Psalms 19:4

Their line is gone out through all the earth,.... Not the line or writings in the book of the creatures, the heavens, and the earth, which lie open, and are legible, and to be seen and read of all

Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Their line is gone out through all the earth.

Their line; either, 1. Their admirable structure made exactly, and as it were by line: see . Or, 2. Their lines, the singular number being put for the plural, for the line answereth to the words in the next clause. And by line or lines he may understand their writing, as this very word is taken, , which is made up of several lines. And this expression may seem to be very fit and proper, because the heavens do not teach men audibly, or by speaking to their ears, but visibly, by propounding things to their eyes, which is done in lines or writongs. Is gone out, i.e. is spread abroad or drawn forth. Through all the earth; so as to be seen and read by all the inhabitants of the earth. Their words, i.e. their magnificent structure, and their exquisite order, and most regular course, by which they declare their author, no less than if they used many words or long discourses to that purpose, or no less than men discover their minds by their words. See more concerning this verse upon , where it is applied to the preaching of the gospel by the apostles in the several parts of the world. A tabernacle; which is a movable habitation, and therefore fitly applied to the sun, which is here described to be in constant and perpetual motion, ,6. For the sun; which being the most illustrious and useful of all the heavenly bodies, is here particularly mentioned.

Psalms 19:4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,Ver. 4. Their line is gone out through all the earth] Or, their rule, or direction, or delineation, or Scripture, Quod in coelis tanquam in volumine omnibus conspicuo descripta sit Dei gloria, because that in the heavens, as in an open book, is written down the glory of the Creator. The like is done also in other less considerable creatures; every of which do after a sort write as well as speak, and have a pen as well as a tongue. The Chaldee word λαςΰ for a mint signifieth also a book of histories, because in that one herb large stories of God’ s wisdom, might, and love are described unto us. The same word also that signifieth an ear of grain signifieth a word, ξμιμη because every field of corn is a book of God’ s praise, every land a leaf, every sheaf a verse, every ear a word, every corn of wheat a letter, to express the glory of God by, Praesentem narrat quaelibet herba Deum. Antony, the hermit, being asked by a certain philosopher how he could contemplate high things having no help of books? answered, That the whole world was to him instead of a well furnished library; this he had ready by him at all times and in all places, and in this he could read when he pleased the great things of God (Aug. de Doct. Christ. 1. 1; Niceph. l. 8, c. 40). Bernard also saith that was the time when he had no other masters, nisi quercus et fagos, but the oaks and beech trees. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun] That prince of planets, but servant to the saints of the Most High, as his name importeth: so sweet a creature he is, that Eudoxus, the philosopher, professed that he would be content to be burnt up by the heat of it so he might be admitted to come so near it as to learn the nature of it. A tabernacle, or flitting tent, it is here said to have in the heavens; because it never stayeth in one place, but courseth about with incredible swiftness.

(4) Their line.—Heb., kav, a cord, used of a plummet line (Zechariah 1:16); a measuring cord (Jeremiah 31:39, where also same verb, gone forth). In Isaiah 28:10, the word is used ethically for a definition or law. But neither of these seems very appropriate here. The verse wants sound or voice, and words of this intention actually appear in the LXX., Vulg., Symmachus, Jerome, and the Syriac. The use which St. Paul makes of these words (Romans 10:18) is as natural as striking. The march of truth has always been compared to the spread of light. But the allegorical interpretation based on the quotation, making the heavens a figure of the Church and the sun of the Gospel, loses the force and beauty of the Apostle’s application. In them hath . . .—This clause is not only rightly joined to Psalms 19:4, but concludes a stanza: the relative in the next verse of the Authorised Version mars the true construction. A tabernacle.—The tent-chamber into which the sun retired after his day’s journey, and from which he started in the morn, Aurora, or dawn (according to Grecian mythology) drawing back the curtains for his departure, was naturally a conception common to all nations. That the phenomena of sunset should engage the poet’s attention before those of sunrise was inevitable in a race who reckoned “the evening and the morning were the first day.” The LXX. and Vulg. completely spoil the picture by rendering “he hath pitched his tent in the sun.”

4. This proclamation is universal. The phrase Their line is gone out &c., is to be explained by Jeremiah 31:39; Zechariah 1:16. The measuring line marks the limits of possession. The whole earth is the sphere throughout which the heavens have to proclaim their message. The rendering of P.B.V. their sound follows LXX, Vulg., Symm., Jer., Syr., but it is not justifiable as a rendering of the present text, though it may be got by an easy emendation. A wider application is given to these words by St Paul in Romans 10:18. But his use of them is not merely the adoption of a convenient phrase. It implies a comparison of the universality of the proclamation of the Gospel with the universality of the proclamation of God’s glory in Nature. In them &c.] How naturally the poet singles out the Sun as the chief witness to God’s glory, and personifies it as though it were a king or hero, for whose abode the Creator has fixed a tent in the heavens.

Their line - That is, of the heavens. The word used here - קו qav - means properly a cord, or line: (a) a measuring line, Ezekiel 47:3; Job 38:5; Isaiah 44:13; and then (b) a cord or string as of a

4. Their line—The word generally means a measuring line, but here seems to take the sense of rule, law, as in Isaiah 28:10-17.