Psalm 19 · a question people ask

"There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard" (19:3). Do the heavens really speak?

In the text

The psalm says they do, in its own way: "Day after day they pour out speech, and night after night they display knowledge" (19:2), and "Their voice has gone out through all the earth, their words to the end of the world" (19:4). The verse between is short in Hebrew, and has no word for where. Word by word it is ein omer, no speech, ve'ein devarim, and no words, beli nishma qolam, not heard, their voice. Ein is, in Brown-Driver-Briggs's words, a "particle of negation", and beli an "adv. of negation". So the verse can be read as the WEB has it: wherever there is speech or language, their voice is heard. It can also be read as saying the heavens speak without speech or words, their voice not heard, and yet, the next verse says, it "has gone out through all the earth" (19:4). The Hebrew allows both readings. The psalm doesn't say which it means, and these notes don't choose.

The verses

“Day after day they pour out speech, and night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their voice has gone out through all the earth, their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun,”
Psalm 19:2-4 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Psalm 19

Psalm 19: The heavens declare

Psalm 19 names God once while the heavens speak (19:1), then says "the LORD" seven times as it praises his law and prays (19:7-14). The sun's "nothing hidden" (19:6) and the prayer's "hidden errors" (19:12) are one Hebrew verb, and the heavens' voice in 19:4 is, in Hebrew, their line.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions