Psalms 104

Psalms 104:1-35

Nature’s tribute to Jehovah. We are now in a position to realize as never before what creation is. Redemption is the key, and the only key, that will fully unlock its treasures; for redemption alone can remove the shadow which, after all, invests its brightest scenes, and lift the sadness which will intrude itself upon every contemplation of it. Nor only so: unbelieving suspicions find their lurking-places amid these shadows, and give bitterness to this sadness. Nature, pervaded by law, as the science of the day more and more assures us, seems cast in a rigid mould from which we shrink inevitably. The more perfect as a machine, the less we find heart in it; and the smiles with which it decks itself seem often but very cruelty and hypocrisy, as we realize it to be the monster that without remorse consumes day by day its own offspring. The more we grow in knowledge, the more impossible it seems to escape the conviction that this is no effect of moral ruin introduced by Adam into what was before a deathless paradise.

Death seems wrought into the constitution of things from the beginning. We have in the geological strata a history of the earth stretching long ages back of Adam; and far down as we may pierce, nothing but convulsion and ruin can be discerned. We dwell upon the accumulated dust of multitudinous generations, which sometimes constitute in fact the very substance of the strata themselves. Not merely individuals but countless types of form have passed away; and the “fittest” that “survive” -if they do survive -have been (according to the theory) produced at the cost of a prodigal waste of life on the part of the less perfect which have yielded them only temporarily the place which in a brief time they too must yield to others. Is it possible then to have any more a “psalm of creation”? is it possible any more to sing with the understanding these songs of another age? Yes, surely, if we have learned, and not unless we have learned, redemption as the key to the mysteries of creation. If we realize God to be a Saviour, and can write Jehovah-Saviour in brief as “Jesus,” we have a light bright enough to dispel all shadow from the soul and bathe it in eternal glory. A record of conflict and of ruin as connected with the creature will no more be strange or stumbling, but familiar truth; while the up-rise of a higher form of life out of what has perished and passed away will be but as a prophecy of a better resurrection and the final victory of God over the evil, the Son of God being glorified thereby. [FWG here gives credence to ‘death before the fall’ and evolution (see elsewhere that he does not believe this), and is on extremely shaky ground. This interpretation owes everything to ‘science’ and not to the revelation FWG believes. The geological record, if read as before Adam, would leave no evidence of the catastrophic worldwide flood of Noah, as well as introducing more problems than it appears to solve. The reader is invited to visit www.answersingenesis.org for another understanding. Ed. STEM]

1. Jehovah the Redeemer is what the last psalm has proclaimed to us. Divine Love could not give to another the glory of this salvation; nor find one capable of the stupendous sacrifice that it involved. In the psalm before us Jehovah is the Creator also, and Nature brings its tribute of praise to swell the anthem of redemption. Only thus can we realize its glorious harmony. The psalm begins with celebrating the greatness of Jehovah: He is clothed with honor and majesty. Inaccessible in His own essential glory, He covers Himself with light as with a garment, and stretches out the heavens like the curtain (of a tent). The visible is thus the robe of the Invisible. He indwells it, and through it we may discern, if dimly, His glorious Form. Yet this dimness itself is Light; and there is no hiding, save the better to make known; just as when; because of the feebleness of our sight, through a darkened glass we behold the sun. The tremulous curtain of the heavens stretched out is, as it were, interwoven with its iris-rays. In the waters of the expanse He frames His upper chambers; the dark clouds moving on the wings of the wind being the chariot in which He rides. It is plain that the psalmist refuses mere matter and motion as a sufficient account of heavenly phenomena, and that to him all these are instinct with the Presence and Will of a Divine Being, whom they in some sense disclose. Nor has the discovery of some of the mechanics involved in them done one whit to disprove the psalmist’s belief. Certainly the description given may be allowed to be poetical, but its meaning is not difficult to understand, nor can it be proved superstitious. Superstition thrives in the dark, is incongruous, fantastic, irrational. To claim as manifestations of Mind what has been proved to be so perfectly rational, or of a Divine Governor what is so plainly authoritative as to be owned as “law,” -this has no character of superstition at all. Divine action, identified with such phenomena, is God thus far in the light, and appealing to the rational nature of His creatures for recognition. The acceptance and use of the Septuagint translation of the next verse by the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 1:7) would quite preclude the adoption of any other. “He maketh His angels spirits” is, according to the apostle, a fact affirmed of the nature of angels; and of course a much higher fact than “making the winds His messengers.” As it might be translated either way, the meaning must be decided otherwise than by the language. Nor is it a disproportion in thought, that while the material instrument is contemplated as directly in the hands of God, the spiritual beings should be His messengers. This shows, on the one hand, that no part of His creation is to be conceived as separate from Him; no physical agency that is not the embodiment of His will, while, on the other hand, the “spirits” with a responsibility of their own represent Him and are subject to Him, receiving their character and endowment from Him, according to His will. There would be indeed a lack in the representation of Jehovah the Creator, were only physical forces -clouds, winds, etc -spoken of, and not His creative power in the domain of spirit.
2. The psalmist now recites the story of the preparation of the earth for man. Divine delight in man, and so His “rejoicing in the habitable parts of his earth” are evidently the theme, while the rebuke and bounding of the overflowing waters may be read as a parable of the strife of which the world has ever been the scene, and which receives its final rebuke when the Prince of peace shall come. The first verse declares the absolute security of the dry land for ever, in the strongest expression for eternity that the Old Testament knows (le-olam va-ed). The deluge (of which we are beginning to have some knowledge geologically*) altered nothing essentially as to the structure of the earth in this way; and the purification by fire which awaits it before the eternal condition of the “new earth” can be reached, need not do so either although there will then be “no more sea” (Revelation 21:1). Whatever may be the changes, God adheres to His first plan all through, and builds for eternity.
   But at first, as we read in Genesis, the reign of water had been universal: “Thou hadst covered it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains.” Geology knows well this condition; which Moses somehow knew before geology. The earth man lives upon; like man from the womb, was born out of water; and the structure of the earth was there “mountains,” and by implication valleys -before it was thus born. The third verse implies (what the number seems to indicate) the resurrection of the earth; but the psalmist speaks of the rebuke of the waters; which I suppose is continued in the following verse. It is objected that we cannot say, “They ascended the mountains,” which (while in itself unnatural) is forbidden by the fact that they already stood above them. Most, therefore, read “The mountains rose; the valleys sank,” and suppose it parenthetical: for the rest of the verse, as well as the following one, speaks again of the waters. The “place appointed” is evidently the “one place” into which the waters are gathered on the third day, and does not refer to either mountains or valleys; on the other hand, it is awkward to take the first half of the verse as a parenthesis. But there seems no reason why we should not translate, “Mountains ascended: they went down the valleys”; which preserves the connection; and makes the language vividly pictorial. The next verse speaks then of the bound assigned by God to the retreating waters, so as to prevent their return again. Thus man’s earth has been recovered and is preserved for him: the typical aspect of it has been pointed out elsewhere (Genesis 1:1-31 : notes). The more we study this, the more we shall be satisfied that the typical meaning is no arbitrary accommodation of the facts to spiritual illustration; but one deeply grounded in the nature of things: in short, we shall realize what the psalm before us emphasizes, that the Redeemer and the Creator are One.
3. But it is not enough that man’s abode should be separated from the waters. Merely separated, the dry land would be for him but indeed a barren possession; upon which he could not sustain himself a few brief days. Earth (and therefore man) is dependent on heaven; a deeply spiritual truth, of which all nature is full; and to this now we come, the springs of refreshing which, though they are ministered from the earth, are not of earth. “He sendeth the springs into the valleys: they run among the mountains.” The well-known type of the Spirit is the “living water” -water that has in it the power which is first of all derived from its descent from heaven; though it come by whatever underground channels to the place in which we find it. “They give drink to every beast of the field: the wild asses quench their thirst.” How free are all God’s gifts; and the most absolutely necessary are just the freest. Fresh air, sunshine, the streams that water the earth: these are as generally distributed, as they are everywhere needful. The “wild asses” are the very type of rebellious intractability; but “He maketh His sun to shine upon the evil and upon the good; and sendeth rain upon the just and on the unjust.” And He who has ascended up on high and received gifts for men; has done so “for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them.” And beside these springs the birds of the heavens dwell; and give voice among the branches. Natural worshipers as we may say, no song-bird was by the law of Leviticus ever unclean; and their notes, however various are ever harmonious. Attracted by the water, they dwell above our heads, and sustain themselves upon their wings in unobstructed flight through paths in which no beast of earth can follow them. Next, we have God’s irrigation-system for the earth, in which the hills have their part in turning hither or thither the rain of God’s “upper chambers,” so that the rivers spread abroad to water the land. That which is nearest to heaven attracts most the rain of heaven; while by the law of its nature it cannot keep it, but must pass it on to others. Thus “the earth is satisfied,” -that which receives and is made fruitful by it being just that which, not as rock or sand, resists the force that would disintegrate, but the contrary: that which yields and crumbles as the humble and contrite heart yields to the divine Husbandman. So the grass grows for cattle and herb for the service of man; God bent upon maintaining the creature, whom He has set in dignity upon the earth as His image and likeness, to know Him and to be for Him; and made him thus of all most thoroughly dependent, even because master of all. Where is there a creature ordained to frailty and long helplessness like a human babe? Where is there one so defenceless naturally, with neither tooth nor claw nor strength nor speed and with his very skin denuded to the blast, as is man in his prime? It is spirit in him that is to manifest itself and does, but by the recognition of his dependence and his careful use of all God’s gifts. Truly he is “frail man” (enosh); but now, alas! called to know a frailty to which not creation but his sin destines him. Now there is discipline for him in it, which he needs, and in which still divine love acts. While that additional need has brought out as never before God’s tenderness in it: the wine that gladeneth frail man’s heart, the bread that strengtheneth frail man’s heart, -how the words, and the repetition of the words, breathe of God’s thoughtful care in upholding one who may so easily give way in discouragement! Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto the bitter in soul: let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more." (Proverbs 31:6-7.) Bread and wine: may we not find symbol here? And with these, “oil to make his face to shine!” Christ and the Spirit! we do no violence to the work of the Redeemer-Creator when we find these here.
4. The fourth section -of but three verses -seems to add, to what we have just had, a brief lesson of experience as to this care of God for the creatures He has made. It is briefer, I suppose because it is so much in the general line of thought in this creation-psalm. Beyond it there are problems that must be faced, and which will occupy much more time; and for which we will do well to be well furnished. The lessons -for there are more than one -are all the more such and suited for refreshment by their simplicity. It is good to see how all around us are the assurances of divine loving-kindness. In the buoyant happiness of childhood, in the fragrance and delicate tints of a common flower, in the hues of sunset, in every direction; in short, that we may look, apart from effects of sin; we find abundant evidence of One who has thought, not merely of the preservation but of the enjoyment of His creatures: pleasures of sense, pleasures for the mind, pleasures for the heart, quite beyond any need of theirs, if we think merely of what is implied in the necessity of things going on (if that in fact should be a necessity). The eye, the ear, the man in his whole being, finds without seeking, without soliloquizing about it, constant sources of enjoyment. Something of this sort, though objectively considered, we have here. “The trees of Jehovah are full:” strength, beauty, delicacy of workmanship, are in those “cedars of Lebanon which He has planted.” And then they do not grow for themselves simply, but minister to the birds that rejoicingly flock to and nest in their covert; while the gloomy fir gives hospitable shelter to the home-loving stork. The high hills, too, furnish a refuge for feet like those of the wild goat, specially prepared for them; and the very clefts of the rock provide one for the timid and feeble hyrax. Thus the earth is a house of many chambers, in which her various inhabitants find various provision God is the great host of multitudinous tenantry.
5. But we come now to consider His government; in which there are difficulties that give room and exercise for faith. His appointed times contemplate darkness as well as light. This is plainly the point in question; and thus the moon is mentioned before the sun; and as to the latter simply his going down. Yet the moon shows darkness not unrelieved; and not relieved by haphazard. Darkness, however, is of His appointment; which is comfort and yet mystery: and at His appointment, too, the night brings the wild beasts from their lairs.

The young lions are cared for, as the innocent sheep, and roaring after prey, seek it and find it from God. Thus the devourer is provided for, as all else: there is no shirking that; and nature witnesses plainly as to it: tooth, claws, and tongue bear witness for the lion. Who gave them to him? The Same who gave to the lion’s prey the agility for escape. An equal hand has been at work for both, as it if were designed to have the world a battlefield of not very unequal forces, each cared for and sustained. If the fittest do survive, as some say, it is hard enough to tell who are the fittest.

The giants perish, and the pigmies live. “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.” If there be design; then strife seems designed: as if the good and the evil, with the inevitable conflict arising from their co-existence, must have its counterpart and reflection in the whole frame of things amid which man is found; as it must, if nature at large be in any sense a parable of spiritual things -if the analogies between them be otherwise than mere deceptions. The rein is kept upon this strife, even in the ordinances of day and night, with all that these imply: “the sun ariseth, they gather together and lay them down in their dens.” And under this same subjection man is, with the addition of the toil which marks him as the responsible creature under the discipline of God: he “goeth forth unto his work and unto his labor, until the evening.” His work is to be in the light, and not in darkness; and yet the darkness limits and controls him also in its measure. But it has its measure. 6. The next section, in its seven verses, emphasizes the full mastery of all things possessed by God. It opens with a declaration of the Creator’s wisdom in all His works: manifold works, and every one showing His wisdom. Can anyone produce one that does not? But this wisdom itself implies control of material: the mind must be sustained by the hand that it may be shown. Truly “the earth is full of Thy riches.” And so, too, is the at first sight barren sea, full of life in innumerable forms; where, above, the ships tossed upon its surface yet make it the highway of man, God’s noblest workmanship; while beneath, the sea-monster sports in its depths. All these must be fed at His table, gather from His hand, be filled with what He gives; or, if He hide His face, suffer; if He take away their breath, go back to the dust from which they came. Yet is He the fountain of life, from which, if He send forth His Spirit, a new creation replaces these vanished forms, and the earth is renewed. 7. From all this the soul justifies its confidence in God, who is Jehovah the Eternal. His glory then shall last forever; and His works are not the playthings of His might, but He rejoices in them. Eternity will be thus the seal upon that final condition with which He at last shall be well pleased. For thus even now does creation depend on Him; and sympathize with His every thought. If He look upon the earth it trembles; if He touch the mountains they are asmoke. How dreadful this almightiness of His, if He be unknown! If He be realized as what He is, how good that He should be sovereign absolutely! So the psalmist breaks out in a praise which can end but with his being. Nor is it a mere unreasoning emotion: his meditation upon Him shall be sweet, the knowledge of Jehovah shall make glad his heart. The one blot upon God’s works shall disappear: “sinners shall be consumed out of the earth, and the wicked shall be no more.” Then shall His works glorify Him indeed; and in the anticipation of it the heart praises Him. Thus the song of creation ends. We may perhaps be disappointed after all, that there is no further attempt to lift the curtain of mystery that must be confessed to hang so thickly over much of God’s governmental ways. But here Scripture always declares that “clouds and darkness are round about Him.” Nor, though Christianity reveals Him as in the light, is this essentially altered. Still we are called to walk by faith, and to glorify Him by submission where we cannot penetrate His meaning. The difference that Christianity makes is that God is in the light -not all His acts or ways: which faith knows to be worthy of Him; even where it knows not how they are. Here the cross is indeed the bow in the cloud; and redemption shows the relation of God to sin itself, in perfect holiness and yet in love; and this is found here in the hundred and second psalm; Jehovah seen in the Man cut off in the midst of His days, yet the Creator of all, whose years shall have no end.

This then throws its light over the darkest mysteries; and even the conflict of opposites which we discern in nature begins to be intelligible, as bringing it into accordance with earth’s fallen head, and making it the symbolic utterance of spiritual things. True it is we know but little of nature in this character of it: we have mere glimpses of what the glorious vision should be. But what wonder when we have allowed Scripture itself to be practically so much hidden as it still must be confessed to be? Alas, we have not yet the key that shall completely open the door, and set us face to face with the unveiled mysteries. Thank God for what we know; but shall we not press on to what yet we know not?