Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 104:28
[That] thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good.
28. Thou givest unto them, they gather:
Thou openest thine hand, they are satisfied with good.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
That thou givest them they gather – What thou dost place before them they collect. They have no resources of their own. They can invent nothing; they cannot vary their food by art, as man does; they cannot make use of reason, as man does, or of skill, in preparing it, to suit and pamper the appetite. It comes prepared for them direct from the hand of God.
Thou openest thine hand – As one does who bestows a gift on another. The point in the passage is, that they receive it immediately from God, and that they are wholly dependent on him for it. They have not to labor to prepare it, but it is made ready for them, and they have only to gather it up. The allusion in the language may be to the gathering of manna in the wilderness, when it was provided by God, and people had only to collect it for their use. So it is with the brute creation on land and in the waters.
They are filled with good – They are satiated with good; that is, They are satisfied with what to them is good, or with what supplies their needs.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 104:28
That Thou givest them they gather.
Gods giving and mans gathering
I. God alone gives; we only gather. He is the Sole Proprietor in the universe, and of it. We can have nothing but by His bestowal. Our industry, perseverance, skill, are only methods that we employ in gathering. We have nothing that we have not received.
II. What God gives we ought to gather.
1. In the world of nature. The fields must be cultivated, harvests reaped, etc.
2. In the realm of grace. Truth must be apprehended, Christ believed, the Holy Ghost received. (U. R. Thomas.)
Gathering Gods gifts
This text refers to the animals mentioned in the preceding verses. The birds and beasts are set forth by our Lord as examples of the providence of God. Your Heavenly Father feedeth them. And perhaps to our minds they supply the most perfect illustration of dependence. God supplies their wants; He gives them everything; and if He did not feed them they would perish. Yet, though He gives all, they have to gather all. Not a mouthful does one of them get which it has not worked for. Now, there is a great principle of the Divine procedure here, which God observes not only in providence, but in grace. He gives, but we must gather. He is able to make His grace abound to us, so that we, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound unto every good work. It is this fulness of the Divine grace, accessible and available to us, that we must think of first when we are speaking about the deepening of the spiritual life. But the other side is not to be forgotten, or the good of it all may be lost–that which He giveth we must gather. Take even the illustration of the steam-engine. You say, What would the engine be without the steam? Yes; but what would the steam be without the engine? There was plenty of steam in the world before James Watt was born. But it was not gathered. Take another illustration. Here is a rifle, exquisitely constructed beautifully grooved inside, and with it cartridges made on the most scientific principles. You might look at it and moralize in this way: What a heavy thing; what a cold thing; how useless it would be to hit anything without the powder; it is the little thimbleful of gunpowder and the flash of fire by which everything is done. Now, this is perfectly true, and it illustrates a grand spiritual truth. It is the flash of fire from heaven that does all the execution in the wars of the Lord. Yet how important also is the other side of the truth. What would the powder be if it were not for the gun? Why, the puff of it would hardly singe a fly. It is when its force is gathered and packed close in the cartridge, and when the ball is directed on its course by the finely-grooved barrel, that it brings down the object at a thousand yards. Gods power, I say, is often there; but we are not in a position to use it and to retain it. He gives, but we do not gather. This is a principle in Christian work of every kind. Mr. Moody has been going from town to town over Scotland. Now, if you meet the ministers of some of these towns a year hence, they may tell you that the meetings were very successful, the district was stirred, the churches were filled, and there were hundreds of inquirers. But it has not come to much. The results that have lasted are small. This may be true, but what is the reason of it? In many cases the reason, I believe, is this: God has given, but His servants have not gathered. It is the same with His work in our own souls. He blesses us, but we lose the blessing. For example, I hear a Christian complaining that he is cold and not growing in grace. But I take up his Bible and turn over its leaves. They are as clean as when they came from the printer, and here and there they are actually sticking together. The man might as well construct a zinc covering over the flower-bed in his garden, and then complain that the flowers are dying for want of rain. There is plenty of rain, but he has kept it away from the plants. Or I meet a young man or woman who is at that period of life when the mind is all awake and alive, reading books, acquiring scientific methods of research, and entering into the glorious heritage of the knowledge of the past. The man complains that he is not enjoying his Bible; and the fact is his Bible is distressing him. I ask him how he reads it, and he says, Oh, just as I have always done. That is, I say, you read a chapter a day, and you give five minutes to it? Yes. You never spend the time on it that you do on an ode of Horace or a paragraph of Thucydides; you never study a book of it as you would a play of Shakespeare? Oh no, I never thought of such a thing. Then no wonder you are getting no good out of your Bible. Gods manna is there, but you are not gathering it. (J. Stalker, D.D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 28. That thou givest them they gather] All creatures are formed with such and such digestive organs, and the food proper for them is provided. Infinitely varied as are living creatures in their habits and internal economy, so are the aliments which God has caused the air, the earth, and the waters to produce.
Thou openest thine hand] An allusion to the act of scattering grain among fowls.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Whatsoever they receive is from thy bounty and gift.
Thou openest thine hand; thou providest plentifully for them; as this phrase implies, Deu 15:1; compare Pro 31:20.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
That thou givest them they gather,…. What God bestows upon them as a bounty of Providence they take and make use of, and in their way thankfully, and without repining; some gather it up for immediate use and service, and not into barns; others gather it up for time to come, as the ant, Mt 6:26. Kimchi understands this of a time of scarcity, when they gather here a little and there a little; as he does the following clause of a time of plenty.
Thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good; God, in whose hand all things are, and from whence all things come, opens his hand of providence, and liberally and bountifully gives, as this phrase signifies, De 15:11 and all his creatures are filled with his good things to their satisfaction: and thus the spiritual food which he gives his people, they gather it by the hand of faith, as the Israelites gathered the manna in the wilderness every morning, and according to their eating, what was sufficient for them; and to whom he gives liberally, even all things richly to enjoy; all things pertaining to life and godliness; Christ, and all things along with him; abundance of grace here, and glory hereafter; and they are satisfied with his good things as with marrow and fatness.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Psa 104:28. Thou openest thine hand The ideas in these verses can be excelled by nothing but by the concise elegance of the expressions; which convey to the human mind the most sublime and awful conceptions of that tremendous Being, who doth but look on the earth, and it trembleth; who doth but touch the hills, and they smoke; Psa 104:32. The Psalmist alludes in the latter clause to God’s descent on mount Sinai.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Psa 104:28
Ver. 28. That thou givest them they gather ] Neither have they the least morsel of meat but what thou castest them by thy providence. Turcicure imperium quantum quantum est nihil est nisi panis mica quam dives paterfamilias proiecit caniubs, saith Luther.
Thou openest thine hand
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
hand. Figure of speech Anthropopatheia. App-6.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Reciprocal: Gen 1:29 – to you Gen 6:21 – General Job 36:31 – he giveth Job 38:41 – General Job 39:8 – General Psa 103:5 – satisfieth Psa 145:16 – openest Psa 147:9 – General Jon 4:11 – and also Mat 6:26 – the fowls 1Ti 6:17 – who