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Psalms

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Psalm 104

1 Praise the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are magnificent. You are robed in splendor and majesty. 2 He covers himself with light as if it were a garment. He stretches out the skies like a tent curtain⁠ 3 and lays the beams on water in his upper rooms3. He makes the clouds his chariot and travels on the wings of the wind.⁠ 4 He makes the winds his messengers⁠ and the flaming fire his attendant.⁠ 5 He established the earth on its foundations; it will never be moved. 6 The watery deep covered it like a garment; the waters reached above the mountains. 7 Your shout made the waters retreat; at the sound of your thunderous voice they hurried off— 8 as the mountains rose up and the valleys went down—to the place you appointed for them. 9 You set up a boundary for them that they could not cross, so that they would not cover the earth again.⁠ 10 He turns springs into streams; they flow between the mountains. 11 They provide water for all the animals in the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. 12 The birds of the sky live beside them; they chirp among the bushes. 13 He waters the mountains from the upper rooms of his palace; the earth is full of the fruit you cause to grow. 14 He provides grass for the cattle and crops for people to cultivate, so they can produce food from the ground 15 as well as wine that makes people glad, and olive oil to make their faces shine as well as bread that sustains them. 16 The trees of the Lord receive all the rain they need, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted, 17 where the birds make nests near the evergreens in which the herons live. 18 The wild goats live in the high mountains; the rock badgers find safety in the cliffs. 19 He made the moon to mark the months, and the sun sets according to a regular schedule.⁠ 20 You make it dark and night comes, during which all the beasts of the forest prowl around.⁠ 21 The lions roar for prey, seeking their food from God. 22 When the sun rises, they withdraw and sleep in their dens. 23 People then go out to do their work, and they labor until evening. 24 How many living things you have made, O Lord! You have exhibited great skill in making all of them;⁠ the earth is full of the living things you have made. 25 Over here is the deep, wide sea, which teems with innumerable swimming creatures, living things both small and large. 26 The ships travel there, and over here swims Leviathan35 you made to play in it.⁠ 27 All your creatures wait for you to provide them with food on a regular basis. 28 You give food to them and they receive it; you open your hand and they are filled with food. 29 When you ignore them, they panic. When you take away their life’s breath, they die and return to dust.⁠ 30 When you send your life-giving breath, they are created, and you replenish the surface of the ground. 31 May the splendor of the Lord endure. May the Lord find pleasure in the living things he has made. 32 He looks down on the earth and it shakes; he touches the mountains and they start to smolder. 33 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God as long as I exist. 34 May my thoughts be pleasing to him. I will rejoice in the Lord. 35 May sinners disappear from the earth, and the wicked vanish. Praise the Lord, O my soul. Praise the Lord.

Texts in conversation

Compare Isaiah 40:22 and Psalm 104:2

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Psalm 104 and Isaiah 40 describe the heavens being stretched out like a tent, depicting the sky as a canopy over the earth. Ancient Near Eastern cosmology similarly described the sky as a physical dome separating the earth from heaven.

Passages

Isaiah 40:22

Hebrew Bible
21 Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you since the very beginning? Have you not understood from the time the earth’s foundations were made? 22 He is the one who sits on the earth’s horizon; its inhabitants are like grasshoppers before him. He is the one who stretches out the sky like a thin curtain, and spreads it out like a pitched tent. 23 He is the one who reduces rulers to nothing; he makes the earth’s leaders insignificant. 24 Indeed, they are barely planted; yes, they are barely sown; yes, they barely take root in the earth, and then he blows on them, causing them to dry up, and the wind carries them away like straw.
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

Psalm 104:2

Hebrew Bible
1 Praise the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are magnificent. You are robed in splendor and majesty. 2 He covers himself with light as if it were a garment. He stretches out the skies like a tent curtain 3 and lays the beams on water in his upper rooms3. He makes the clouds his chariot and travels on the wings of the wind. 4 He makes the winds his messengers and the flaming fire his attendant.
600–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Psalms

References

"... The verses quoted in both the Apostolic Constitutions and the Christian Topography to describe the structure of the universe are taken from the books of Psalms, Isaiah, and Job rather than from the account of the Creation in Genesis, giving them a homiletic application to articulate and illustrate a specific physical shape of the cosmos. Both texts refer to the heavens as a curtain creating a tentlike structure above the earth and above the firmament, as in Isaiah 40:22,29 “... who stretcheth out the heavens like a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in,” and in Psalms 104:2, “Who coverest Thyself with light as with a garment, Who hast stretched out the heavens like a tent.” Both describe the earth as suspended over nothingness and surrounded by oceans, as in Job 26:7, “He stretcheth out the north over the void, and hangs the earth upon nothing.” In both, the dust of the earth is gathered into a square box, as in Job 38:38, “When the dust runneth into a mass and the clods cleave fast together?,” which relies on the Septuagint translation used by Constantine of Antioch: “He has inclined heaven to earth and it has been poured out as the dust of the earth I have welded it as a square block of stone.” The use of the same verses suggests a common homiletic understanding of the biblical text as well as a shared conception of the structure of the universe ..."
Shulamith Laderman, “Cosmology, Art, and Liturgy,” in Between Judaism and Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 124.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Isaiah 40:22 and Psalm 104:2

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