Psalm 104 Feb. 28  1Bless Yahweh, my soul. Yahweh, my God, You are very great. You are clothed with honour and majesty. 2He covers Himself with light as with a garment, He stretches out the heavens like a curtain. 3He lays the beams of His rooms in the waters, He makes the clouds His chariot, He walks on the wings of the wind. 4He makes His Angels winds; His servants flames of fire. 5He laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be moved forever. 6You covered it with the deep sea as with a cloak. The waters stood above the mountains. 7At Your rebuke they fled, at the voice of Your thunder they hurried away. 8The mountains rose, the valleys sank down, to the place which You had assigned to them. 9You have set a boundary that they may not pass over; that they don’t turn again to cover the earth. 10He sends forth springs into the valleys, they run among the mountains. 11They give drink to every animal of the field, the wild donkeys quench their thirst. 12The birds of the sky nest by them, they sing among the branches. 13He waters the mountains from His rooms, the earth is filled with the fruit of Your works. 14He causes the grass to grow for the livestock, and plants for man to cultivate, that He may bring forth food out of the earth: 15wine that makes glad the heart of man, oil to make his face to shine, and bread that strengthens man’s heart. 16Yahweh’s trees are well watered, the cedars of Lebanon, which He has planted, 17where the birds make their nests. The stork makes its home in the fir trees. 18The high mountains are for the wild goats, the rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers. 19He appointed the moon for seasons, the sun knows when to set. 20You make darkness, and it is night, in which all the animals of the forest prowl. 21The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their food from God. 22The sun rises, and they steal away and lay down in their dens. 23Man goes forth to his work, to his labour until the evening. 24Yahweh, how many are Your works! In wisdom have You made them all. The earth is full of Your riches. 25There is the sea, great and wide, in which are innumerable living things, both small and large animals. 26There the ships go, and leviathan, whom You formed to play there. 27These all wait for You, that You may give them their food in due season. 28You give to them; they gather. You open Your hand; they are satisfied with good. 29You hide Your face: they are troubled; You take away their breath: they die, and return to the dust. 30You send forth Your Spirit: they are created, You renew the face of the ground. 31Let the glory of Yahweh endure forever, let Yahweh rejoice in His works. 32He looks at the earth, and it trembles. He touches the mountains, and they smoke. 33I will sing to Yahweh as long as I live, I will sing praise to my God while I have any being. 34Let your meditation be sweet to Him. I will rejoice in Yahweh. 35Let sinners be consumed out of the earth. Let the wicked be no more. Bless Yahweh, my soul. Praise Yah!   

Commentary

104:4 His Angels winds- The Hebrew word translated “wind” is that translated “spirit”. God’s Spirit works in many ways, but one of those ways is through His Angels. If we were to ask how, mechanically as it were, God’s Spirit operates, how He is everywhere present, how He does things- the answer to some extent is that He achieves all these things through His armies of Angels.
104:20 You make darkness- The rising and setting of the sun is a conscious expenditure of energy by God, rather than happening by some clockwork mechanism which God set up and then withdrew from. He consciously makes the grass grow (:14), and consciously feeds the animals (:28). Likewise the water cycle is not mere clockwork, unstoppable natural law; the rivers are sent forth consciously by God as they bubble over the rocks (:10). This view of creation means that it’s easier to believe that the God who consciously does these things every moment can intervene in them at any time in any way; we aren’t the helpless victims of a nature which has a life and will of her own.
104:29 You take away their breath: they die, and return to the dust- The Hebrew words for “breath” and “spirit” are the same. God made man from the dust and put into him the breath or spirit of life (Gen. 2:7). When we die, that spirit, that life force, returns to God and our bodies to the dust. There is no conscious survival of death, no inherent immortality within man. Life and immortality have only been revealed to some men through the Gospel of Christ and the hope of resurrection to immortality which there is in Him (Rom. 2:7; 2 Tim. 1:10). All theories or hopes of reincarnation are disallowed by Bible teaching about the nature of man.