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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 104:10 - 104:10
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The third decastich, passing on to the third day of creation, sings the benefit which the shore-surrounded waters are to the animal creation and the growth of the plants out of the earth, which is irrigated from below and moistened from above. God, the blessed One, being the principal subject of the Psalm, the poet (in Psa 104:10 and further on) is able to go on in attributive and predicative participles: Who sendeth springs בַּנְּחָלִים, into the wadîs (not: בִּנְחלים, as brooks). נַחַל, as Psa 104:10 shows, is here a synonym of בִּקְעָה, and there is no need for saying that, flowing on in the plains, they grow into rivers. The lxx has ἐν φάραγξιν. חַיְתֹו שָׂדַי is doubly poetic for חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה. God has also provided for all the beasts that roam far from men; and the wild ass, swift as an arrow, difficult to be hunted, and living in troops (פֶּרֶא, Arabic ferâ, root פר, Arab. fr, to move quickly, to whiz, to flee; the wild ass, the onager, Arabic himâr el-wahs, whose home is on the steppes), is made prominent by way of example. The phrase “to break the thirst” occurs only here. עֲלֵיהֶם, Psa 104:12, refers to the מַעֵיָנִים, which are also still the subject in Psa 104:11. The pointing עֳפָאיִם needlessly creates a hybrid form in addition to עֲפָאִים (like לְבָאִים) and עֳפָיִים. From the tangled branches by the springs the poet insensibly reaches the second half of the third day. The vegetable kingdom at the same time reminds him of the rain which, descending out of the upper chambers of the heavens, waters the waterless mountain-tops. Like the Talmud (B. Ta‛anı̂th, 10a), by the “fruit of Thy work” (מעשׂיך as singular) Hitzig understands the rain; but rain is rather that which fertilizes; and why might not the fruit be meant which God's works (מעשׂיך, plural) here below (Psa 104:24), viz., the vegetable creations, bear, and from which the earth, i.e., its population, is satisfied, inasmuch as vegetable food springs up as much for the beasts as for man? In connection with עֵשֶׂב the poet is thinking of cultivated plants, more especially wheat; לַֽעֲבֹדַת, however, does not signify: for cultivation by man, since, according to Hitzig's correct remonstrance, they do not say עבד העשׂב, and להוציא has not man, but rather God, as its subject, but as in 1Ch 26:30, for the service (use) of man.