Psalms 104:1–4

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.

Strange as it may sound, "He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters" (v. 3). These are "the waters above" (Gen. 1:7), water carried in the clouds. Those clouds are in effect made "His chariot," and we can only watch them, for we do not ride in them. Nor can we "walk on the wings of the wind," as our great Creator and Redeemer does.

The psalm opens with praise to the Creator. The one singing already knows the Lord as Redeemer, as the previous psalm shows. So he can say, "O Lord my God, you are very great." In these opening verses a view of creation rises before the psalmist. It 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. In all this great work we see God not only creating, but moving in His own creation. He "makes the clouds His chariot," and "walks on the wings of the wind." Angels wait on Him as His ministers.

The psalmist will not explain what happens in the heavens by matter and motion alone. To him it is all filled with the Presence and Will of a divine Being, whom these things in some sense show. We have discovered some of the mechanics involved. That has done nothing to disprove what the psalmist believed. The description is poetic, but its meaning is not hard to understand, and no one can prove it superstitious. Superstition thrives in the dark; it is inconsistent, fantastic, irrational. These things have proved rational, and so authoritative that we call them "law." To claim them as the work of Mind, of a divine Governor, is not superstition at all.

The cloud first took Him at the head of His redeemed people, to lead them on the way (Ex. 13). Later it carried Him to fill His place in the tabernacle, and then in the temple (Ex. 40; 2 Chr. 5). So the cloudy chariot waited on Him of old (Ps. 104:3). And when the sins of the people had disturbed His rest among them, the cherubim carry Him away (Ezek. 1); and the cherubim were called "the chariot of the cherubim" (1 Chr. 28:18). On all these occasions He was attended by His appointed chariot. And so He is now. He is "carried up."

Every eye will see Him in surroundings that show His Deity. For this is the Lord God Himself, "who makes the clouds His chariot, who walks on the wings of the wind" (Ps. 104:3)… Our verse here announces that all the tribes of the earth will wail because of Him. This is not repentance. They wail because His coming seals their doom, and they realize it.

The glory of God rests on the cross. "Who lays the beams of His chambers in the waters." The beams of the chambers of glory rest, as it were, on foundations laid deep in death. The Lamb of God went down into that death, so that everything should be established and made sure there. What could be more blessed or comforting than that?

The psalm opens with praise to the Creator by one who, according to the previous psalm, already knows the Lord as Redeemer, and can therefore say, "O Lord my God, You are very great." In the opening verses a view of creation rises before the psalmist that matches the first and second days of creation… In all this great work God is seen not only as creating but as moving in His own creation. He "makes the clouds His chariot," and "walks upon the wings of the wind." Angels wait upon Him as His ministers.

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews accepts and uses the old Greek translation of this verse (Heb. 1:7), and that rules out any other reading. "He makes His angels spirits" is, according to the apostle, a fact stated about the nature of angels. That is of course a much higher fact than "making the winds His messengers." The words could be translated either way, so something other than the language must settle the meaning… There would indeed be a gap in the picture of the Lord as Creator if only physical forces — clouds, winds and so on — were spoken of, and not His creative power in the realm of spirit.

This shows that no part of His creation stands separate from Him. No physical force works that is not the carrying out of His will. The "spirits," with a responsibility of their own, represent Him and are subject to Him, receiving their character and their gifts from Him according to His will.

God created angels to serve. They are indeed spirit, and not flesh. They look like Him who is Himself a consuming fire. But they have their being, and are kept in their appointed spheres, by the word of Him who made them. In all their might and excellence they belong wholly to Him who formed them for Himself.

Here God is speaking of His works of creation and providence, and the messengers He uses: they are angels, beings who excel in strength and delight to do His will. He makes the angels spirits, and they go like the lightning or the wind, quick and certain in their work.

It has pleased God to give these agents of His power this nature of spirits. But of the Son He says, "Your throne, O God!" God, in the exercise of His will, makes His angels spirits, or flames of fire. But of the Son we never read that God makes anything of Him… The angels stand higher than man. Yet for all their glory, they stand far below the Son.

They are only servants, whatever their might, function, or sphere… They never rule.

At God's command they get ready to serve, in whatever the saint needs, or whatever the occasion under the throne of God calls for. They formed a travelling chariot to carry Elijah to heaven, and to carry Lazarus to Abraham's side. They now form chariots of war, when the hostile armies of Syria surround Elisha… They are either as winds or as fire. They are messengers of mercy and executors of judgment, as "the Lord" who "is among them" may command.

We owe far more to angelic ministry than we notice, in matters of physical strength and wellbeing. Yet as spirit beings their ministry is hidden, and they are content to remain unknown to us, so that all the glory for it goes to God alone.