Psalm 104:32

He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he toucheth the hills, and they smoke.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(32) Trembleth.—With the praise is united something of awe and fear, since the majesty and power of Him who made the world is so great. Its very existence is dependent on His will, and a glance, a touch from Him would be enough to shake it to its foundations and consume it. For “the smoky mountain tops,” comp. Psalm 144:5, and see Note, Psalm 148:8.

Benson Commentary

Psalm 104:32. He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth, &c. — Unable to bear his frown. This is a further illustration of God’s powerful providence. As when he affords his favour to creatures, they live and thrive; so, on the contrary, one angry look or touch of his, upon the hills or earth, makes them tremble or smoke, as once Sinai did when God appeared on it.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

104:31-35 Man's glory is fading; God's glory is everlasting: creatures change, but with the Creator there is no variableness. And if mediation on the glories of creation be so sweet to the soul, what greater glory appears to the enlightened mind, when contemplating the great work of redemption! There alone can a sinner perceive ground of confidence and joy in God. While he with pleasure upholds all, governs all, and rejoices in all his works, let our souls, touched by his grace, meditate on and praise him.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth - There is great sublimity in this expression, as indicating the power and the majesty of God. He has only to "look" upon his works, and they stand in awe and tremble. The most mighty and fearful convulsions of nature occur as if they were the mere effect of God's "looking" on the earth. Compare Habakkuk 3:10 - "The mountains saw thee, and they trembled."

He toucheth the hills, and they smoke - That is, as Mount Sinai did when God came down upon it. Exodus 19:18. It is as if the hills were conscious of his presence, and were awed.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

31-34. While God could equally glorify His power in destruction, that He does it in preservation is of His rich goodness and mercy, so that we may well spend our lives in grateful praise, honoring to Him, and delightful to pious hearts (Ps 147:1).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

This is a further illustration of God’s powerful providence over all the creatures, and their dependence upon him; as when he affords his favour to creatures, they live and thrive, so one the contrary one angry look or touch of his upon the hills or earth makes them tremble and smoke, as once Sinai did when God appeared in it. And this consideration he may possibly suggest to enforce the foregoing exhortation of glorifying God, because if we do not give him the glory due to his name, he call quickly right himself, and destroy us and all his works.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth,.... As Sinai did when he descended on it, Psalm 68:8, to which the allusion seems to be; and a look from him, a severe one, a frowning one, will make the inhabitants of the earth to tremble; a providential look, sending famine, pestilence or the sword among them. A displeased look will make the hearts of his own children tremble, as no doubt Peter's did, when the Lord looked upon him, and he remembered his word; and if a look, much more a word, an awful word, as his voice in the law, pronouncing such cursed as keep it not; and especially the tremendous sentence he will pronounce on the wicked at the last day,

go, ye cursed, &c. and if a look and a word are so terrible, what will be the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger upon those who have refused to give him glory? For the words seem to carry in them a reason why he should be glorified, taken from the consequence of not glorifying him, who has such a majesty in his looks, such a terror in his countenance, and such power in his hands.

He toucheth the hills, and they smoke; as Sinai likewise did, when he was upon it, Exodus 19:18, and as other hills do, when touched with lightning; the tops of mountains, the higher they are, the sooner and the more they smoke (u). God, with a touch of his hand, can set mountains on fire, open "volcanos", and cause them to burn for years together; as Etna, Vesuvius, Hecla, and others: and how easily can he set on fire the course of nature, burn the world, and all that is in it! It is but touching it, and it takes fire immediately: this he can as easily do as a man can light a torch or a candle; and as easily can he destroy sinners with the fire of his wrath, or cast them into everlasting fire, with the devil and his angels, which will burn to the lowest hell; and what are hills and mountains, or the greatest personages on earth, if he does but touch them, or lay his hand upon them in wrath? They are crushed as the moth; they are nothing before our great Zerubbabel.

(u) "Montis vicina cacumina coelo----Tanto "magis edita fumant", Lucret. de Rerum Natura, l. 6. v. 458, 459.

Geneva Study Bible

He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he toucheth the hills, and they {r} smoke.

(r) God's merciful face gives strength to the earth, but his severe countenance burns the mountains.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

32. Who looketh on the earth, and it trembleth,

Toucheth the mountains, and they smoke.

May this manifestation of God in Nature ever continue! May Jehovah never cease to rejoice in His works as He rejoiced when He pronounced all things to be very good (Genesis 1:31; Proverbs 8:31). A look, a touch are enough to remind the earth of the awful power of its Creator, Who if He willed could annihilate as easily as He created. The Psalmist has in mind Amos 9:5 (cp. above Psalm 104:3), Exodus 19:18; Psalm 104:32 b is imitated in Psalm 144:5, Psalm 104:33 in Psalm 146:2.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 32. - He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth (comp. Psalm 18:7; Psalm 114:7). The earth "trembles," as knowing that it can be destroyed at any moment. He toucheth the hills, and they smoke; or, the mountains - the strongest portions of the earth (Psalm 36:6; Psalm 65:6) - "smoke" when he touches them (see Exodus 19:18; Deuteronomy 4:11; Psalm 144:5). Psalm 104:32

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The poet has now come to an end with the review of the wonders of the creation, and closes in this seventh group, which is again substantially decastichic, with a sabbatic meditation, inasmuch as he wishes that the glory of God, which He has put upon His creatures, and which is reflected and echoed back by them to Him, may continue for ever, and that His works may ever be so constituted that He who was satisfied at the completion of His six days' work may be able to rejoice in them. For if they cease to give Him pleasure, He can indeed blot them out as He did at the time of the Flood, since He is always able by a look to put the earth in a tremble, and by a touch to set the mountains on fire (ותּרעד of the result of the looking, as in Amos 5:8; Amos 9:6, and ויעשׁנוּ of that which takes place simultaneously with the touching, as in Psalm 144:5, Zechariah 9:5, cf. on Habakkuk 3:10). The poet, however, on his part, will not suffer there to be any lack of the glorifying of Jahve, inasmuch as he makes it his life's work to praise his God with music and song (בּחיּי as in Psalm 63:5, cf. Bar. 4:20, ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις μου). Oh that this his quiet and his audible meditation upon the honour of God may be pleasing to Him (ערב על synonymous with טּוב על, but also שׁפר על, Psalm 16:6)! Oh that Jahve may be able to rejoice in him, as he himself will rejoice in his God! Between "I will rejoice," Psalm 104:34, and "He shall rejoice," Psalm 104:31, there exists a reciprocal relation, as between the Sabbath of the creature in God and the Sabbath of God in the creature. When the Psalmist wishes that God may have joy in His works of creation, and seeks on his part to please God and to have his joy in God, he is also warranted in wishing that those who take pleasure in wickedness, and instead of giving God joy excite His wrath, may be removed from the earth (יתּמּוּ, cf. Numbers 14:35); for they are contrary to the purpose of the good creation of God, they imperil its continuance, and mar the joy of His creatures. The expression is not: may sins (חטּאים, as it is meant to be read in B. Berachoth, 10a, and as some editions, e.g., Bomberg's of 1521, actually have it), but: may sinners, be no more, for there is no other existence of sin than the personal one.

With the words Bless, O my soul, Jahve, the Psalm recurs to its introduction, and to this call upon himself is appended the Hallelujah which summons all creatures to the praise of God - a call of devotion which occurs nowhere out of the Psalter, and within the Psalter is found here for the first time, and consequently was only coined in the alter age. In modern printed copies it is sometimes written הללוּ־יהּ, sometimes הללוּ יהּ, but in the earlier copies (e.g., Venice 1521, Wittenberg 1566) mostly as one word הללוּיהּ.

(Note: More accurately הללוּיהּ with Chateph, as Jekuthil ha-Nakdan expressly demands. Moreover the mode of writing it as one word is the rule, since the Masora notes the הללוּ־יהּ, occurring only once, in Psalm 135:3, with לית בטעם as being the only instance of the kind.)

In the majority of MSS it is also found thus as one word,

(Note: Yet even in the Talmud (J. Megilla i. 9, Sofrim v. 10) it is a matter of controversy concerning the mode of writing this word, whether it is to be separate or combined; and in B. Pesachim 117a Rab appeals to a Psalter of the school of Chabibi (תילי דבי חביבי) that he has seen, in which הללו stood in one line and יה in the other. In the same place Rab Chasda appeals to a תילי דבי רב חנין that he has seen, in which the Hallelujah standing between two Psalms, which might be regarded as the close of the Psalm preceding it or as the beginning of the Psalm following it, as written in the middle between the two (בעמצע פירקא). In the הלליה written as one word, יה is not regarded as strictly the divine name, only as an addition strengthening the notion of the הללו, as in במרחביה Psalm 118:5; with reference to this, vide Geiger, Urschrift, S. 275.)

and that always with הּ, except the first הללוּיהּ which occurs here at the end of Psalm 104, which has ה raphe in good MSS and old printed copies. This mode of writing is that attested by the Masora (vid., Baer's Psalterium, p. 132). The Talmud and Midrash observe this first Hallelujah is connected in a significant manner with the prospect of the final overthrow of the wicked. Ben-Pazzi (B. Berachoth 10a) counts 103 פרשׁיות up to this Hallelujah, reckoning Psalm 1:1-6 and Psalm 2:1-12 as one פרשׁת'.