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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 104:24 - 104:24
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Fixing his eye upon the sea with its small and great creatures, and the care of God for all self-living beings, the poet passes over to the fifth and sixth days of creation. The rich contents of this sixth group flow over and exceed the decastich. With מָֽה־רַבּוּ (not מַה־גָּֽדְלוּ, Psa 92:6) the poet expresses his wonder at the great number of God's works, each one at the same time having its adjustment in accordance with its design, and all, mutually serving one another, co-operating one with another. קִנְיָן, which signifies both bringing forth and acquiring, has the former meaning here according to the predicate: full of creatures, which bear in themselves the traces of the Name of their Creator (קֹנֶה). Beside קִיָנֶיךָ, however, we also find the reading קִנְיָנֶךָ, which is adopted by Norzi, Heidenheim, and Baer, represented by the versions (lxx, Vulgate, and Jerome), by expositors (Rashi: קנין שֶׁלָּךְ), by the majority of the MSS (according to Norzi) and old printed copies, which would signify τῆς κτίσεώς σου, or according to the Latin versions κτήσεώς σου (possessione tua, Luther “they possessions”), but is inferior to the plural ktisma'toon σου, as an accusative of the object to מָֽלְאָה. The sea more particularly is a world of moving creatures innumerable (Psa 69:35). זֶה הַיָּם does not properly signify this sea, but that sea, yonder sea (cf. Psa 68:9, Isa 23:13; Jos 9:13). The attributes follow in an appositional relation, the looseness of which admits of the non-determination (cf. Psa 68:28; Jer 2:21; Gen 43:14, and the reverse case above in Psa 104:18). אֳנִיָּה .)}81:4 in relation to אָנִי is a nomen unitatis (the single ship). It is an old word, which is also Egyptian in the form hani and ana.
(Note: Vide Chabas, Le papyrus magique Harris, p. 246, No. 826: HANI (אני), vaisseau, navire, and the Book of the Dead 1. 10, where hani occurs with the determinative picture of a ship. As to the form ana, vid., Chabas loc. cit. p. 33.)
Leviathan, in the Book of Job, the crocodile, is in this passage the name of the whale (vid., Lewysohn, Zoologie des Talmuds, §§178-180, 505). Ewald and Hitzig, with the Jewish tradition, understand בֹּו in Psa 104:26 according to Job 41:5 : in order to play with him, which, however, gives no idea that is worthy of God. It may be taken as an alternative word for שָׁם (cf. בֹּו in Psa 104:20, Job 40:20): to play therein, viz., in the sea (Saadia). In כֻּלָּם, Psa 104:27, the range of vision is widened from the creatures of the sea to all the living things of the earth; cf. the borrowed passages Psa 145:15., Psa 147:9. כֻּלָּם, by an obliteration of the suffix, signifies directly “altogether,” and בְּעִתֹּו (cf. Job 38:32): when it is time for it. With reference to the change of the subject in the principal and in the infinitival clause, vid., Ew. §338, a. The existence, passing away, and origin of all beings is conditioned by God. His hand provides everything; the turning of His countenance towards them upholds everything; and His breath, the creative breath, animates and renews all things. The spirit of life of every creature is the disposing of the divine Spirit, which hovered over the primordial waters and transformed the chaos into the cosmos. תֹּסֵף in Psa 104:29 is equivalent to תֹּאסֵף, as in 1Sa 15:6, and frequently. The full future forms accented on the ultima, from Psa 104:27 onwards, give emphasis to the statements. Job 34:14. may be compared with Psa 104:29.