1 The heavens declare the glory of God, And the work of His hands the firmament makes known. 2 Day to day pours forth speech, And night to night shows knowledge. 3 There is no speech and no words; Not heard is their voice. 4 In all the earth their line goes forth, and in the end of the world their words; For the sun has He set a tent in them, 5 And he is like a bridegroom going out from his chamber; He rejoices like a hero to run (his) course. 6 From the end of the heavens is his going forth, and his circuit unto their ends; And nothing is hid from his heat.
7 The law of Jehovah is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of Jehovah is trusty, making wise the simple. 8 The precepts of Jehovah are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of Jehovah is pure, enlightening the eyes. 9 The fear of Jehovah is clean, standing for ever; The judgments of Jehovah are truth: they are righteous altogether. 10 They are more to be desired than gold and than abundant [gold] refined, And they are sweeter than honey and the droppings of the honeycomb.
11 Moreover, Thy servant is warned by them; In keeping them is reward abundant. 12 Inadvertencies who can discern? From hidden sins absolve me. 13 Also from presumptuous [sins] keep back Thy servant: let them not rule over me; Then shall I be guiltless, and I shall be absolved from great transgression. 14 Accepted be the words of my mouth and meditation of my heart in Thy sight, Jehovah, my Rock and my Kinsman-redeemer!
Is this originally one psalm or bits of two, pieced together to suggest a comparison between the two sources of knowledge of God, which the authors did not dream of? The affirmative is strongly _main_tained, but, we may venture to say, not so strongly _sus_tained. The two parts are said to differ in style, rhythm, and subject. Certainly they do, but the difference in style accounts for the difference in structure. It is not an unheard-of phenomenon that cadence should change with theme; and if the very purpose of the song is to set forth the difference of the two witnesses to God, nothing can be more likely than such a change in measure. The two halves are said to be put together abruptly without anything to smooth the transition. So they are, and so is ver. 4 put by the side of ver. 3; and so does the last turn of thought (vv. 12-14) follow the second. Cyclopean architecture without mortar has a certain impressiveness. The abruptness is rather an argument for than against the original unity, for a compiler would have been likely to try to make some sort of glue to hold his two fragments together, while a poet, in the rush of his afflatus, would welcome the very abruptness which the manufacturer would avoid. Surely the thought that binds the whole into a unity--that _Jehovah_ is _El_, and that nature and law witness to the same Divine Person, though with varying clearness--is not so strange as that we should have to find its author in some late editor unknown.
Vv. 1-6 hymn the silent declaration by the heavens. The details of exposition must first be dealt with. "Declare" and "makes known" are participles, and thus express the continuity of the acts. The substance of the witness is set forth with distinct reference to its limitations, for "glory" has here no moral element, but simply means what Paul calls "eternal power and Godhead," while the Divine name of God ("El") is used in intended contrast to "Jehovah" in the second half, a _nuance_ which must be obliterated if this is a conglomerate psalm. "His handiwork," in like manner, limits the revelation. The heavens by day are so marvellously unlike the heavens by night that the psalmist's imagination conjures up two long processions, each member of which passes on the word entrusted to him to his successor--the blazing days with heaven naked but for one great light, and the still nights with all their stars. Ver. 3 has given commentators much trouble in attempting to smooth its paradox. Tastes are curiously different, for some critics think that the familiar interpretation gives a flat, prosaic meaning, while Cheyne takes the verse to be a gloss for dull readers, and exclaims, "How much the brilliant psalm fragment gains by its omission!" _De gustibus_, etc. Some of us may still feel that the psalmist's contrast of the awful silence in the depths of the sky and of the voice that speaks to opened ears thrills us with something very like the electric touch of poetry. In ver. 4 the thought of the great voices returns. "Their line" is usually explained as meaning their sphere of influence, marked out, as it were, by a measuring cord. If that rendering is adopted, ver. 4 _b_ would in effect say, "Their words go as far as their realm." Or the rendering "sound" may be deduced, though somewhat precariously, from that of _line_, since a line stretched is musical. But the word is not used as meaning the string of an instrument, and the very slight conjectural emendation which gives "voice" instead of "line" has much to recommend it. In any case the teaching of the verse is plain from the last clause, namely the universality of the revelation. It is singular that the mention of the sun should come in the close of the verse; and there may be some error in the text, though the introduction of the sun here may be explained as completing the picture of the heavens, of which it is the crowning glory. Then follows the fuller delineation of his joyous energy, of his swift strength in his course, of his penetrating beams, illuminating and warming all. Why should the glowing metaphors, so natural and vigorous, of the sun coming forth from his bridal chamber and, hero-like, running his race, be taken to be traces of ancient myths now innocently reclaimed from the service of superstition? To find in these two images a proof that the first part of the psalm belongs to the post-exilic "literary revival of Hebrew mythology" is surely to lay more on them than they can bear.