Odes of Solomon

tr. Harris, 1911

Chapter 16

¹As the work of the husbandman is the ploughshare: and the work of the steersman is the guidance of the ship: ²so also my work is the Psalm of the Lord: my craft and my occupation are in His praises¹: ³because His love hath nourished my heart, and even to my lips His fruits He poured out. ⁴For my love is the Lord, and therefore I will sing unto Him: ⁵for I am made strong in His praise, and I have faith in Him. ⁶I will open my mouth and His spirit will utter in me ⁷the glory of the Lord and His beauty; the work of His hands and the operation of His fingers: ⁸the multitude of His mercies and the strength of His word. ⁹For the word of the Lord searches out² all things, both the invisible and that which reveals His thought; ¹⁰for the eye sees His works, and the ear hears His thought. ¹¹He spread out the earth and He settled the waters in the sea: ¹²He measured the heavens and fixed the stars: and He established the creation and set it up: ¹³and He rested from His works: ¹⁴and created things run in their courses, and do their works: ¹⁵and they know not how to stand and be idle³; and His ⌜heavenly⌝ hosts are subject to His word. ¹⁶The treasure-chamber of the light is the sun, and the treasury of the darkness is the night: ¹⁷and He made the sun for the day that it may be bright, but night brings darkness over the face of the land; ¹⁸and their alternations one to the other speak the beauty of God: ¹⁹and there is nothing that is without the Lord; for He was before any thing came into being: ²⁰and the worlds were made by His word, and by the thought of His heart. Glory and honour to His name⁴. Hallelujah.

Notes

lit. in His praises is my craft and in His praises my occupation.
Or, searches out: everything, the invisible and the revealed, (is) his thought.
Justin, Dial. 22.
Cf. Heb. i. 2.