Psalm 36: You preserve man and beast

Six verses from the middle of Psalm 36, where David praises the God Who preserves people and animals, and asks Him to continue His love.

Picture: Jan Brueghel the Elder, The Entry of the Animals into Noah’s Ark, 1613

Plain English

Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens,Your faithfulness to the clouds.Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,Your judgments like the great deep.O Lord, You preserve people and animals.

How precious is Your love, O God!People take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.They are filled with the plenty of Your house,and You give them drink from the river of Your delights.

For with You is the fountain of life;in Your light we see light.Continue Your love for those who know You,and Your righteousness for the upright in heart.

Traditional wording, 1611

Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens;and Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.Thy righteousness is like the great mountains;Thy judgments are a great deep:O LORD, Thou preservest man and beast.

How excellent is Thy lovingkindness, O God!therefore the children of men put their trustunder the shadow of Thy wings.They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house;and Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures.

For with Thee is the fountain of life:in Thy light shall we see light.O continue Thy lovingkindness unto them that know Thee;and Thy righteousness to the upright in heart.

Plain English by Wiser Walk, from the Hebrew (verses 5 to 10), with the King James Version beside it. How the wording is made. Traditional wording: The King James translators, The King James Version, 1611.

When it is said

Anyone may pray these verses at any time, for an animal in their care or in thanks for God’s goodness.

At the All-Night Vigil, the Church sings three of these lines, from “For with You is the fountain of life” to “Continue Your love for those who know You”. They come near the end of the Great Doxology, the hymn that begins “Glory to God in the highest”.

Where it comes from

Author by tradition

Who wrote it?

The heading in the Hebrew names David, “the servant of the LORD”. The Orthodox Church prays the psalms in the old Greek translation, where this is Psalm 35 and the heading names David in the same words.

The King James Version, on eBible.org; Brenton’s English Septuagint, on eBible.org

In the Russian prayer over sick livestock

The Russian Church has a service for times when a deadly plague strikes livestock. The priest stands before the sick animals and reads a prayer that borrows two phrases from this psalm, praising God as “the Fountain of Life”, Who preserves “men and beasts”.

The Rural Book of Needs (Moscow Patriarchate, 2016), on Azbyka.ru (in Church Slavonic); St Tikhon’s Monastery, The Great Book of Needs, volume 4 (1999)

What the words mean

The verses left out

The psalm opens with four verses about a wicked man who has no fear of God and plots evil in his bed. It closes with a plea to be kept from the proud and the wicked, and a word that the evildoers have fallen. This prayer keeps the six verses between them, which speak to God about His love.

The King James Version, on eBible.org

The Scripture in it

Your loving devotion, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the highest mountains; Your judgments are like the deepest sea. O LORD, You preserve man and beast. How precious is Your loving devotion, O God, that the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings! They feast on the abundance of Your house, and You give them drink from Your river of delights. For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light. Extend Your loving devotion to those who know You, and Your righteousness to the upright in heart.

Psalm 36:5-10 Quoted The prayer is these six verses of the psalm.

Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.

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