Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 104:35

"Let sinners be consumed out of the earth. And let the wicked be no more. Bless Jehovah, O my soul. Praise ye Jehovah." — Psalms 104:35 (ASV)

Sinners be consumed. —This imprecation, which appears at the end of this otherwise consistently joyful hymn, has been excused in various ways. The truth seems to be that from a religious hymn of Israel, since religion and patriotism were one, the expression of the national feeling against heathen oppressors and apostates who sided with them could hardly be absent, whatever its immediate subject and tone.

But the poet touches upon an even profounder truth.

In reality, the power of sin to interfere with God’s pleasure in His universe is present as an undercurrent of thought in Psalm 103:0, as well as Psalm 104. In the former, it is implied that forgiveness and restoration are requisite before the harmony of the universe (Psalms 104:20–22) can become audible. The two psalms are also closely related in form.

The harmony of creation was soon broken by sin, and the harmony of the song of creation would hardly be complete, or rather, would be false and unreal, unless a discord made itself heard. The form such a suggestion would take was conditioned by the nationality of the poet; its spirit brings this ancient hymn, at its close, into accord with the feeling of modern literature, as reflected in Wordsworth’s well-known “Verses Written in Early Spring”:

“I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I lay reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran
And much it grieved my heart to think
What Man has made of Man.”

Bless thou the Lord. —This is the first hallelujah in the Psalter. Outside the Psalter it is never found, and was therefore a liturgical expression coined in a comparatively late age. It is variously written as one or two words.