What Does Psalm 104:2 Mean in the King James?
Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Creation is pictured as God clothing himself in light and spreading the heavens like fabric around his presence.
THE MEANING
Light above you is pictured as the garment of God, and the heavens as an expanse he stretches wide. The visible world carries a presence it reveals, yet cannot contain.
THE ROOT
נוֹטֶה
noṭeh
GROWS FROM
נטה
To stretch or extend; also to incline or turn.
“stretchest out” in this verse is noṭeh. The verb נוֹטֶה (noṭeh, “stretching out”) comes from נטה (natah, “to extend or incline”). Its branches include both an inclination and an extended staff: the heavens are imagined as a vast expanse deliberately laid out, like fabric.
ALSO GROWS
neṭiyyah: Inclination or extension.
נְטִיָּה
This branch holds both the sense of something turning and something extending, echoing the heavens spread wide.
maṭṭeh: Staff or rod; also tribe.
מַטֶּה
This branch carries the image of something extended outward, linking the verb’s physical reach to the expansive heavens.
אוֹר
ʾor
GROWS FROM
אור
Light; to become light or shine.
אוֹר (ʾor, “light”) belongs to a word family that also names brightness and a luminary. The light that clothes God here is kin to the light that makes the created world visible.
ALSO GROWS
ʾorah: Brightness or light.
אוֹרָה
This related form keeps the verse’s image of light as more than a passing beam: it is a covering brightness.
maʾor: Luminary or light-bearer.
מָאוֹר
The same root names the created lights, joining the garment of divine light to the lights that illuminate the world.
THE PATTERN
Creation is pictured as a visible garment or dwelling shaped around the presence of God.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddlingband for it,And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.THE THREAD
It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:Both verses use נוֹטֶה (noṭeh, “stretching out”), from נטה (natah, “to extend or incline”), for the heavens. Isaiah extends the fabric image: the heavens are spread like a tent, turning vastness into a dwelling.
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