Psalms 104:24

THE FIFTH DAY OF CREATION

"O Jehovah, how manifold are thy works!

In wisdom hast thou made them all:

The earth is full of thy riches.

Yonder is the sea, great and wide,

Wherein are things creeping innumerable,

Both small and great beasts.

There go the ships;

There is Leviathan, whom thou hast formed to play therein.

These wait all for thee,

That thou mayest give them their food in due season.

Thou givest unto them, they gather;

Thou openest thy hand, they are satisfied with good.

Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled;

Thou takest away their breath, they die,

And return to the dust.

Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created;

And thou renewest the face of the ground."

This is based upon Genesis 1:2-23; but here again, the psalmist speaks not so much of the actual creation, but of the existence of it in the myriad forms and manifestations of it at the present time.

"How manifold are thy works" (Psalms 104:24). The uncounted millions of species in the animate creation include not merely the larger units of the creation, but innumerable beings that are almost infinitely small, not merely insects, and the tiniest creatures of the sea, as mentioned in this paragraph, but the sub-microscopic beings, All of this great host of creatures both great and small that God made are fitted into an ecological system so great and so complicated that no man has ever understood all of it.

There is the utmost diversity in the animate creation. One reference here suggests that Leviathan (the whale) was made to play in the sea, which is exactly what that creature does throughout his whole life. The Zebra with his stripes, the giraffe with his long neck, the elephant with his long nose, the monkey with his long tail, etc. All of these illustrate the unlimited diversity of the animate creation.

Although the inanimate world of flowers, trees, shrubs, grasses, etc., is not mentioned here, that portion of God's creation is truly as wonderful as any of the rest of it.

The big surprise of this psalm is the fact that after detailed attention to the first five days of creation, there comes no mention whatever of the sixth day, and of God's creation of mankind. The apparent purpose of the psalm found such a reference totally unnecessary.

The design is apparently to stimulate men to appreciate God's overruling providence in the marvelous way he has arranged in the world of nature to care for and feed the myriad creatures of the earth. Apparently Jesus had the same purpose in mind when he spoke of the sparrow, declaring that, "Not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father" (Matthew 10:29), "and not one of them is forgotten in the sight of God" (Luke 12:6).

The deductions that Jesus made from such statements are also important. "Are ye not of more value than many sparrows?" "The very hairs of your head are numbered" Is there really anything that the child of God should worry about?