Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:

PSALMS 104:2KJV
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Psalms 104:2 (KJV)

What does Psalms 104:2 mean?

Psalms 104:2 describes God’s greatness through two vivid images: light is like a garment he wears, and the heavens are like a curtain he stretches out. The speaker presents the brightness and breadth of the world above as signs of God’s majesty.

The speaker addresses God directly, continuing the praise begun in verse 1. To the first hearers, a garment and a stretched-out curtain would have been familiar objects. The verse uses them to picture something far greater than ordinary clothing or fabric.

The Hebrew behind Psalms 104:2

  • “coverest” — עָטָה (ʿatah): This word can mean to wrap or cover oneself. It helps picture the light as something surrounding God, as a garment surrounds its wearer.
  • “curtain” — יְרִיעָה (yeriah): This word can refer to a sheet of fabric, including a tent curtain. It gives the picture of a broad covering spread overhead.

Why Psalms 104:2 matters

  • The verse joins the images of clothing and shelter. “Garment” pictures what surrounds the wearer, while “curtain” pictures a covering stretched over a wide space.
  • The verse speaks to God rather than merely describing him from a distance. The KJV’s “thyself” addresses God directly, and the repeated “who” continues the speaker’s praise of him.
  • The picture leads into further images of the world as God’s dwelling. Verse 3 speaks of the upper rooms and clouds, continuing the sense of a vast space arranged by God.

Where else these words appear

“coverest” Hebrew H5844 · used in 15 verses

  • Leviticus 13:45 And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean.
  • Psalms 89:45 The days of his youth hast thou shortened: thou hast covered him with shame. Selah.
  • Isaiah 59:17 For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloke.

“garment” Hebrew H8008 · used in 16 verses

  • Exodus 22:9 For all manner of trespass, whether it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, which another challengeth to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before the judges; and whom the judges shall condemn, he shall pay double unto his neighbour.
  • Joshua 9:13 And these bottles of wine, which we filled, were new; and, behold, they be rent: and these our garments and our shoes are become old by reason of the very long journey.
  • 2 Chronicles 9:24 And they brought every man his present, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and raiment, harness, and spices, horses, and mules, a rate year by year.

“curtain” Hebrew H3407 · used in 32 verses

  • Exodus 26:1 Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them.
  • Exodus 26:12 And the remnant that remaineth of the curtains of the tent, the half curtain that remaineth, shall hang over the backside of the tabernacle.
  • Exodus 36:16 And he coupled five curtains by themselves, and six curtains by themselves.

“light” Hebrew H216 · used in 112 verses

  • Genesis 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
  • Job 36:30 Behold, he spreadeth his light upon it, and covereth the bottom of the sea.
  • Isaiah 9:2 The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.