Poet thoughts concerning the Greater.
This psalm has been called a poetic version of Genesis 1:1-31, "a panorama of the universe viewed by the eye of devotion." It is connected with Psalms 103:1-22; which reviews God's dealings in the realm of grace. That psalm comes first, because only through our personal knowledge of God do we gain the true understanding of the God of nature. From nature alone man gains ideas of power, and even of malice; so he makes many gods, and they are chiefly gods to fear. The good man, through his faith in God, finds good in seemingly evil things, and fears nothing. But this psalm represents the poet's observation of nature, not that of the scientific man. Sentiment, not minutely described fact, is befitting to a Psalmist. Science must always be for the few among us; pious-toned observation is for all of us. In this verse we have the impression produced by religious meditation, which dwells not on the things, but on God's relation to the things.
I. THE WISDOM OF GOD SEEN IN HIS WORKS. Marvellous is the development of a few laws, and the harmonious interaction of these laws; they work into each other so that the order of the universe is never really broken. Then every individual thing is adjusted to its mission and its sphere. There is a strange and wonderful power of repair and recovery everywhere. Things do not really fail or die; they do but pass from one form of service to another.
II. THE RIGHTS OF GOD RECOGNIZED IN ALL HIS WORKS. "Thy possessions." Then our so called "rights" are only "trusts." We have nothing. Possession belongs only to God. We are the children born of a Father who owns a large estate. We enjoy, we use, we serve our Father in the use. But we can never enter into any sort of separate and individual "possession" while our Father lives. Are we, then, sensitive as a pious poet is in the midst of mighty and beautiful nature? Are we only interested, in a scientific sort of way, in things? or do we know how to enter into the very heart of things, and let them do their true work—make God precious to us?—R.T.