Psalm 104:2

Verse 2. -- With light. The first creation of God in the works of the days was the light of sense; the last was the light of reason; and his Sabbath work ever since is the illumination of the spirit. --Francis Bacon.

Verse 2. -- Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain. It is usual in the East, in the summer season, and upon all occasions when a large company is to be received, to have the court of the house sheltered from the heat of the weather by all umbrella or veil, which being expanded upon ropes from one side of the parapet wall to another may be folded or unfolded at pleasure. The Psalmist seems to allude to some covering of this kind in that beautiful expression of stretching out the heavens like a curtain. --Kitto's Pictorial Bible.

Verse 2. -- Like a curtain. With the same case, by his mere word, with which a man spreads out a tent curtain, Psalms 104:2 Isa 40: 22 is parallel, "that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in." Ver. 3 continues the description of the work of the second day. There lie at bottom, in the first clause, the words of Genesis 1:7 "God made the vaulted sky and divided between the waters which are under the vault and the waters which are above the vault." The waters above are the materials with which, or out of which, the structure is reared. To construct out of the movable waters a firm palace, the cloudy heaven, "firm as a molten glass" ( Job 37:18 ), is a magnificent work of divine omnipotence. --E.V. Hengstenberg.

Verse 2. -- Like a curtain. Because the Hebrews conceived of heaven as a temple and palace of God, that sacred azure was at once the floor of his, the roof of our, abode. Yet I think the dwellers in tents ever loved best the figure of the heavenly tent. They represent God as daily spreading it out, and fastening it at the extremity of the horizon to the pillars of heaven, the mountains: it is to them a tent of safety, of rest, of a fatherly hospitality in which God lives with his creatures. --Herder, quoted by Perowne.

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 2. (first clause). -- The clearest revelation of God is still a concealment; even light is but a covering to him. God is clothed with light as we see him in his omniscience, his holiness, his revelation, his glory, in heaven and his grace on earth.