Psalms 104:1–2

The psalm opens with praise to the Creator. It comes from one who, according to the previous psalm, already knows the Lord as Redeemer. So he can say, "O LORD my God, you are very great!"

The Lord the Redeemer is what the last psalm proclaimed to us. Divine Love could not hand over the glory of this salvation to another. Nor could Divine Love find anyone able to make the enormous sacrifice it involved. In the psalm before us the Lord is the Creator as well. Nature brings its tribute of praise to swell the anthem of redemption. Only in this way can we grasp its glorious harmony.

The psalm begins by celebrating the greatness of the Lord: He is clothed with splendour and majesty. He is unreachable in His own essential glory. He covers Himself with light as with a garment, and stretches out the heavens like the curtain of a tent. The visible is therefore the robe of the Invisible. He lives in it, and through it we may make out, however dimly, His glorious Form.

Who else could anyone say has covered himself with light as with a garment? Here the light is so bright that it blinds our weak eyes, but that only draws out more devoted worship.

In Genesis 1 we have the record of creation; in this psalm the song of creation. The psalm in its main outline follows the story of creation. The record shows creation at its beginning. The song shows creation as it works now. "One portrays the beginning of the eternal order, the other its ongoing living spectacle. That is also why the Ode has far more animation than the Record. The Record is a picture of still life; the Ode is crowded with figures full of stir and movement."

Psalm 104, which celebrates the Lord as Creator, needs very few remarks. You will notice that it deals almost entirely with the earth. He is clothed with the glory of the heavens, and the psalm describes that in most beautiful language. But the earth is the subject. The psalm looks at the earth as it now is, the home of men, yet everything depended on the Lord's sovereign will. It does not celebrate the earth, but the Lord, the Creator of it. It is not paradise, but this earth as we see it in man's hands. But the psalm looks ahead to sinners being consumed out of it, and the wicked being no more.

Can such language describe Job? — "You are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering Yourself with light as with a garment." … But had his own right hand stopped the raiding bands that carried off his possessions? Had it turned aside the storm that swept away his children? Sadly, he had needed a piece of broken pottery to scrape himself. His clothing was sackcloth, not glory and majesty. His seat was the ashes of a ruined life, not the throne of glory.

The psalm opens with praise to the Creator. It comes from a man who, according to the previous psalm, already knows Jehovah as Redeemer. That is why he can say, "O Lord my God, you are very great." In these opening verses the psalmist sees a view of creation that matches the first and second days of creation. God, who is light, divides the waters from the waters. He stretches out the heavens above, over the waters beneath.

Inaccessible in His own essential glory, He covers Himself with light as with a garment, and stretches out the heavens like the curtain of a tent. The visible is thus the robe of the Invisible. He indwells it, and through it we may discern, if dimly, His glorious Form.

Yet this dimness itself is Light. There is no hiding, except to make Him better known. Our sight is weak, so we look at the sun through a darkened glass.

Could anyone say this of Job? — "You are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a garment." … But had his own right hand even stopped the raiders who drove away his possessions? Or turned aside the storm that swept away his children? Sadly, he had to use a piece of broken pottery to scrape himself. His clothing was sackcloth, not glory and majesty. His seat was the ashes of a ruined life, not the throne of glory.

Of whom else could anyone say that He has covered Himself with light as with a garment? Here the light is so bright that it blinds our feeble eyes, yet it draws out deeper worship. "Stretching out the heavens like a tent." We marvel as we watch the heavens, and how they are kept in calm, majestic beauty. The clouds move and change all the time, but they have no effect on the heavens themselves.

God's purpose was to make known His moral nature and character, and the happiness of the life He lives. To carry out that purpose, He had to come out from the unapproachable light where He dwells alone. He did this when He came forth in the exercise of the creating power that is His own. In the creation He has produced, He has clothed Himself "with light as with a garment." But when we look at God in creation, we do not see His moral nature and life. Creation shows "His eternal power and divinity" (Rom. 1:20). It proclaims the power and divinity that was eternally in Him, but not what He is in moral nature and character.

In the Old Testament we read of God as the One who covers Himself "with light as with a garment." We could say the same of our Lord as He walked through this world of darkness. He stood in perfect contrast to everyone around Him. This was true all through the years of His ministry. It stood out most in the hours just before His crucifixion.