Learning to Trust in the Song of Creation

Bless the ETERNAL One, O my soul;O ETERNAL One, my God, You are very great;You are clothed in glory and majesty, wrapped in a robe of light;You spread the heavens like a tent cloth. You set the rafters of the heavenly lofts in the waters—making the clouds a chariot,moving on the wings of the wind. You make messengers of the winds,servants of fiery flames. You established the earth on its foundations,so that it shall never totter. You made the deep cover it as a garment;the waters stood above the mountains. They fled at Your blast,rushed away at the sound of Your thunder— mountains rising, valleys sinking—to the place You established for them. You set bounds they must not passso that they never again cover the earth. You make springs gush forth in torrents;they make their way between the hills, giving drink to all the wild beasts;the wild asses slake their thirst. The birds of the sky dwell beside themand sing among the foliage. You water the mountains from Your lofts;the earth is sated from the fruit of Your work. You make the grass grow for the cattle,and herbage for humans’ laborthat they may get food out of the earth— wine that cheers human hearts,oil that makes the face shine, and bread that sustains human life. The trees of the ETERNAL drink their fill,the cedars of Lebanon, God’s own planting, where birds make their nests;the stork has her home in the junipers. The high mountains are for wild goats;the crags are a refuge for rock-badgers. [God] made the moon to mark the seasons;the sun knows when to set. You bring on darkness and it is night,when all the beasts of the forests stir. The lions roar for prey,seeking their food from God. When the sun rises, they come homeand couch in their dens. People then go out to their work,to their labor until the evening. How many are the things You have made, O ETERNAL One;You have made them all with wisdom;the earth is full of Your creations. There is the sea, vast and wide,with its creatures beyond number,living things, small and great. There go the ships,and Leviathan that You formed to sport with. All of them look to Youto give them their food when it is due. Give it to them, they gather it up;open Your hand, they are well satisfied; hide Your face, they are terrified;take away their breath, they perishand turn again into dust; send back Your breath, they are created,and You renew the face of the earth. May GOD’s glory endure forever;may GOD rejoice in these works! —The One who looks at the earth and it trembles,touches the mountains and they smoke. I will sing to the ETERNAL as long as I live;all my life I will chant hymns to my God. May my prayer be found pleasing;I will rejoice in GOD. May sinners disappear from the earth,and the wicked be no more.Bless Yah, O my soul.Hallelujah.

Psalm 104 is a creation hymn. The psalmist does not argue for God's existence; he walks us through sunlight and storm, lion and cedar, bread and wine, until our hearts confess that the One who feeds the young ravens will surely feed His people. Faith, here, is the quiet settling of the soul into a world that God Himself sustains moment by moment.