyght schewes conyng. Ver.

3. (a) The rendering of A.V. means that the message of the heavens reaches all nations of every language alike, and is intelligible to them. But the Heb. words rendered speech and language will not bear this explanation. (b) The rendering It is not a speech or wordsWhose voice is unintelligible, is that of most of the ancient versions (LXX, Aq., Symm., Theod., Vulg., Jer.). But it does not satisfy the parallelism, and it is unnatural to refer their voice to ‘speech and words’ rather than to ‘the heavens.’ (c) It is best to render (cp. R.V.) There is neither speech nor words, Unheard is their voice. Their message though real is inarticulate. Thus understood, the verse qualifies Psalms 19:2, and is in close connexion with Psalms 19:4. Theirs is a silent eloquence, yet it reaches from one end of the world to the other. Comp. Addison’s paraphrase: “What though in solemn silence all Move round the dark terrestrial ball? What though nor real voice nor sound Amid their radiant orbs be found? In reason’s ear they all rejoice, And utter forth a glorious voice, For ever singing, as they shine, ‘The hand that made us is divine’.”

There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard - Margin, Without these their voice is heard. Hebrew, “without their voice heard.” The idea in the margin, which is adopted by Prof.

3. There is no speech nor language—Literally, no speech and no words; not heard is their voice. The words translated speech, language, and voice, apply only to the human voice and to articulate speech.