Psalm 104:33

Psalm 104 is a hymn to God as the Creator who keeps his world alive, and it follows the order of creation in Genesis 1 so closely that it reads like a poem on that chapter. It moves from the heavens, the light, the waters and the foundations of the earth (Psalm 104:1–9) to the springs, trees, animals and the food and work of people (Psalm 104:10–23), and then to the great sea and everything that lives in it (Psalm 104:24–26). In Psalm 104:27–30 every creature waits on God, who holds its life and death in his hand and renews life on the earth.

Verse 31 gathers all of that into a declaration about God himself, and verses 33 to 35 turn it into the psalmist’s own vow of praise. The psalm was probably written during or after the exile. Israel knew the LORD as the one Creator, while the nations round about told creation stories full of many gods and their battles. Some of the psalm’s pictures resemble an Egyptian hymn to the sun known as the Hymn to Aten, and Psalm 104 gives the whole of that praise to the one true God, whose power, wisdom and kindness made the world and keep it.

“The glory of the LORD shall endure for ever” is the first thing the psalmist says once he has surveyed creation. The word for glory, kâbôwd, means glory, honour and splendour. In Israel it named the majesty of God and the shining of his presence among his people, as when the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle (Exodus 40:34–35). Here it is the sum of all that makes him worthy of awe, shown in everything the psalm has described.

“For ever” translates ʻôwlâm, time out of mind, past or future, which in practice means eternity. Creatures die when God takes away their breath, and the beauty of the natural world fades, while the splendour of the LORD stays whole through every age because he himself is unchanging. Scripture says the same of his kingdom, which is “an everlasting kingdom” (Psalm 145:13), and of his word, which “shall stand for ever” (Isaiah 40:8). His glory belongs to him eternally, and his works put it on display. The wisdom that fills them is set out in Wisdom’s call in Proverbs 8 and in the LORD’s questions to Job in Job 38–41, and in heaven the elders give God glory as the one who created all things (Revelation 4:11).

“He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he toucheth the hills, and they smoke.” The verb for looking, nâbaṭ, is the ordinary word to look, see or gaze, and here one look from God is enough. The earth râʻad, it trembles or shudders, as a created thing does before the power and presence of its Maker. The hills ʻâshan, they smoke. That verb is used of smoke both literal and figurative, it can picture anger, and in the Old Testament it often comes with fire, storm and the appearing of God. Hills in Hebrew poetry stand for what is strong and lasting, and a touch from God sets them smoking.

The God who planned his creation in such detail also commands its strongest parts with ease, and he does it now as well as at the beginning. Earthquakes and fire from the mountains were blamed among the nations on the whims of their gods. Israel saw them as the work of the one LORD, who rules every part of the world.

The smoking hills recall Mount Sinai, which “was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire” (Exodus 19:18), and the bush that burned before Moses where the ground was holy (Exodus 3:2–5). The prophets use the same pictures. The mountains quake before him (Nahum 1:5), and Isaiah prays for the LORD to come down so that the mountains flow down at his presence (Isaiah 64:1–2). Another psalm says that he spoke, and it was done (Psalm 33:9). The right answer to such a God is holy fear and humble worship, as the psalmist says: “O worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness” (Psalm 96:9).

“I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.” After all he has seen, the psalmist makes a vow, and in Israel a vow was a serious and binding thing. Two verbs carry it. Shîyr means to sing, to give words a set or improvised tune. Zâmar means to sing praise or make music in praise of God, with instruments or with the voice alone. Together they promise praise that is heard.

The vow covers his whole life. “As long as I live” uses chay, alive or living, and “while I have my being” uses ʻôwd, which here speaks of continuance: for as long as he goes on. Life was known in Israel as a precious and limited gift from God, and the psalmist gives all of it back in praise. Another psalm asks God to “teach us to number our days” (Psalm 90:12), and Psalm 146:2 makes almost the same vow: “While I live will I praise the LORD: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being.” The God who cares for his creation without ceasing is worthy of praise without ceasing.

The verse names God twice. “The LORD” is Yᵉhôvâh, his covenant name, and “my God” is ʼĕlôhîym, a word plural in form that, used of the true God, is a plural of majesty. The Creator of everything in the psalm is the psalmist’s own God. That is the covenant God promised his people, “I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33).

“My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the LORD.” The word for meditation, sîyach, is reflective thought or musing, and it can also mean speech, so the psalmist’s thinking about God may well be spoken aloud to him. Meditation, often with the words murmured softly, was part of the life of faith in Israel, as in the man whose “delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night” (Psalm 1:2). Here the subject is God himself, his character and the works the psalm has praised.

ʻÂrêb, “sweet”, means agreeable, pleasant or satisfying, and it was used of good food. Thinking on God feeds the soul and satisfies it, the way a pleasant taste satisfies the mouth.

“I will be glad” is sâmach, the same verb as “rejoice” in verse 31. The LORD rejoices in his works, and the psalmist rejoices in the LORD. The verb is used of every kind of gladness, including the wrong kind, and this gladness is steady because of where it rests. It is “in the LORD”, the God who does not change, so the outward circumstances of the day leave it untouched. The Psalms speak of the same joy: “in thy presence is fulness of joy” (Psalm 16:11), and another psalmist goes to God as his exceeding joy (Psalm 43:4). Paul writes, “Rejoice in the Lord alway” (Philippians 4:4).

“Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more” is a prayer that God’s justice will finish its work in the world he made. The verb tâmam means to be finished or complete, to come to an end or cease. The sinners (chaṭṭâʼ) are those who keep missing the mark of God’s law, and the wicked (râshâʻ) are the guilty and ungodly, who often oppress the righteous. The earth (ʼerets) they are to be removed from is the good earth the whole psalm has praised. Sin is the blight on it, and the psalmist longs for a world where nothing stands against God’s rule and his praise rings out freely.

Prayers of this kind are called imprecatory prayers, and there are others in Psalm 7 and Psalm 35. They hand judgment over to God as the righteous Judge, trusting him to deal with all unrighteousness in his own time and way, and they give no one leave to take vengeance for himself. The whole of Psalm 37 is given to the end of the righteous and the end of the wicked. God is the generous Creator who feeds every creature and also the Judge who will deal with evil, and this verse holds the two together. Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, and it is still right to long for the day when God ends all wickedness.

The gospel shows how God answers this prayer. “God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17). Through Christ’s death and resurrection a sinner can be changed and brought home, so the prayer is answered first by mercy. It is also answered in the end by judgment. Christ will “put down all rule and all authority and power” (1 Corinthians 15:24), he came to “destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14), and we look for new heavens and a new earth “wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13). There God will dwell with his people and wipe away every tear (Revelation 21:3–4), and the wicked will be no more.

Straight after the prayer against the wicked, the psalmist turns back to worship. “Bless thou the LORD, O my soul” uses bârak, which means to kneel, to praise, to adore or to give thanks, and when it is said to God it is reverent homage. He speaks to his own soul, his nephesh, the seat of his life, feelings and will, and calls the whole of his inner self to praise. These words open Psalm 103, and they open this psalm too (Psalm 104:1), so Psalm 104 ends where it began. Evil is real, and God’s goodness and rule stand unshaken by it, so his praise has the last word.

“Praise ye the LORD” is Hallelujah. It joins hâlal, to praise, to boast or to shine, in a command spoken to many, with Yâhh, a short form of Yᵉhôvâh used in poetry with the same meaning. The psalmist has called his own soul, and now he calls everyone who hears him. This is the first Hallelujah in the book of Psalms, and the word comes back again and again in the psalms that close the book, from Psalm 146 to Psalm 150. The whole of creation and all of God’s dealings with it, his care and his judgment alike, end in praise.

The New Testament shows that the Creator of Psalm 104 made all things through his Son. “All things were made by him” (John 1:3). Christ is the image of the invisible God, all things were created through him and for him, and in him all things hold together (Colossians 1:15–17). He is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person”, “upholding all things by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3). So the glory that endures for ever is seen in him, and the works the LORD rejoices in include the new creation that Christ brings, the new heaven and new earth of Revelation 21:1.

The power before which the earth trembles was at work in Jesus. He spoke to the wind and the sea and they obeyed him (Mark 4:39–41), he healed a leper with a touch (Matthew 8:3), and he cast out spirits with a word (Matthew 8:16). The same mighty power raised him from the dead (Ephesians 1:19–20).

Jesus also lived the vow of verse 33 perfectly. His life on earth was one long act of praise and obedience to the Father, and he could say, “I have glorified thee on the earth” (John 17:4). Those who are in Christ are a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17), and through him they offer “the sacrifice of praise to God continually” (Hebrews 13:15), worshipping the Father “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23–24). Their song joins the new song sung to the Lamb, who has redeemed us by his blood and made us “kings and priests” to God (Revelation 5:9–10).

The sweetest meditation of verse 34 now has its fullest subject. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18). To think on God is to think on Christ, his life, his obedience, his death for us and his resurrection. He gives a joy that is full (John 15:11), and his Spirit gives us the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5).

These verses give us a God whose glory never fades and who is glad in everything he has made. The earth shakes at his look, and yet he is near enough for one man to call him “my God” and find thinking about him sweet. His joy in his works and our joy in him are named with the same word, so the gladness of the psalmist answers the gladness of God.

They also give us a song for all of life, from the first breath to the last. The psalmist knows the world is spoiled by sin, and he hands that grief to God in prayer, trusting him to make his good earth clean. Then he praises, and he calls everyone who hears him to do the same. Psalm 104 ends with Hallelujah because the LORD who made and keeps the world deserves praise from all of it.