Thou hidest thy face - As if God turned away from them; as if he was displeased with them; as if he withdrew from them the tokens of his friendship and favor.

They are troubled - They are confounded; they are overwhelmed with terror and amazement. The word "troubled" by no means conveys the sense of the original word - בהל bâhal - which means properly to tremble; to be in trepidation; to be filled with terror; to be amazed; to be confounded. It is that kind of consternation which one has when all support and protection are withdrawn, and when inevitable ruin stares one in the face. So when God turns away, all their support is gone; all their resources "fail, and they must die." They are represented as conscious of this; or, this is what would occur if they were conscious.

Thou takest away their breath - Withdrawing that which thou gavest to them.

They die, and return to their dust - Life ends when thou dost leave them, and they return again to earth. So it is also with man. When God withdraws from him, nothing remains for him "but to die."

Thou hidest thy face - If thou bring dearth or famine on the land, contagion in the air, or any destruction on the provision made by the waters, then beasts, fowl, and fish die, and are dissolved.

Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled,.... God may be said to hide his face from the creatures when he withholds their food from them, when there is a scarcity of provisions, a famine in the land; when there is no pasture for them to feed on, nor brooks of water to drink of; then are they troubled or perplexed, as in Joel 1:18 and know not what to do, nor where to go for help, but faint, and sink, and die. So in a spiritual sense when God hides his face from his people, removes his Shechinah, or divine Majesty and Presence, as the Targum here; and withdraws the influences of his grace and Spirit; or when they have no food for their souls, or what they have is not blessed, then are they troubled, Psalm 30:7.

Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust; their original dust, from whence they sprung, as man himself does; the breath of all is from the Lord; he gives it to his creatures, and when he pleases he takes it away; and when he does, they die and become dust again.

Thou {p} hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.

(p) As by your presence all things have life; so if you withdraw your blessings they all perish.

104:29 Hidest - Withdrawest the care of thy providence.

104:19-30 We are to praise and magnify God for the constant succession of day and night. And see how those are like to the wild beasts, who wait for the twilight, and have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. Does God listen to the language of mere nature, even in ravenous creatures, and shall he not much more interpret favourably the language of grace in his own people, though weak and broken groanings which cannot be uttered? There is the work of every day, which is to be done in its day, which man must apply to every morning, and which he must continue in till evening; it will be time enough to rest when the night comes, in which no man can work. The psalmist wonders at the works of God. The works of art, the more closely they are looked upon, the more rough they appear; the works of nature appear more fine and exact. They are all made in wisdom, for they all answer the end they were designed to serve. Every spring is an emblem of the resurrection, when a new world rises, as it were, out of the ruins of the old one. But man alone lives beyond death. When the Lord takes away his breath, his soul enters on another state, and his body will be raised, either to glory or to misery. May the Lord send forth his Spirit, and new-create our souls to holiness.