Text -- Psalms 104:1-17 (NET)

Psalm 104

104:1 Praise the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are magnificent. You are robed in splendor and majesty. 104:2 He covers himself with light as if it were a garment. He stretches out the skies like a tent curtain, 104:3 and lays the beams of the upper rooms of his palace on the rain clouds. He makes the clouds his chariot, and travels along on the wings of the wind. 104:4 He makes the winds his messengers, and the flaming fire his attendant. 104:5 He established the earth on its foundations; it will never be upended. 104:6 The watery deep covered it like a garment; the waters reached above the mountains. 104:7 Your shout made the waters retreat; at the sound of your thunderous voice they hurried off– 104:8 as the mountains rose up, and the valleys went down– to the place you appointed for them. 104:9 You set up a boundary for them that they could not cross, so that they would not cover the earth again. 104:10 He turns springs into streams; they flow between the mountains. 104:11 They provide water for all the animals in the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. 104:12 The birds of the sky live beside them; they chirp among the bushes. 104:13 He waters the mountains from the upper rooms of his palace; the earth is full of the fruit you cause to grow. 104:14 He provides grass for the cattle, and crops for people to cultivate, so they can produce food from the ground, 104:15 as well as wine that makes people feel so good, and so they can have oil to make their faces shine, as well as food that sustains people’s lives. 104:16 The trees of the Lord receive all the rain they need, the cedars of Lebanon which he planted, 104:17 where the birds make nests, near the evergreens in which the herons live.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Psa 104:1

¹ sn Psalm 104. The psalmist praises God as the ruler of the world who sustains all life.

² tn Heb “very great.”

NET Notes: Psa 104:3

¹ tn Heb “one who lays the beams on water [in] his upper rooms.” The “water” mentioned here corresponds to the “waters above” mentioned in Gen 1:7. For a discussion of the picture envisioned by the psalmist, see L. I. J. Stadelmann, The Hebrew Conception of the World, 44-45.

² sn Verse 3 may depict the Lord riding a cherub, which is in turn propelled by the wind current. Another option is that the wind is personified as a cherub. See Ps 18:10 and the discussion of ancient Near Eastern parallels to the imagery in M. Weinfeld, “‘Rider of the Clouds’ and ‘Gatherer of the Clouds’,” JANESCU 5 (1973): 422-24.

NET Notes: Psa 104:4

¹ tc Heb “and his attendants a flaming fire.” The lack of agreement between the singular “fire” and plural “attendants” has prompted various emendations. Some read “fire and flame.” The present translation assumes an emendation to “his attendant” (יו in the Hebrew text being virtually dittographic).

sn In Ugaritic mythology Yam’s messengers appear as flaming fire before the assembly of the gods. See G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 42.

NET Notes: Psa 104:6

¹ tc Heb “you covered it.” The masculine suffix is problematic if the grammatically feminine noun “earth” is the antecedent. For this reason some emend the form to a feminine verb with feminine suffix, כִּסַּתָּה (kisattah, “[the watery deep] covered it [i.e., the earth]”), a reading assumed by the present translation.

² tn Heb “stood.”

³ sn Verse 6 refers to the condition described in Gen 1:2 (note the use of the Hebrew term תְּהוֹם [tÿhom, “watery deep”] in both texts).

NET Notes: Psa 104:8

¹ tn Heb “from your shout they fled, from the sound of your thunder they hurried off.”

sn Verses 7-8 poetically depict Gen 1:9-10.

NET Notes: Psa 104:9

¹ tn Heb “a boundary you set up, they will not cross, they will not return to cover the earth.”

NET Notes: Psa 104:10

¹ tn Heb “[the] one who sends springs into streams.” Another option is to translate, “he sends streams [i.e., streams that originate from springs] into the valleys” (cf. NIV).

NET Notes: Psa 104:12

¹ tn Heb “among the thick foliage they give a sound.”

NET Notes: Psa 104:13

¹ tn Heb “from his upper rooms.”

² tn Heb “from the fruit of your works the earth is full.” The translation assumes that “fruit” is literal here. If “fruit” is understood more abstractly as “product; result,” then one could translate, “the earth flourishes as a result of your deeds” (cf. NIV, NRSV, REB).

NET Notes: Psa 104:14

¹ tn Heb “causes the grass to sprout up.”

² tn Heb “for the service of man” (see Gen 2:5).

³ tn Heb “to cause food to come out from the earth.”

NET Notes: Psa 104:15

¹ tn Heb “and wine [that] makes the heart of man happy.”

² tn Heb “to make [the] face shine from oil.” The Hebrew verb צָהַל (tsahal, “to shine”) occurs only here in the OT. It appears to be an alternate form of צָהַר (tsahar), a derivative from צָהָרִים (tsaharim, “noon”).

³ tn Heb “and food [that] sustains the heart of man.”

NET Notes: Psa 104:16

¹ sn The trees of the Lord are the cedars of Lebanon (see the next line), which are viewed as special because of their great size and grandeur. The Lebanon forest was viewed elsewhere in the OT as the “garden of God” (see Ezek 31:8).

² tn Heb “are satisfied,” which means here that they receive abundant rain (see v. 13).

NET Notes: Psa 104:17

¹ tn Heb “[the] heron [in the] evergreens [is] its home.”

sn The cedars and evergreens of the Lebanon forest are frequently associated (see, for example, 2 Chr 2:8; Isa 14:8; 37:24; Ezek 31:8).