1. Bless the Lord,
O my soul. This psalm begins and ends like
Psalm 103, and it could not do better: when the model is perfect it deserves
to exist in duplicate. It is idle to stir up others to praise if we are
ungratefully silent ourselves. O Lord
my God, thou art very great. This ascription has in it a remarkable
blending of the boldness of faith and the awe of holy fear: the psalmist calls
the infinite Jehovah my God, and at the same time, prostrate in
amazement at the divine greatness, he cries out in utter astonishment, Thou
art very great. God was great on Sinai, yet the opening words of his law
were, “I am the Lord thy God”; his greatness is no reason why faith should
not put in her claim, and call him all her own. The declaration of Jehovah’s
greatness here given would have been very much in place at the end of the
psalm, for it is a natural inference and deduction from a survey of the
universe: its position at the very commencement of the poem is an indication
that the whole psalm was well considered and digested in the mind before it was
actually put into words; only on this supposition can we account for the
emotion preceding the contemplation. Observe also that the wonder expressed
does not refer to the creation and its greatness, but to Jehovah himself. It is
not “the universe is very great!” but “Thou art very great.” Many stay at
the creature, and so become idolatrous in spirit; to pass onward to the Creator
himself is true wisdom. Thou art clothed with honor and majesty. Thou
thyself art not to be seen, but thy works, which may be called thy garments,
are full of beauties and marvels which redound to thine honor. Garments both
conceal and reveal a person, and so do the creatures of God. The Lord is seen
in his works as worthy of honor for his skill, his goodness, and his
power, and as claiming majesty, for he has fashioned all things in
sovereignty, doing as he wills, and asking no one’s permit. He must be blind
indeed who does not see that nature is the work of a king. His majesty
is, however, always so displayed as to reflect honor uppon his whole
character; he does as he wills, but he wills only that which is thrice holy,
like himself. The very robes of the unseen Spirit teach us this, and it is ours
to recognize it with humble adoration.
2. Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: wrapping the light about him as a monarch puts on his robe.
The conception is sublime, but it makes us feel how altogether inconceivable
the personal glory of the Lord must be; if light itself is but his garment and
veil, what must be the blazing splendor of his own essential being! Who
stretchest out the heavens like a curtain—within which he might swell.
Light was created on the first day and the firmament upon the second, so that
they fitly follow each other in this verse. Oriental princes put on their
glorious apparel and then sit in state within curtains, and the Lord is spoken
of under that image; but how far above all comprehension the figure must be
lifted, since the robe is essential light, to which suns and moons owe their
brightness, and the curtain is the azure sky studded with stars for gems.
3. Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters. His lofty halls are framed with the waters which are above
the firmament. The upper rooms of God’s great house, the secret stories far
above our ken, the palatial chambers wherein he resides, are based upon the
floods which form the upper ocean. We are not to interpret literally where the
language is poetical—it would be simple absurdity to do so. Who maketh the
clouds his chariot. When he comes forth from his secret pavilion it is thus
he makes his royal progress. “His chariots of wrath the deep thunder-clouds
form,” and his chariot of mercy drops plenty as it traverses the celestial
road. Who walketh or rather, “goes” upon the wings of the wind.
With the clouds for a carriage, and the winds for winged steeds, the great King
hastens on his movements whether for mercy or for judgment. Thus we have the
idea of a king still further elaborated—his lofty palace, his chariot, and his
coursers are before us; but what a palace must we imagine, whose beams are of
crystal, and whose base is consolidated vapor!
4. Who maketh his angels spirits, or “winds,” for the word means either. Angels are pure
spirits, though they are permitted to assume visible form when God desires us
to see them. God is a spirit, and he is waited upon by spirits in his royal
courts. Angels are like winds for mystery, force, and invisibility, and no
doubt the winds themselves are often the angels or messengers of God. His
ministers a flaming fire. Here, too, we may choose which we will of two
meanings: God’s ministers or servants he makes to be as swift, potent, and
terrible as fire, and on the other hand he makes fire, that devouring element,
to be his minister flaming forth upon his errands. That the passage refers to
angels is clear from Hebrews 1:7; and it was most proper to mention them here
in connection with light and the heavens, and immediately after the robes and
palace of the great King.
5. Who laid the foundations of the earth. Thus the commencement of creation is described, in almost
the very words employed by the Lord himself in Job 38:4. That it should not
be removed for ever. The language is, of course, poetical, but the fact is
none the less wonderful: the earth is so placed in space that it remains as
stable as if it were a fixture.
6. Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment. The new-born earth was wrapped in aqueous swaddling bands.
Before humans appeared, the proud waters ruled the whole earth, the waters
stood above the mountains, no dry land was visible, vapor as from a
steaming cauldron covered all. Geologists inform us of this as a discovery, but
the Holy Spirit had revealed the fact long before. The passage before us shows
us the Creator commencing his work, and laying the foundation for future order
and beauty: to think of this reverently will fill us with adoration; to
conceive of it grossly and carnally would be highly blasphemous.
7. When the
waters and vapors covered all, the Lord had but to speak and they disappeared
at once. As though they had been intelligent agents the waves hurried to their
appointed deeps and left the land to itself; then the mountains lifted up their
heads, the high lands rose from the main, and at length continents and islands,
slopes and plains were left to form the habitable earth. The voice of the Lord
effected this great marvel.
8. The
vanquished waters are henceforth obedient. They go up by the mountains,
climbing in the form of clouds even to the summits of the Alps. They go down
by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them: they are as
willing to descend in rain and brooks and torrents as they were eager to ascend
in mists. The loyalty of the mighty waters to the laws of their God is most
notable; the fierce flood, the boisterous rapid, the tremendous torrent, are
only forms of that gentle dew which trembles on the tiny blade of grass, and in
those ruder shapes they are equally obedient to the laws which their Maker has
impressed upon them.
9. The bound
has once been passed, but it shall never be so again. The deluge was caused by
the suspension of the divine mandate which held the floods in check: they knew
their old supremacy, and hastened to reassert it, but now the covenant promise
forever prevents a return of that carnival of waters, that revolt of the waves.
10. This is a
beautiful part of the Lord’s arrangement of the subject waters: they find vents
through which they leap into liberty where their presence will be beneficial in
the highest degree.
11. They give drink to every beast of the field. Who else would water them if the Lord did not? They are his
cattle, and therefore he leads them forth to watering. Not one of them is
forgotten of him. The wild asses quench their thirst. The good Lord
gives them enough and to spare. They know their Master’s crib. Though bit or
bridle of man they will not brook, and we denounce them as unteachable, they
learn of the Lord, and know better far than man where flows the cooling crystal
of which they must drink or die. They are only asses, and wild, yet our
Heavenly Father cares for them. Will he not also care for us?
12. How
refreshing are these words! What happy memories they arouse of splashing
waterfalls and entangled boughs, where the merry din of the falling and rushing
water form a sort of solid background of music, and the sweet tuneful notes of
the birds are the brighter and more flashing lights in the harmony.
13. He watereth the hills. As the mountains are too high to be watered by rivers and
brooks, the Lord himself refreshes them from those waters above the firmament
which the poet had in a former verse described as the upper chambers of heaven.
The earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works. The result of the
divine working is fullness everywhere, the soil is saturated with rain, the
seed germinates, the beasts drink, and the birds sing—nothing is left
unsupplied. So, too, is it in the new creation; he giveth more grace, he fills
his people with good, and makes them all confess, “of his fullness have all we
received and grace for grace.”
14. He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb
for the service of man. Grass
grows as well as herbs, for cattle must be fed as well as humans. That he
may bring forth food out of the earth. Both grass for cattle and corn for
humans are food brought forth out of the earth, and they are signs that is was
God’s design that the very dust beneath our feet, which seems better adapted to
bury us than to sustain us, should actually be transformed into the staff of
life. The more we think of this the more wonderful it will appear. How great is
that God who from among the sepulchres finds the support of life, and out of
the ground which was cursed brings forth the blessings of corn and wine and
oil.
15. And wine that maketh glad the heart of man. By the aid of genial showers the earth produces not merely
necessaries but luxuries, that which furnishes a feast as well that which makes
a meal. Oh that we were wise enough to know how to use this gladdening product
of the vine; but, alas, we full often turn it to ill account, and debase
ourselves therewith. Of this we must ourselves bear the blame; he deserves to
be miserable who turns even blessings into curses. And oil to make his face
to shine. The easterns use oil more than we do, and probably are wiser in
this respect than we are: they delight in anointings with perfumed oils, and
regard the shining of the face as a choice emblem of joy. God is to be praised
for all the products of the soil, not one of which could come to us were it not
that he causeth it to grow. And bread which strengtheneth man’s heart.
Men have more courage after they are fed: many a depressed spirit has been
comforted by a good substantial meal. We ought to bless God for strength of
heart as well as force of limb, since if we possess them they are both the
bounties of his kindness.
16. The
watering of the hills not only produces the grass and the cultivated herbs, but
also the nobler species of vegetation, which comes not within the range of
human culture. The trees of the Lord—the
greatest, noblest, and most royal of trees; those too which are unowned of
mankind, and untouched by our hand. Are full of sap, or are full, well
supplied, richly watered, so that they become, as the cedars, full of resin,
flowing with life, and verdant all the year round. The cedars of Lebanon,
which he hath planted. They grow where none ever thought of planting them,
where for ages they were unobserved, and where at this moment they are too
gigantic for man to prune them. Planted by grace, and owing all to our Heavenly
Father’s care, we may defy the hurricane, and laugh at the drought, for none
that trust in him shall be left unwatered.
17. So far
from being in need, these trees of God afford shelter to others; birds small
and great make their nests in the branches. Thus what they receive from the
great Lord they endeavor to return to his weaker creatures. How one thing fits
into another in this fair creation, each link drawing on its fellow: the rains
water the fir trees, and the fir trees become the happy home of birds; thus do
the thunder clouds build the sparrow’s house, and the descending rain sustains
the basis of the stork’s nest. Has the reader ever walked through a forest of
great trees and felt the awe which strikes the heart in nature’s sublime
cathedral? Then you will remember feeling that each bird was holy, since it
dwelt amid such sacred solitude. Those who cannot see or hear of God except in
Gothic edifices, amid the swell of organs, and the voices of a surpliced choir
will not be able to enter into the feeling which makes the simple,
unsophisticated soul hear “the voice of the Lord God walking among the
trees.”
18. All
places teem with life. We call our cities populous, but are not the forests and
the high hills more densely populated with life? See how goats, and storks, and
conics, and sparrows each contribute a verse to the psalm of nature; have we
not also our cantitles to sing unto the Lord? Little though we may be in the
scale of importance, yet let us fill our sphere, and so honor the Lord who made
us with a purpose.
19. The
appointed rule of the great lights is now the theme for praise. The moon is
mentioned first, because in the Jewish day the night leads the way. He
appointed the moon for seasons. By the waxing and waning of the moon the
year is divided into months, and weeks, and by this means the exact dates of
the holy days were arranged. Thus the lamp of night is made to be of service to
mankind, and in fixing the period of religious assemblies (as it did among the
Jews) it enters into connection with his noblest being. Never let us regard the
moon’s motions as the inevitable result of inanimate impersonal law, but as the
appointment of our God. The sun knoweth his going down. In finely poetic
imagery the sun is represented as knowing when to retire from sight, and sink
below the horizon.
20. Thou makest darkness, and it is night. Drawing down the blinds for us, he prepares our bedchamber
that we may sleep. Were there no darkness we should sigh for it, since we
should find repose so much more difficult if the weary day were never calmed
into night. Let us see God’s hand in the veiling of the sun, and never fear
either natural or providential darkness, since both are of the Lord’s own
making. Wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. Why should
not the wild beast have his hour as well as man? He has a service to perform;
should he not also have his food? Darkness is fitter for beasts than man; and
those people are most brutish who love darkness rather than light. When the
darkness of ignorance broods over a nation, then all sorts of superstitions,
cruelties, and vices abound; the Gospel, like the sunrising, soon clears the
world of the open ravages of these monsters, and they seek more congenial
abodes. We see here the value of true light, for we may be sure that where
there is night there will also be wild beasts to kill and to devour.
21. This is
the poetic interpretation of a roar. To whom do the lions roar? Certainly not
to their prey, for the terrible sound tends to alarm their victims, and drive
them away. They after their own fashion express their desires for food, and the
expression of desire is a kind of prayer. Out of this fact comes the devout
thought of the wild beast’s appealing to its Maker for food. But neither with
lions nor men will the seeking of prayer suffice; there must be practical
seeking too, and the lions are well aware of it. What they have in their own
language asked for they go forth to seek, being in this thing far wiser than
many people who offer formal prayers not half so earnest as those of the young
lions, and then neglect the means in the use of which the object of their
petitions might be gained. The lions roar and seek; too many are liars before
God, and roar but never seek.
22. The sun ariseth.
Every evening has its morning to make the day. Were it not that we have seen
the sun rise so often we should think it the greatest of miracles, and the most
amazing of blessings. They gather themselves together, and lay them down in
their dens. Thus they are out of man’s way, and he seldom encounters them
unless he desires to do so. The forest’s warriors retire to their quarters when
the morning’s drum is heard, finding in the recesses of their dens a darkness
suitable for their slumbers; there they lay them down and digest their food, for
God has allotted even to them their portion of rest and enjoyment. There was
one who in this respect was poorer than lions and foxes, for he had not where
to lay his head: all were provided for except their incarnate Provider. Blessed
Lord, thou hast stooped beneath the conditions of the brutes to lift up worse
than brutish men!
23. Man goeth forth.
It is his turn now, and the sunrise has made things ready for him. His warm
couch he forsakes and the comforts of home, to find his daily food; this work
is good for him, both keeping him out of mischief and exercising his faculties.
Unto his work and to his labor until the evening. He goes not forth to
sport but to work, not to loiter but to labor; at least, this is the lot of the
best part of mankind. We are made for work and ought to work, and should never
grumble that so it is appointed.
24. O Lord,
how manifold are thy works. They are
not only many for number but manifold for variety. Mineral, vegetable,
animal—what a range of works is suggested by these three names! The kingdom of
grace contains as manifold and as great works as that of nature, but the chosen
of the Lord alone discern them. In wisdom hast thou made them all, or
“wrought” them all. They are all his works, wrought by his own power, and they
all display his wisdom. The earth is full of thy riches. It is not a
poor-house, but a palace; not a hungry ruin, but a well-filled store-house. The
Creator has not set his creatures clown in a dwelling-place where the table is
bare, and the buttery empty; he has filled the earth with food; and not with
bare necessaries only, but with riches.
25. So is this great and wide sea. He gives an instance of the immense number and variety of
Jehovah’s works by pointing to the sea. “Look,” says he, “at yonder ocean,
stretching itself on both hands and embracing so many lands; it too swarms with
animal life, and in its deeps lie treasure beyond all counting.” The heathen
made the sea a different province form the land, and gave the command thereof
to Neptune, but we know of a surety that Jehovah rules the waves. Wherein
are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts; read “moving
things and animals small and great,” and you have the true sense. The number
of minute forms of animal life is indeed beyond all reckoning: when a single
phosphorescent wave may bear millions of protozoa, and around a fragment of
rock armies of microscopic beings may gather, we renounce all idea of applying
arithmetic to such a case. The sea in many regions appears to be all alive, as
if every drop were a world. Truly, O Lord, thou makest the sea to be as rich in
the works of thy hands as the land itself.
26. There go the ships.
So that ocean is not altogether deserted of mankind. It is the highway of
nations, and unites, rather than divides, distant lands. There is that
leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein. The huge whale turns the
sea into his recreation ground, and frolics as God designed that he should do.
The thought of this amazing creature caused the psalmist to adore the mighty
Creator who created him, formed him for his place and made him happy in it.
27. These wait all upon thee. They come around thee as fowls around the farmer’s door at
the time for feeding, and look up with expectation. Men or marmots, eagles or
ants, whales or minnows, they alike rely upon thy care. That thou mayest
give them their meat in due season; that is to say, when they need it and
when it is ready for them. God has a time for all things, and does not feed his
creatures by fits and starts; he gives them daily bread, and a quantity
proportioned to their needs. This is all that any of us should expect; if even
the brute creatures are content with a sufficiency we ought not to be more
greedy than they.
28. That thou givest them they gather. God gives it, but they must gather it. We often forget that
animals and birds in their free life have to work to obtain food just as we do;
and yet it is true with them as with us that our Heavenly Father feeds all. Thou
openest thine hand, they are filled with good. Here is divine liberality
filling the needy creatures till they want no more: and here is divine
omnipotence feeding a world by simply opening its hand.
29. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled. So dependent are all living things upon God’s smile that a
groan fills them with terror, as though convulsed with anguish. This is so in
the natural world, and certainly not less so in the spiritual: saints when the
Lord hides his face are in terrible perplexity. Thou takest away their breath,
they die, and return to their dust. The breath appears to be a trifling
matter, and the air an impalpable substance of but small importance; yet, once
withdrawn, the body loses all vitality, and crumbles back to the earth from
which it was originally taken. All animals come under this law, and even the
dwellers in the sea are not exempt from it. Thus dependent is all nature upon
the will of the Eternal. Note here that death is caused by the act of God—thou
takest away their breath; we are immortal till he bids us die,
and so are even the little sparrows, who fall not to the ground without our
Father.
30. The loss
of their breath destroys them, and by Jehovah’s breath a new race is created.
The works of the Lord are majestically simple, and are performed with royal
ease—a breath creates, and its withdrawal destroys. If we read the word spirit
as we have it in our version, it is also instructive, for we see the divine
Spirit going forth to create life in nature just as we see him in the realms of
grace.
31. The glory of the Lord
shall endure for ever. His works
may pass away, but not his glory. Were it only for what he has already done,
the Lord deserves to be praised without ceasing. His personal being and
character ensure that he would be glorious even were all the creatures dead. The
Lord shall rejoice in his works.
He did so at the first, when he rested on the seventh day, and saw that
everything was very good; he does so still in a measure where beauty and purity
in nature still survive the Fall, and he will do do yet more fully when the
earth is renovated, and the trail of the serpent is cleansed from the globe.
The poet finds his heart gladdened by beholding the works of the Lord, and he
feels that the Creator himself must have felt unspeakable delight in exercising
so much wisdom, goodness, and power.
32. He Iooketh on the earth, and it trembleth. The Lord who has graciously displayed his power in acts and
works of goodness might, if he had seen fit, have overwhelmed us with the
terrors of destruction, for even at a glance of his eye the solid earth rocks
with fear. He toucheth the hills, and they smoke. Sinai was altogether
in smoke when the Lord descended upon it. It was but a touch, but it sufficed
to make the mountain dissolve in flame. Even our God is a consuming fire. Woe
unto those who shall provoke him to frown upon them; they shall perish at the
touch of his hand.
33. I will sing unto the Lord
as long as I live, or, literally, “in my lives.”
Here and hereafter the psalmist would praise the Lord, for the theme remains
forever fresh and new. I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.
A resolve both happy for himself and glorifying to the Lord. Note the sweet
title—my God. We never sing so well as when we know that we have an interest
in the good things of which we sing,. and a relationship to the God whom we
praise.
34. My meditation of him shall be sweet. Sweet both to him and to me. I shall be delighted thus to
survey his works and think of his person, and he will graciously accept my
notes of praise. Meditation is the soul of religion. We ought, therefore, both
for our own food and for the Lord’s honor to be much occupied with meditation,
and that meditation should chiefly dwell upon the Lord himself: it should be meditation
of him. For want of it much communion is lost and much happiness
is missed. I will be glad in the Lord.
To the meditative mind every thought of God is full of joy. Each one of the
divine attributes is a well-spring of delight now that in Christ Jesus we are reconciled
to God.
35. Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let
the wicked be no more. They are
the only blot upon creation. In holy indignation the psalmist would rid the
world of beings so base as not to love their gracious Creator, so blind as to
rebel against their Benefactor. The Christian way of putting it will be to ask
that grace may turn sinners into saints, and win the wicked to the ways of
truth. Bless thou the Lord, O
my soul. Here is the end of the matter—whatever sinners may do, do thou, my
soul, stand to thy colors, and be true to thy calling. O ye saints, Praise
ye the Lord. Let your hearts
cry, “Hallelujah”—for that is the word in the Hebrew. Let it close the psalm;
for what more remains to be said or written? Hallelujah. Praise ye the Lord.
Excerpt from:
The Treasury of David
By Charles H Spurgeon
