The abode of the hymns already discussed was the sanctuary and their place was in sanctuary worship, but there is a group of hymns, the real background of which was Nature’s great out of doors. These hymns include Psalms 29; 19:1-5b; 19:5c-7; 104; and 8. Of these Psalm 29 resembles most closely in its literary form the standard hymns. It has the call to praise, the body of the hymn setting forth the greatness of Yahwe; and it has a conclusion, though the conclusion is not a renewed summons to exalt the deity. The hymn as a whole expresses the reaction of the psalmist to a thunder and lightning storm. He watches it rise in the Lebanon mountains in the North, and follows it with his eye and ear and imagination until it loses itself in the desert of Kadesh. He observes the forked lightning (verse 7) but is vastly more impressed by the thunder to which he attributes the destructive power of the storm. The significant fact is that the storm does not create in the psalmist fear, but moves him to adoration of his great God, and to renewed faith and confidence. The introductory call to praise (verses 1-2) summons the gods above to worship Yahwe and to ascribe to him glory and strength. The body of the hymn celebrates the thunder, “The Voice of Yahwe,” somewhat as Psalm 19:8-10 celebrates: “The Law of Yahwe.” Verse 9c: “But in his temple every one saith Glory” forms a transition to the conclusion in verses 9-10, which remembers that the God of the thunder storm was also the God of the flood, the eternal king, who because of his eternal existence and his great power can give strength and peace to his people.

Psalm 19 contains two short nature hymns or more probably two fragments of hymns. The first Psalm 19:1-5b seems to be a hymn of the night. It does not call upon the heavens to praise God, as the typical hymn would do, but simply announces that the heavens do declare God’s glory. This they do without language or words or sounds over all the earth, ceaselessly declaring his glory from day to day, from night to night, from age to age. Psalm 19:5c-7 has no introductory nor concluding call to praise, and the few lines that we have, effective though they are, are probably only a fraction of the body of the original hymn. Moreover the original was undoubtedly a hymn to Shamash the Assyrian Sun God. The Assyrians watched with reverent eye the Sun God’s glorious journey across the heavens. They knew also of his wearisome return in the underworld from West to East, and they were glad to think of the bride and the repast awaiting him in his tent on the edge of the heavenly ocean. The Hebrew like the Assyrian had great admiration for the illuminating rays and the fervent heat of the sun, but he would go no further than to compare the sun to a bridegroom, and a strong man. It does seem strange that the psalmist has retained in verse 4c the sun’s tent: “For the sun he hath set a tent in the sea,” but even so it is Yahwe who has placed the tent there, even as it is Yahwe who has placed the sun in the heavens. The Hebrew who used this fragment of a poem saw God’s glory revealed in the progress of the sun across the sky by day, even as he saw that glory revealed in the star studded heavens by night.

Psalm 104 differs from the standard Hebrew hymns of praise in two respects. It is addressed in considerable part directly to Deity in the second person, while the standard Hebrew hymn regularly uses the third person. Also it has a petition at its close, which the standard hymn has not. In these two respects Psalm 104 resembles a prayer. However the petition is very brief, formal, almost incidental; it can scarcely be said to grow out of the psalm, and certainly the hymnal portion (verses 1-34) can not be regarded as introductory to it. Psalm 104 is also remarkable among Hebrew hymns for its length, as a hymn devoted exclusively to the activity of God in nature. Of the other nature hymns in the Psalter, Psalm 19:1-5b and Psalm 19:5c-7 are mere fragments, and Psalms 8 and 29 are relatively short, but Psalm 104 contains seventy-nine lines of which the first seventy-one are dominated by the theme:

As it stands in the text Psalm 104 has a hymnal introduction and conclusion. The brief introduction may indeed be a liturgical addition. In it the psalmist calls upon himself to praise Yahwe: “Bless my soul Yahwe.” The conclusion is longer and expresses the psalmist’s life long devotion to his God:

Again it may be noted that the petition in verse 35ab: “Let sinners be consumed, out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more,” has no real organic connection with the hymn, and certainly the concluding “Hallelujah” may well be an addition.

The analysis of the body of the hymn is clear. Verses 1-4 praise the God of heaven; verses 5-9, the God of creation; verses 10-18, the God of the earth, the domestic animals, and man; verses 19-21, the God of the night; verses 22-24, the God of the day; verses 25-26, the God of the sea; verses 27-30, the God who giveth life to everything that liveth. The body of the hymn then culminates in the pious wish that Yahwe’s glory may endure forever and that the mighty God may rejoice in his works, even he who causes the earthquake and the volcanic eruption. Here also comes the petition, but a petition has really no place in a genuine Hebrew hymn of praise.

It is clear that Psalm 104 is predominatingly and essentially a hymn of praise. Yet it has in its use of the second person; in the presence of the petition; and perhaps also in its length, since it is a nature hymn, features that seem unhebraic. It is perhaps also significant that its close resemblance to the famous Egyptian hymn of Pharaoh Iknaton has often been observed. We have, it would seem, in Psalm 104 a very probable example of the influence of foreign literature, Egyptian, Assyrian, or both.

Psalm 8 might be considered an impressionistic soliloquy of the starry night, were it not dominated by the thought of God, and addressed directly to God. It begins with an exclamation for the psalmist is overwhelmingly impressed with the realization of the glory of God:

Yet how strange that the great God of the universe should have revealed himself to the weak children of Israel. It is assuredly the knowledge of God as the creator of the heavens that is to overcome arrogant rebellion against God, such rebellion as actually prevails in the psalmist’s world. May it not be true that the great God hath chosen through the testimony of the humble to confound the mighty:

But how marvelous this condescension of God to stoop to man in his weakness, and then what a marvelous place God has given man in the universe! The psalmist feels first the insignificance of man:

Then, however, he pays tribute to the place that God has given man:

And now in recognition both of the glory of God revealed in the heavens and also of the goodness of God to man, the psalmist again exclaims out of the fullness of his heart: