Psalm 19 Hymn of the Believer III

(RSV shown, Micah reads ESV)

2 Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.
3There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard;
4yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun,

2-4. Double illumination, in both the natural and supernatural sense. The material speaks of the immaterial. Not with audible words but true a voice that all men and women are able to perceive.

Paul person tripart spirit, soul, body
Animals have soul & body
Plants have bios & material
Rocks body
Hierarchy of being

With interior gaze, man can discover God, as the ancient sage says: “from the greatness and beauty of created things their original author is seen by analogy” (Wis 13:5). St Paul too, reminds the Romans that “ever since the creation of the world, his (God’s) invisible perfections can be perceived with the intellect in the works that have been made by him” (Rom 1:20).

5 Sun compared to bridegroom leaving the marital chamber (analogy to night) to begin the day, and as an athlete ready to run her course. The Byzantine liturgy brings these thoughts in an exalted manner into her Easter liturgy. Jesus in evidence.

The solar imagery of the Psalm is taken up by the Christian liturgy of Easter to describe Christ’s triumphant exodus from the dark tomb and his entry into the fullness of the new life of the Resurrection. At Matins for Holy Saturday, the Byzantine liturgy sings: “As the sun rises after the night in the dazzling brightness of renewed light, so you also, O Word, will shine with new brightness, when after death, you leave your nuptial bed”. An Ode (the first) for Matins of Easter links the cosmic revelation with the Easter event of Christ: “Let the heavens rejoice and the earth exult with them because the whole universe, visible and invisible, takes part in the feast: Christ, our everlasting joy, is risen”. And another Ode (the third) adds: “Today the whole universe, heaven, earth, and abyss, is full of light and the entire creation sings the resurrection of Christ our strength and our joy”. Finally, another (the fourth), concludes: “Christ our Passover is risen from the tomb like a sun of justice shining upon all of us with the splendour of his charity”.

Solar imagery, resurrection, endless Resurrection we are invited in to.
Never a moment on earth without light.

But then there is a change in David’s meditation. It is one thing to observe facts and data from our reason/minds, it’s another thing altogether to DO something with it. David immediately transitions into the response of the observer, the keeping of the Law, the Torah.