Commentary on Psalms Volume 3 John Calvin
COMMENTARY ON PSALMS - VOLUME 3 wherein all the beasts of the forest creep forth. 21. The lions roar after their prey, and in seeking their food from God. 192 22. The sun shall rise, and they shall gather themselves together, and lie down in their dens. 193 23. Man shall go forth to his work, and to his labor, until the evening.
19. He hath appointed the moon to distinguish seasons The Psalmist now comes to another commendation of God's providence as manifested in the beautiful arrangement by which the course of the sun and moon alternately succeeds each other; for the diversity in their mutual changes is so far from producing confusion, that all must easily perceive the impossibility of finding any better method of distinguishing time. When it is said, that the moon was appointed to distinguish seasons, interpreters agree that this is to be understood of the ordinary and appointed feasts. The Hebrews having been accustomed to compute their months by the moon, this served for regulating their festival days and assemblies, both sacred and political. 194 The prophet, I have no doubt, by the figure synecdoche, puts a part for the whole, intimating, that the moon not only distinguishes the days from the nights, but likewise marks out the festival days, measures years and months, and, in fine, answers many useful purposes, inasmuch as the distinction of times is taken from her course. As to the sentence, The sun knoweth his going down, I understand it not only of his daily circuit, but as also denoting that by gradually approaching nearer us at one time, and receding farther from us at another, he knows how to regulate his movements by which to make summer, winter, spring, and autumn. It is farther stated, that the beasts of the forest creep forth during the night, because they go out of their dens with fear. Some translate the verb,רמשramas, to walk; but "What is here said of the lions peculiarly, that they 'roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God,' may be illustrated by what is observed of those creatures, that to their great strength and greediness and rapacity, they are not proportionably provided with swiftness of body to pursue in the desert those beasts on which they prey, nor yet so quick-scented, as to be able to follow and trace them to their places of repose. It hath therefore been necessary to the providing for these animals, that some supply should be made to these defects by some other way. And it hath been affirmed by some, that their very roaring is useful to them for this end, and that when they cannot overtake their prey, they do by that fierce noise so astonish and amaze the poor beasts, that they fall down before them. If this have that truth, which it professes to have, it gives a clear account both of the phrase of roaring after their prey, and of seeking it from God — of roaring, as being able to do nothing else toward the getting it, but only thus to frighten the hearers, and express his own hunger and want." — Hammond.
In the French version all the verbs in this verse are translated in the present tense.
"The greatest part of the Jewish feasts, as the New Moon, the Passover, the Pentecost, etc., were governed by the moon." — Dimoch.