Footnotes

1. Psalm 104:1 sn Psalm 104. The psalmist praises God as the ruler of the world who sustains all life.
2. Psalm 104:1 tn Heb “very great.”
3. Psalm 104:3 tn Heb “one who lays the beams on water [in] his upper rooms.” The “water” mentioned here corresponds to the “waters above” mentioned in Gen 1:7. For a discussion of the picture envisioned by the psalmist, see L. I. J. Stadelmann, The Hebrew Conception of the World, 44-45.
4. Psalm 104:3 sn Verse 3 may depict the Lord riding a cherub, which is in turn propelled by the wind current. Another option is that the wind is personified as a cherub. See Ps 18:10 and the discussion of ancient Near Eastern parallels to the imagery in M. Weinfeld, “‘Rider of the Clouds’ and ‘Gatherer of the Clouds’,” JANESCU 5 (1973): 422-24.
5. Psalm 104:4 tc Heb “and his attendants a flaming fire.” The lack of agreement between the singular “fire” and plural “attendants” has prompted various emendations. Some read “fire and flame.” The present translation assumes an emendation from מְשָׁרְתָיו (m^eshar^etayv, “his attendants”) to מְשָׁרְתוֹ (m^eshar^eto, “his attendant”), a reading supported by one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 4Q⁹³.sn In Ugaritic mythology Yam’s messengers appear as flaming fire before the assembly of the gods. See G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 42.
6. Psalm 104:6 tc Heb “you covered it.” The masculine suffix is problematic if the grammatically feminine noun “earth” is the antecedent. For this reason some emend the form from כִּסִּיתוֹ (kissito) to a feminine verb with feminine suffix, כִּסַּתָּה (kissattah, “[the watery deep] covered it [i.e., the earth]”), a reading assumed by the present translation.
7. Psalm 104:6 tn Heb “stood.”
8. Psalm 104:6 sn Verse 6 refers to the condition described in Gen 1:2 (note the use of the Hebrew term תְּהוֹם [t^ehom, “watery deep”] in both texts).
9. Psalm 104:8 tn Heb “from your shout they fled, from the sound of your thunder they hurried off.”sn Verses 7-8 poetically depict Gen 1:9-10.
10. Psalm 104:9 tn Heb “a boundary you set up, they will not cross, they will not return to cover the earth.”
11. Psalm 104:10 tn Heb “[the] one who sends springs into streams.” Another option is to translate, “he sends streams [i.e., streams that originate from springs] into the valleys” (cf. NIV).
12. Psalm 104:12 tn Heb “among the thick foliage they give a sound.”
13. Psalm 104:13 tn Heb “from his upper rooms.”
14. Psalm 104:13 tn Heb “from the fruit of your works the earth is full.” The translation assumes that “fruit” is literal here. If “fruit” is understood more abstractly as “product; result,” then one could translate, “the earth flourishes as a result of your deeds” (cf. NIV, NRSV, REB).
15. Psalm 104:14 tn Heb “causes the grass to sprout up.”
16. Psalm 104:14 tn Heb “for the service of man” (see Gen 2:5).
17. Psalm 104:14 tn Heb “to cause food to come out from the earth.”
18. Psalm 104:15 tn Heb “and wine [that] makes the heart of man happy.”
19. Psalm 104:15 tn Heb “to make [the] face shine from oil.” The Hebrew verb צָהַל (tsahal, “to shine”) occurs only here in the OT. It appears to be an alternate form of צָהַר (tsahar), a derivative from צָהָרִים (tsaharim, “noon”).
20. Psalm 104:15 tn Heb “and food [that] sustains the heart of man.”
21. Psalm 104:16 sn The trees of the Lord are the cedars of Lebanon (see the next line), which are viewed as special because of their great size and grandeur. The Lebanon forest was viewed elsewhere in the OT as the “garden of God” (see Ezek 31:8).
22. Psalm 104:16 tn Heb “are satisfied,” which means here that they receive abundant rain (see v. 13).
23. Psalm 104:17 tn Heb “[the] heron [in the] evergreens [is] its home.”sn The cedars and evergreens of the Lebanon forest are frequently associated (see, for example, 2 Chr 2:8; Isa 14:8; 37:24; Ezek 31:8).
24. Psalm 104:18 tn Heb “the high mountains [are] for the goats.”
25. Psalm 104:19 tn Heb “he made [the] moon for appointed times.” The phrase “appointed times” probably refers to the months of the Hebrew lunar calendar.
26. Psalm 104:19 tn Heb more metaphorically, “knows its setting.”
27. Psalm 104:20 tn Heb “you make darkness, so that it might be night.”
28. Psalm 104:21 sn The lions’ roaring is viewed as a request for food from God.
29. Psalm 104:22 tn Heb “lie down.”
30. Psalm 104:23 tn Heb “man goes out to his work, and to his labor until evening.”
31. Psalm 104:24 tn Heb “How many [are] your works, O Lord.” In this case the Lord’s “works” are the creatures he has made, as the preceding and following contexts make clear.
32. Psalm 104:24 tn Heb “all of them with wisdom you have made.”
33. Psalm 104:25 tn Heb “this [is] the sea, great and broad of hands [i.e., “sides” or “shores”].”
34. Psalm 104:25 tn Heb “where [there are] swimming things, and without number.”
35. Psalm 104:26 tn Heb “[and] this Leviathan, [which] you formed to play in it.” Elsewhere Leviathan is a multiheaded sea monster that symbolizes forces hostile to God (see Ps 74:14; Isa 27:1), but here it appears to be an actual marine creature created by God, probably some type of whale.
36. Psalm 104:27 tn Heb “All of them.” The pronoun “them” refers not just to the sea creatures mentioned in vv. 25-26, but to all living things (see v. 24). This has been specified in the translation as “all of your creatures” for clarity.
37. Psalm 104:27 tn Heb “to give their food in its time.”
38. Psalm 104:28 tn Heb “they are satisfied [with] good.”
39. Psalm 104:29 tn Heb “you hide your face, they are terrified.”
40. Psalm 104:31 tn Heb “be forever.”
41. Psalm 104:31 tn Or “rejoice in his works.”
42. Psalm 104:33 tn Heb “in my duration.”
43. Psalm 104:34 tn That is, the psalmist’s thoughts as expressed in his songs of praise.
44. Psalm 104:35 tn Or “be destroyed.”