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Selected Verse: Psalms 104:10 - Basic English
| Verse |
Translation |
Text |
| Ps 104:10 |
Basic English |
You sent the springs into the valleys; they are flowing between the hills. |
| |
King James |
He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
| A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
| Once destructive, these waters are subjected to the service of God's creatures. In rain and dew from His chambers (compare Psa 104:3), and fountains and streams, they give drink to thirsting animals and fertilize the soil. Trees thus nourished supply homes to singing birds, and the earth teems with the productions of God's wise agencies, |
| Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
He sendeth the springs into the valleys - Though the waters are gathered together into seas, yet God has taken care that the earth shall not be dry, parched, and barren. He has made provision for watering it, and by a most wise, wonderful, and benevolent arrangement, he has formed springs among the valleys and the hills. It is now animated nature which comes before the eye of the psalmist; and all this he traces to the fact that the earth is "watered," and that it is not a waste of rocks and sands. The allusion in this part of the psalm (see the Introduction) is to the earth as covered with vegetation - or, to the third day of the week of creation Gen 1:9-13, which, in Genesis, is connected with the gathering of the waters into seas. This description continues in Psa 104:18. The literal rendering here would be, "sending springs into the valleys." He conducts the waters from the great reservoirs - lakes and seas - in such a way that they form springs in the valleys. The way in which this is done is among the most wonderful and the most benevolent in nature - by that power, derived from heat, by which the waters of the ocean, contrary to the natural law of gravitation, are lifted up in small particles - in vapor - and carried by the clouds where they are needed, and let fall upon the earth, to water the plants, and to form fountains, rivulets, and streams - and borne thus to the highest mountains, to be filtered through the ground to form springs and streams below.
Which run among the hills - Margin, "walk." That is, they go between the hills. The streams of water flow along in the natural valleys which have been made for them. |
| Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78] |
| The third decastich, passing on to the third day of creation, sings the benefit which the shore-surrounded waters are to the animal creation and the growth of the plants out of the earth, which is irrigated from below and moistened from above. God, the blessed One, being the principal subject of the Psalm, the poet (in Psa 104:10 and further on) is able to go on in attributive and predicative participles: Who sendeth springs בּנּחלים, into the wads (not: בּנחלים, as brooks). נחל, as Psa 104:10 shows, is here a synonym of בּקעה, and there is no need for saying that, flowing on in the plains, they grow into rivers. The lxx has ἐν φάραγξιν. חיתו שׂדי is doubly poetic for חיּת השּׂדה. God has also provided for all the beasts that roam far from men; and the wild ass, swift as an arrow, difficult to be hunted, and living in troops (פּרא, Arabic ferâ, root פר, Arab. fr, to move quickly, to whiz, to flee; the wild ass, the onager, Arabic himr el-wahs, whose home is on the steppes), is made prominent by way of example. The phrase "to break the thirst" occurs only here. עליהם, Psa 104:12, refers to the מעינים, which are also still the subject in Psa 104:11. The pointing עפאים needlessly creates a hybrid form in addition to עפאים (like לבאים) and עפיים. From the tangled branches by the springs the poet insensibly reaches the second half of the third day. The vegetable kingdom at the same time reminds him of the rain which, descending out of the upper chambers of the heavens, waters the waterless mountain-tops. Like the Talmud (B. Ta‛anı̂th, 10a), by the "fruit of Thy work" (מעשׂיך as singular) Hitzig understands the rain; but rain is rather that which fertilizes; and why might not the fruit be meant which God's works (מעשׂיך, plural) here below (Psa 104:24), viz., the vegetable creations, bear, and from which the earth, i.e., its population, is satisfied, inasmuch as vegetable food springs up as much for the beasts as for man? In connection with עשׂב the poet is thinking of cultivated plants, more especially wheat; לעבדת, however, does not signify: for cultivation by man, since, according to Hitzig's correct remonstrance, they do not say עבד העשׂב, and להוציא has not man, but rather God, as its subject, but as in Ch1 26:30, for the service (use) of man. |
| Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
| He sendeth the springs into the valleys - Evaporation is guided and regulated by Divine Providence. The sun has a certain power to raise a certain portion of vapours from a given space. God has apportioned the aqueous to the terrene surface, and the solar attraction to both. There is just as much aqueous surface as affords a sufficiency of vapours to be raised by the solar attraction to water the earthy surface. Experiments have been instituted which prove that it requires a given space of aqueous surface to provide vapours for a given space of terrene surface; and the proportion appears ordinarily to be seventeen of water to three of earth; and this is the proportion that the aqueous bears to the terrene surface of the globe. See Ray's three Physico-theological Discourses. |
3 The arch of your house is based on the waters; you make the clouds your carriage; you go on the wings of the wind:
18 The high hills are a safe place for the mountain goats, and the rocks for the small beasts.
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven come together in one place, and let the dry land be seen: and it was so.
10 And God gave the dry land the name of Earth; and the waters together in their place were named Seas: and God saw that it was good.
11 And God said, Let grass come up on the earth, and plants producing seed, and fruit-trees giving fruit, in which is their seed, after their sort: and it was so.
12 And grass came up on the earth, and every plant producing seed of its sort, and every tree producing fruit, in which is its seed, of its sort: and God saw that it was good.
13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
30 Of the Hebronites, Hashabiah and his brothers, seventeen hundred able men, were overseers of Israel on the other side of the Jordan, to the west, being responsible for all the work of the Lord's house and for the work done by the king's servants.
24 O Lord, how great is the number of your works! in wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of the things you have made.
11 They give drink to every beast of the field; the mountain asses come to them for water.
12 The birds of the air have their resting-places by them, and make their song among the branches.
10 You sent the springs into the valleys; they are flowing between the hills.
10 You sent the springs into the valleys; they are flowing between the hills.