Psalms 19:5

Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,.... His nuptial chamber, on which Elias writes (y), "we call the garment (or canopy) spread over the head of the bridegroom and bride, supported by

Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. Which is as a bridegroom ... and rejoiceth as a strong man - Hebrew, a hero.

As a bridegroom; gloriously adorned with light as with a beautiful garment, and smiling upon the lower world with a pleasant countenance. Coming out of his chamber; in which he is poetically supposed to have rested all night, and thence to break forth as it were on a sudden, as both sacred and profane poets represent the matter. As a strong man; who being conscious and confident of his own strength, and promising to himself victory and the glory which attends it, sets upon his work with great pleasure.

Psalms 19:5 Which [is] as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, [and] rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.Ver. 5. Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber] sc. After long expectation, with a great, deal of pomp and gaiety; such is the sun rasing, when he first showeth himself above our horizon. Kimchi addeth, that as the bride groom when he is abroad hasteneth home to his bride, so doth the sun to his descent, anhelat ad occasum, Ecclesiastes 1:5. And rejoiceth as a strong man (or champion) to run a race] Readily running, and effectually affecting all things with his heat. The Persian angari, or posts, the ostrich, the wild ass, the bustard, the dromedary, the eagle, is nothing so swift as the sun. Bellarmine saith ( De Ascens. Mentis in Demn), that he runneth in the eighth part of an hour seven thousand miles. This dumb creature gives check to our dulness; as Balaam’ s ass also did to that prophet’ s madness.

(5) Which is.—Better, and he is. The suddenness of the Oriental sunrise is finely caught in the image of the uplifted tent-curtain and appearance of the radiant hero (“strong man;” Heb., gibbor. Comp. Judges 5:31). This want of twilight, this absence of silent preparation for the supreme moment, distinguishes Eastern songs of sunrise from the poetry of the West. There are no musterings of “mute companies of changeful clouds,” no “avant couriers of the light,” no “grey lines fretting the clouds as messengers of day.” Unheralded, unannounced, the sun leaps forth in all his splendour—a young bridegroom with the joy of the wedding-day still on his countenance, a hero leaping forth on his path of conquest and glory. How different the suggested feeling of this from the wistful tenderness of Milton’s dawn coming forth “with pilgrim steps in amice grey;” or Shakespeare’s “morn in russet clad,” that “walks o’er the dew” of the high eastern hill. Chamber.—Heb., chuphah, a marriage chamber or bed (Joe 2:16). In later Hebrew the canopy carried over the wedded pair, or even the marriage itself. Rejoiceth.—Literally, leaps for joy.A race.—Better, his race, i.e., his daily course or journey.

Verse 5. Which is as a bridegroom, c.] This is a reference to the rising of the sun, as the following verse is to the setting. He makes his appearance above the horizon with splendour and majesty every creature seems to rejoice at his approach; and during the whole of his course, through his whole circuit, his apparent revolution from east to west, and from one tropic to the same again, no part of the earth is deprived of its proper proportion of light and heat. The sun is compared to a bridegroom in his ornaments, because of the glory and splendour of his rays; and to a giant or strong man running a race, because of the power of his light and heat. The apparent motion of the sun, in his diurnal and annual progress, are here both referred to. Yet both of these have been demonstrated to be mere appearances. The sun's diurnal motion arises from the earth's rotation on its axis from west to east in twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes, and four seconds, the mean or equal time which elapses between the two consecutive meridian-transits of the same fixed star. But on account of the sun's apparent ecliptic motion in the same direction, the earth must make about the three hundred and sixty-fifth part of a second revolution on its axis before any given point of the earth's surface can be again brought into the same direction with the sun as before: so that the length of a natural day is twenty-four hours at a mean rate. The apparent revolution of the sun through the twelve constellations of the zodiac in a sidereal year, is caused by the earth's making one complete revolution in its orbit in the same time. And as the earth's axis makes an angle with the axis of the ecliptic of about twenty-three degrees and twenty eight minutes, and always maintains its parallelism, i.e., is always directed to the same point of the starry firmament; from these circumstances are produced the regular change of the seasons, and continually differing lengths of the days and nights in all parts of the terraqueous globe, except at the poles and on the equator. When we say that the earth's axis is always directed to the same point of the heavens, we mean to be understood only in a general sense; for, owing to a very slow deviation of the terrestrial axis from its parallelism, named the precession of the equinoctial points, which becomes sensible in the lapse of some years, and which did not escape the observation of the ancient astronomers, who clearly perceived that it was occasioned by a slow revolution of the celestial poles around the poles of the ecliptic, the complete revolution of the earth in its orbit is longer than the natural year, or the earth's tropical revolution, by a little more than twenty minutes; so that in twenty-five thousand seven hundred and sixty-three entire terrestrial revolutions round the sun, the seasons will be renewed twenty-five thousand seven hundred and sixty-four times.

5. Thence he comes forth morning by morning like the bridegroom in all the splendour of his bridal attire, in all the freshness of youthful vigour and buoyant happiness (Isaiah 61:10; Isaiah 62:5): like the hero exulting in the consciousness of strength, and eager to put it to the proof. Cp. Judges 5:31.

Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber - That is, when he rises in the morning. He rises from the darkness of the night, and comes forth as the bridegroom comes out of the chamber where he has slept.

5. As a bridegroom—The figure denotes joy and festivity. The rising sun is like the coming forth of the bridegroom from the nuptial chamber, or canopy, to receive gratulations and diffuse gladness. The figure is wholly oriental.