The Divine Choreography: God's Day and Night Shifts Text: Psalm 104:19-23
Introduction: The Rhythm of Reality
We moderns live in a state of perpetual, artificial daylight. We have conquered the night with electricity, and in doing so, we have forgotten something fundamental about the world. We have forgotten that the rhythms of day and night are not a mere accident of planetary rotation. They are a divine ordinance. They are part of the liturgy of creation, a daily sermon preached to us by the cosmos, declaring the steady, faithful, and comprehensive providence of God.
Our secular age wants a universe that runs on its own, a machine that, once started, needs no operator. But the Bible presents us with a world that is intensely and personally managed. God is not an absentee landlord. He is the active, moment by moment sustainer and governor of all things. This psalm, Psalm 104, is a magnificent hymn to the Creator's ongoing work. It is a detailed account of His intimate involvement with every aspect of the world He has made. And in these few verses, we are given a glimpse into the divine choreography of day and night, a dance in which every creature, from the moon to the lion to man, has its appointed part.
This is not sentimental nature poetry. This is robust theology. This is a polemic against every form of paganism that deifies the creation rather than the Creator. The sun and moon are not gods to be worshipped; they are servants on a schedule. The darkness is not a primal force of chaos to be feared; it is a divine appointment. The terrifying predators of the night are not emblems of a bloody, meaningless struggle for survival; they are petitioners seeking their food from God. And man's work is not a futile scrabble for existence; it is his ordained, dignified place in the created order. To understand this passage is to begin to see the world as it truly is: a theater of God's glory, managed down to the last detail by His infinite wisdom and power.
The Text
He made the moon for the seasons;
The sun knows the place of its setting.
You appoint darkness so that it becomes night,
In which all the beasts of the forest creep about.
The young lions roar to go after their prey
And to seek their food from God.
When the sun rises they gather together
And lie down in their dens.
Man goes forth to his work
And to his labor until evening.
(Psalm 104:19-23 LSB)
The Cosmic Timekeepers (v. 19)
The psalmist begins by pointing to the great lights in the heavens, not as objects of worship, but as instruments of God's governance.
"He made the moon for the seasons; The sun knows the place of its setting." (Psalm 104:19)
Notice the blunt assertion of createdness: "He made the moon." This is a direct assault on the moon-worship so prevalent in the ancient world. The moon is not a deity; it is a tool. And what is its purpose? "For the seasons." The Hebrew word here is moedim, which means "appointed times." This is the same word used throughout the Pentateuch for Israel's religious festivals, the appointed times of worship. God has hardwired His liturgical calendar into the heavens. The moon is not just a celestial body; it is a covenantal signpost, marking out the rhythm of worship for God's people. The very structure of time is designed to call us to worship.
And the sun? "The sun knows the place of its setting." This is beautiful, poetic anthropomorphism, and it is theologically potent. The sun is not a blind, chaotic ball of fire. It is a creature under command. It "knows" its appointed course because its Creator has instructed it. There is a deep, settled, and intelligent order to the cosmos because there is a deep, settled, and intelligent Mind behind it. This is a universe governed by a sovereign will, not by impersonal chance. The sun rises and sets with punctual obedience, a daily testimony to the faithfulness of the God who commands it.
God's Night Shift (v. 20-21)
Next, the psalmist turns his attention to the darkness, which is not an absence of God, but another theater of His active rule.
"You appoint darkness so that it becomes night, In which all the beasts of the forest creep about. The young lions roar to go after their prey And to seek their food from God." (Psalm 104:20-21 LSB)
God "appoints" the darkness. It doesn't just happen. Darkness is not a rival power, as in pagan mythologies. It is a creature, a servant, a tool that God uses for His purposes. He draws the curtain of night, and this is the signal for a different shift of creatures to begin their work. The forest, which was quiet, now comes alive. God has ordained this rhythm, this separation of spheres. There is a time for the creatures of the day, and a time for the creatures of the night.
And here we come to a staggering theological claim: "The young lions roar...and to seek their food from God." Think about this. When a lion roars in the jungle, it is not simply a biological impulse. The psalmist tells us it is a prayer. It is a dependent creature crying out to its Creator for provision. And when that lion pulls down a gazelle, it is not a meaningless act of violence in a random, Darwinian world. It is that lion receiving its daily bread from the hand of God. This should stretch our sentimental notions of providence. God is the God of the lamb, but He is also the God of the lion. He presides over a world that is beautiful and orderly, but also fierce, dangerous, and bloody. His providence is not tame. He feeds the lions. This is the God of Job, who governs a world far more complex and terrible than our tidy categories can contain.
The Orderly Transition (v. 22)
The shift change in God's economy is not chaotic. It is as orderly as the rising of the sun that commands it.
"When the sun rises they gather together And lie down in their dens." (Psalm 104:22 LSB)
The same sun that signals the end of man's rest signals the end of the lion's work. The command is given, and the command is obeyed. The beasts of the night retreat. Their dominion is for the darkness, and when the light comes, their time is over. This is a world of boundaries, of jurisdictions, of appointed times. God has set the terms for every creature. The lion does not question its curfew. It returns to its den, and the world is made safe for the creature who has dominion in the daylight.
Man's Dominion by Day (v. 23)
With the retreat of the night predators, the stage is set for man's entrance.
"Man goes forth to his work And to his labor until evening." (Psalm 104:23 LSB)
The departure of the lions is the cue for man to begin his task. This is the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28 set to music. Man's work is his calling. It is his God-appointed, dominion-taking, culture-building labor. He is God's vice-regent on earth, and the day is his appointed time to cultivate and keep the garden, to build the city, to fill the earth and subdue it.
Notice the boundary: "until evening." Man's work is not endless. Just as God worked for six days and rested on the seventh, so man's labor has a limit. The setting of the sun is God's command to cease from labor and to rest. This rhythm of work and rest is a divine gift, built into the fabric of creation. It guards us from both the sin of sloth and the idolatry of workaholism. We are to work hard, but we are to do so within the limits God has established. When evening comes, our shift is over. We are to lay down our tools and trust God with the results.
The Gospel Rhythm
This divine choreography in creation is a picture of an even greater reality in redemption. The rhythms of this psalm are gospel rhythms.
We, in our natural state, are creatures of the night. We were born in darkness, and our deeds were deeds of darkness (Eph. 5:8). Like the beasts of the forest, we crept about, living by our predatory instincts, roaring for our own selfish prey. We were lost in the night of our sin.
But then God, in His great mercy, appointed a sunrise. "The sunrise from on high will visit us, to shine on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death" (Luke 1:78-79). The Son of God, Jesus Christ, is the light of the world. And through the gospel, God commands, "Let there be light" in our darkened hearts (2 Cor. 4:6). The sun rises, and the predatory beasts of our old nature are driven back to their dens. The old man is put to death, and the new man is raised to walk in newness of life.
And what happens when the sun rises? "Man goes forth to his work." The gospel does not call us to a life of passive contemplation. It calls us to work. We are saved, not by works, but for works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them (Eph. 2:10). Our labor is no longer a cursed and futile striving. It is redeemed. It is our dominion work, our kingdom work, building for the glory of Christ. We go out each morning to our labor, whether in the field or the factory or the home, as citizens of the day, working heartily as for the Lord and not for men.
And we do so in utter dependence. If God feeds the lions who roar to Him, how much more will He feed us, His children? We seek our food from God. We pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," trusting that our Father knows what we need. We work until the evening, and then we rest, knowing that our labor in the Lord is not in vain. The steady, daily rhythm of the sun and moon is a constant, faithful promise from our Creator that He who began a good work in us will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.