The day is thine, the night also is thine: thou hast prepared the light and the sun.
The psalm belongs to the time of the Babylonian captivity and gives voice to the sorrow, desolation, longing, and prayers for deliverance of the captives. Its declaration that day and night are God's sets that grief within the larger truth of His ownership of all time and circumstance.
The light and the sun are two distinct things that He prepared, and day and night belong to Him and do not depend on the sun. The light created on the first day divided day from night, and there were three days and three nights before the sun was created, so the sun was not that light. He is the life and light of the wondrous world, and all fair and bright things belong to Him, with His glory shining wherever one turns. The brightness of day and the gentleness of night are reflections caught from Him. The lingering radiant colors of sunset in the evening clouds, the overshadowing sacred gloom of night over earth and sky, and the countless grand starry fires are His. The breath of spring is warmed by His Spirit, and every flower wreathed by summer is born beneath His watchful, kindling eye.
The day is the long bright summer day from first dawn to evening, full of merry birds and blooming roses and golden beauty. The night is the long dark winter night that hushes the birds to sleep and conceals the flowers, yet reveals divine glory and might through its host of glowing stars in the deep sky. Applied to human life, the brief day of life belongs to God and is the time to work for Him with ready service and diligent haste while the light lasts. The darker night of death also belongs to God as sweet sleep given to His beloved, for though they must die He ever lives and keeps watch and ward over them until darkness ends in light.
The psalm belongs to the time of the Babylonian captivity and gives voice to the sorrow, desolation, longing, and prayers for deliverance of the captives. Its declaration that day and night are God's sets that grief within the larger truth of His ownership of all time and circumstance.
The light and the sun are two distinct things that He prepared, and day and night belong to Him and do not depend on the sun. The light created on the first day divided day from night, and there were three days and three nights before the sun was created, so the sun was not that light. He is the life and light of the wondrous world, and all fair and bright things belong to Him, with His glory shining wherever one turns. The brightness of day and the gentleness of night are reflections caught from Him. The lingering radiant colors of sunset in the evening clouds, the overshadowing sacred gloom of night over earth and sky, and the countless grand starry fires are His. The breath of spring is warmed by His Spirit, and every flower wreathed by summer is born beneath His watchful, kindling eye.
The day is the long bright summer day from first dawn to evening, full of merry birds and blooming roses and golden beauty. The night is the long dark winter night that hushes the birds to sleep and conceals the flowers, yet reveals divine glory and might through its host of glowing stars in the deep sky. Applied to human life, the brief day of life belongs to God and is the time to work for Him with ready service and diligent haste while the light lasts. The darker night of death also belongs to God as sweet sleep given to His beloved, for though they must die He ever lives and keeps watch and ward over them until darkness ends in light.