A World Full of Creatures Waits for an Open Hand

The psalm opens with the words that closed Psalm 103, and closes with them again, so the two stand as a pair: the first about God’s mercy, the second about his world. The rest of the verse dresses him like a king, as Psalm 93:1 did. The poem that follows moves broadly in the order of the days of Genesis 1.

Light comes first, as on the first day of Genesis 1, but here it is God’s clothing rather than a thing made. “Curtain” is yeri’ah, the word for the woven tent-cloths of the tabernacle (Exodus 26:1). Isaiah 40:22 has God spread the heavens “as a tent to dwell in”.

“Chambers” is aliyyot, upper rooms, the rooftop rooms of a house, here built with their beams set in the waters above the sky (Genesis 1:7). The Ugaritic texts gave Baal the title “rider of the clouds”; Psalm 68:4 and this verse give that chariot to the LORD.

Hebrews 1:7 quotes this line from the Greek: “Who maketh his angels spirits.” The Hebrew words can also be read the other way round, “who maketh the winds his messengers, flames of fire his ministers”, since malakh means messenger and ruach means wind as well as spirit. The context of wind and cloud favours the second.

“Foundations” is mekhonot, bases or footings. “Not be removed” uses mot, to totter, the verb for a slipping foot. God’s question to Job begins at this point: “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Job 38:4).

“The deep” is tehom, the word of Genesis 1:2, “darkness was upon the face of the deep”. God wears light as a garment in verse 2; the earth once wore the deep as a garment here, water standing over the mountain tops.

“Rebuke” is ge’arah, a war shout that scatters an enemy, and “thunder” is literally “voice”. The waters are not gathered politely, as in Genesis 1:9, but routed like an army in flight. Psalm 106:9 uses the same verb when God “rebuked the Red sea also, and it was dried up”.

The Hebrew can also be read with the land as subject: “the mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place thou didst appoint”, as many modern versions have it. Either way the landscape takes its shape as the water goes to where it was assigned.

Jeremiah 5:22 speaks of the sand “placed... for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree”, and God tells the sea in Job 38:11, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.” “That they turn not again to cover the earth” sounds the promise after the flood (Genesis 9:11).

“Sendeth” is shalach, the verb for dispatching a messenger. The same water that covered the mountains in verse 6 now runs between the hills in channels. What had to be driven off comes back tamed, as springs.

The wild ass, pere, is the onager, the one animal the Old Testament holds up as untameable; Job 39:5–8 says it “scorneth the multitude of the city”. Genesis 16:12 calls Ishmael “a wild man”, literally a wild ass of a man. Even the creature no one can manage drinks from God’s springs.

The springs run along wadis lined with trees, and so the birds settle where the water is. “Branches” is ophayim, leafage, a word found only here. The birds “give voice” from inside the foliage, heard more than seen.

“Chambers” repeats the upper rooms of verse 3: rain comes down from God’s rooftop storeys. “Satisfied” is sava, to be filled full, the verb of Psalm 90:14. The fruit of God’s works is the rain itself, which the land drinks until it has had enough.

“Service” is avodah, the labour of tilling, so the herb is the crop that man works to raise. The phrase “to bring forth food out of the earth” became the Jewish blessing over bread, “who bringest forth bread from the earth”. Cattle get grass without work; humans get bread with it.

Wine, oil and bread are the land’s three staples, “thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil” of Deuteronomy 7:13. Jotham’s parable has the vine speak of “my wine, which cheereth God and man” (Judges 9:13). Oil rubbed into the skin in a dry climate made the face glow.

“Full of sap” is again sava, satisfied. These are “trees of the LORD” because no one else planted them: the forests of Lebanon grow high on mountains no farmer terraced. The Hebrew phrasing stresses “which he hath planted”, as if pointing to the gardener.

The stork is chasidah, from chesed, loyal love; the Talmud (Chullin 63a) says it is so called for the kindness it shows its fellows. Jeremiah 8:7 notes that “the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times”, the migration that passes over the land each spring and autumn. “Fir trees” are probably cypresses or junipers.

The wild goats are ya’elim, ibex, still seen on the cliffs at En-gedi, where Saul hunted David on “the rocks of the wild goats” (1 Samuel 24:2). The coney, shafan, is the rock hyrax; Proverbs 30:26 calls conies “but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks”.

The moon comes before the sun, as the Hebrew day begins at evening. “Seasons” is mo’adim, the fixed feasts, reckoned by the new moon, as Genesis 1:14 said the lights were for “signs, and for seasons”. The sun, which Egypt worshipped, simply “knoweth his going down”, like a workman who knows when to stop.

An Egyptian hymn to the sun disk Aten, from the reign of Akhenaten, describes the same scene: when the sun sets the land lies in darkness like death, “every lion cometh forth from his den”. The psalm makes darkness God’s own work. “Creep forth” is ramas, the verb of Genesis 1 for creeping things.

The lion’s roar is heard as a request made to God. God asks Job, “Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? or fill the appetite of the young lions?” (Job 38:39). “Young lions” are kefirim, lions in their prime, strong enough to hunt for themselves.

“Dens” is me’onot, the same word as maon, the “dwelling place” of Psalm 90:1 and the “habitation” of Psalm 91:9. The lions go home at sunrise to the kind of shelter God is for his people. The day shift and the night shift pass without meeting.

“Work” is po’al and “labour” is avodah, the labour of verse 14. Day labourers were to be paid before sunset (Deuteronomy 24:15), so “until the evening” is the working day of a hired hand. In Genesis 1 humanity comes last of all; here man takes his turn in the rota after the lions.

Proverbs 3:19 says, “The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth”, and Proverbs 8:30 has Wisdom beside God “as one brought up with him” at creation. “Riches” is qinyan, possessions, from the root of the title Melchizedek gives God in Genesis 14:19, “possessor of heaven and earth”.

“Wide” is literally “wide of hands”, the sea stretching its arms out on either side. “Things creeping” is remes, the swarming creatures of Genesis 1:21, too many to count. Small and great are listed together, the sardine and the whale in one phrase.

Elsewhere Leviathan is a monster God must pierce (Isaiah 27:1). The Hebrew lesacheq bo can mean “to play in it”, the sea, or “to play with him”, and God asks Job, “Wilt thou play with him as with a bird?” (Job 41:5). The Talmud (Avodah Zarah 3b) imagined God spending part of each day playing with Leviathan.

Psalm 145:15 repeats the line almost exactly: “The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season.” “Wait” is sabar, to look expectantly, as a dog watches the hand that feeds it. “In due season” means at its proper time.

“Gather” is laqat, to pick up, glean, the verb for gathering manna in Exodus 16:4: “gather a certain rate every day”. The creatures do the collecting; God does the giving. Psalm 145:16 takes up the open hand: “Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.”

Ecclesiastes 3:19–20 says the same of humans and animals alike: “they have all one breath... all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.” The verse moves in three quick steps, face hidden, breath taken, dust again, with no gap between them.

“Created” is bara, God’s own verb, used of the animals of each new generation as if every birth were a fresh act of creation. The Latin of this verse, “Emitte Spiritum tuum... et renovabis faciem terrae”, became a prayer of the church at Pentecost.

The Hebrew verbs are wishes: “May the glory of the LORD endure for ever; may the LORD rejoice in his works.” Genesis 1:31 had God see everything he made “and, behold, it was very good”. The singer prays that God will go on seeing it that way.

At Sinai “mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire” (Exodus 19:18). Psalm 144:5 asks for it again: “touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.” A glance and a touch are enough; the verse never needs a blow.

Psalm 146:2 repeats this verse almost word for word. “While I have my being” is be’odi, “while I still am”, a life measured as the continuing breath of verse 29. The singer knows his song will last exactly as long as the breath God lends him.

“Meditation” is siach, musing or talk, the same word as the “complaint” poured out in the heading of Psalm 102. “Shall be sweet” can be read “may it be pleasing to him”: the singer hopes his thoughts will be as welcome to God as the creatures are.

This is the first “Praise ye the LORD”, hallelujah, in the Psalter. The Talmud (Berakhot 10a) tells how Beruriah, wife of Rabbi Meir, read the first line as “let sins be consumed” rather than sinners, and urged her husband to pray for the wicked to repent. The psalm closes on its opening words.