Psalm 104:35

Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless thou the LORD, O my soul. Praise ye the LORD.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(35) Sinners be consumed.—This imprecation, which comes in at the close of this otherwise uniformly glad hymn, has been variously excused. The truth seems to be that from a religious hymn of Israel, since religion and patriotism were one, the expression of the national feeling against heathen oppressors and apostates who sided with them could not well be absent, whatever its immediate subject and tone. But the poet touches even a profounder truth.[19] The harmony of creation was soon broken by sin, and the harmony of the song of creation would hardly be complete, or rather, would be false and unreal, did not a discord make itself heard. The form such a suggestion would take was conditioned by the nationality of the poet; the spirit of it brings this ancient hymn at its close into accord with the feeling of modern literature, as reflected in Wordsworth’s well-known “Verses Written in Early Spring”:—

[19] In reality the power of sin to interfere with God’s pleasure. in His universe is present as an undercurrent of thought in Psalms 103, as well as 104. In the former it is implied that forgiveness and restoration are requisite before the harmony of the universe (Psalm 104:20-22) can become audible. The two psalms are also closely related in form.

“I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I lay reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran

And much it grieved my heart to think

What Man has made of Man.”

Bless thou the Lord.—This is the first hallelujah in the psalter. Outside the psalter it is never found, and was therefore a liturgical expression coined in a comparatively late age. It is variously written as one or two words.

Benson Commentary

Psalm 104:35. Let the sinners be consumed, &c. — This speaks terror to the wicked. As if he had said, As for those ungodly creatures who do not regard the works of the Lord, nor give him the glory due to his name, but dishonour him, and abuse his creatures, and thereby provoke God to destroy the earth, and the men and things which are upon it, let them be consumed, and be no more, for it is my prayer that, for thine honour and for the safety of mankind, those sinners who obstinately and resolutely continue in this practice of disobeying their Creator and Preserver, their Governor and Judge, may be taken out of the world, that they may no longer infect it, and hasten its total destruction. Or rather, the words are a prediction, and יתמו, jittamu, should be rendered, they shall be consumed, it being impossible that any should prosper, who harden themselves against the Almighty. And they that rebel against the light of such convincing evidence of God’s existence, wisdom, power, and goodness, and refuse to serve him, whom all the creatures serve, will be justly consumed. Bless thou the Lord, O my soul — But thou, O my soul, come not into this wretched society, but employ thyself in this great and blessed work of praising God, in which I hope to be employed when the wicked are consumed, even world without end; and desire that others may follow my example herein, and therefore say, Praise ye the Lord — Hebrew, Hallelujah. This is the first time that this word occurs, and it comes in here on occasion of the destruction of the wicked. And the last time it occurs, Revelation 19., it is on a like occasion, the destruction of Babylon.

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

Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth - Compare Psalm 37:38. This might with propriety be rendered, "Consumed are the sinners out of the earth," expressing a fact and not a desire; and it may have been prompted by the feeling of the psalmist that such an event would occur; that is, that the time would come when sin would no more abound, but when the world would be filled with righteousness, and all the dwellers on the earth would praise God. The word translated "consumed" - from תמם tâmam - means properly to complete, to perfect, to finish, to cease. It does not mean "consume" in the sense of being burned up - as our word means - or destroyed, but merely to come to an end, to cease, to pass away: that is; Let the time soon come - or, the time will soon come - when there will be no sinners on the earth, but when all the inhabitants of the earth will worship and honor God. The "connection" here seems to be this: The psalmist was himself so filled with the love of God, and with admiration of his works, that he desired that all might partake of the same feeling; and he looked forward, therefore, as those who love God must do, to the time when all the dwellers on earth would see his glory, and when there should be none who did not adore and love him. All that is "fairly" implied in the wish of the psalmist here would be accomplished if all sinners were converted, and if, in that sense, there were to be no more transgressors in the world.

And let the wicked be no more - Let there not be anymore wicked persons; let the time come when there shall be no bad people on the earth, but when all shall be righteous. In this prayer all persons could properly unite.

Bless thou the Lord, O my soul - The psalm closes (as Psalm 103 does) as it began. The psalmist commenced with the expression of a purpose to bless God; it closes with the same purpose, confirmed by a survey of the wonderful works of God.

Praise ye the Lord - Hebrew, Hallelu-jah. The psalmist expresses the earnest desire of a truly pious heart (in looking upon a world so beautiful, so varied in its works, so full of the expressions of the wisdom and goodness of God - a world where all the inferior creation so completely carries out the purpose of the Creator), that man, the noblest of all the works of God, might unite with the world around and beneath him in carrying out the great purpose of the creation - so that he might, in his own proper place, and according to the powers with which he is endowed, acknowledge God. How beautiful - how sublime - would be the spectacle on earth, if man accomplished the purpose of his creation, and filled his place, as well as the springs, the hills, the trees, the fowls, the wild goats, the moon, the sun, the young lions, and the inhabitants of the "great and wide sea" do in their spheres! Oh, come the time when on earth there shall be harmony in all the works of God, and when all creatures here shall carry out the purpose which was contemplated when God called the earth into existence.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

35. Those who refuse such a protector and withhold such a service mar the beauty of His works, and must perish from His presence.

Praise ye the Lord—The Psalm closes with an invocation of praise, the translation of a Hebrew phrase, which is used as an English word, "Hallelujah," and may have served the purpose of a chorus, as often in our psalmody, or to give fuller expression to the writer's emotions. It is peculiar to Psalms composed after the captivity, as "Selah" is to those of an earlier date.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

But as for those ungodly creatures who do not regard the works of the Lord, which is noted as a most grievous sin, and punished with a grievous imprecation, like this, Psalm 27:4,5, nor give him the glory due to his name, but dishonour God, and abuse his creatures, and thereby provoke God to destroy the earth, and the men and things which are upon it, it is my prayer for thine honour, and for the safeguard of all mankind, that those sinners who obstinately and resolutely continue in this practice of dishonouring and disobeying their Creator, may be taken out of this world, that they may no longer infect it, nor procure its total destruction. Or it may be a prediction delivered in the form of an imprecation, as hath been noted before in like cases. But thou, O my soul, come not into this wretched society, but employ thyself in this great work of blessing and praising God; and it is my desire and hope that others will follow my example.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth,.... Not in common, for all men are sinners, even good men are not without sin; but notorious sinners, whose lives are one continued series and course of sinning; such as will not have Christ to reign over them, and do not give him the glory due unto him; particularly antichrist, the man of sin, and his followers; they that worship the beast and his image: these will be consumed with the breath of his mouth, and with the brightness of his coming, and will perish out of his land, 2 Thessalonians 2:3.

And let the wicked be no more; as the wicked one, antichrist, will be no more when consumed; there will never rise another, when the beast and false prophet are taken and cast alive into the lake of fire; there will no more of the antichristian party remain, the remnant of them will be slain with the sword; after the battle of Armageddon, there will be none left of the followers of antichrist, nor any ever rise up any more.

Bless thou the Lord, O my soul; as for his mercies, spiritual and temporal, so for the destruction of all his enemies. The psalm begins and ends alike as the preceding.

Praise ye the Lord, or hallelujah: this is the first time this word is used in this book of Psalms, though frequently afterwards: and it is observable that it is only used, in the New Testament, at the prophecy of the destruction of antichrist, Revelation 19:1 which may serve to confirm the sense before given; and is to be considered as a call upon the saints to praise the Lord, on account of his righteous judgments on his and his church's enemies; so Aben Ezra.

Geneva Study Bible

Let the sinners be {s} consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless thou the LORD, O my soul. Praise ye the LORD.

(s) Who infect the world, and so cause it to be that God cannot rejoice in his work.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

35. Let the sinners be consumed &c.] There is no need to make excuse for this conclusion of the Psalm. It is not an imprecation, but a solemn prayer for the restoration of the harmony of creation by the banishment from it of “all things that cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity.” The preceding verses (31, 32) have just hinted that there is something in the world which may hinder God from continuing to rejoice in His works. What is it?

“Disproportioned sin

Jarred against nature’s chime, and with harsh din

Broke the fair music that all creatures made

To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed

In perfect diapason, whilst they stood

In first obedience, and their state of good.”

Modern thought would say, ‘May sin be banished’: but Hebrew thought is not abstract but concrete, and moreover the form of the prayer reminds us of the solemn truth that sin is a personal thing, which cannot be separated from the sinner, but has its existence through his perverted will. It may be noted that the intensive form of the word for sinner implies obstinate and incorrigible habit.

As in Psalms 103, the Psalmist concludes as he began, Bless Jehovah, O my soul, to which is appended the general call to praise, Hallelujah, ‘Praise ye Jah.’ This word (for according to the Massoretic tradition it is to be written as one word except in Psalm 135:3) occurs nowhere but in the Psalter[57] and meets us here for the first time.

[57] In Jeremiah 20:13 the phrase is ‘Praise ye Jehovah,’ as in Psalm 117:1. Cp. however Tob 13:18, “All her streets shall say, Hallelujah”: 3Ma 7:13, “The priests and all the people shouted, Hallelujah.”

According to Graetz (Comm. p. 91), and Ginsburg (Introd. to the Heb. Bible, pp. 376 ff.), it was the summons addressed by the precentor to the congregation to join him in reciting the Psalm, or to respond by repeating the first verse after his recitation of each verse. Its proper place therefore is at the beginning not at the end of a Psalm, and in the LXX (with the possible exception of Psalms 150) it is always found at the beginning. In the Massoretic text however it occurs at both beginning and end of eight Psalms, at the beginning only of two, at the end only of five, and once in the text of the Psalm (Psalm 135:3).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 35. - Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth; i.e. "Let the great blot upon creation - sin and sinners - exist no more. Let the harmony upon the earth be complete, by the elimination of this "one jarring string." And let the wicked be no more. Repetition for the sake of emphasis. Bless thou the Lord, O my soul. Then, when this blot is removed, when the trials of the godly, from the persecutions and vexations of sinners, are over, it will be the part of my soul, with greater heartiness than ever, to "bless the Lord." Praise ye the Lord. Then, too, all mankind may well be called upon to join in a chorus of praise and blessing, and to sing, as saints and angels sing in the courts of heaven, "Hallelujah!" (Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, 6).



Psalm 104:35

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'.