Chapter 104 is the song of Creation. Dovid HaMelech lays out before us the order of Ma'aseh Bereishis according to its stages: the firmament, the clouds, the winds, the descent of rain, the emergence of dry land, the gathering of water into the ocean, and the springs and rivers that sustain living creatures. At every single stage, the Malbim demonstrates how the very laws of nature are wisely structured for the benefit of all creatures. Let us proceed through the verses in order.
הַמְקָרֶה בַמַּיִם עֲלִיּוֹתָיו הַשָּׂם־עָבִים רְכוּבוֹ הַמְהַלֵּךְ עַל־כַּנְפֵי־רוּחַ׃ - Who beams His upper chambers with water, Who makes clouds His chariot, Who walks on the wings of the wind.
The Radak writes here: There are commentators who explain that the verse alludes to the waters that are above the firmament, but the scientists do not concede that there is water above the firmament. And lo and behold, since the days of the Radak they have already managed to concede this. Today, research recognizes that there is water above the firmament; there are entire celestial bodies that are enormous blocks of ice, and the quantities of water up there are thousands of times greater than the water beneath the firmament.
From this there is a great lesson: never be alarmed by the opinions of scientists and researchers. They learn as they go, and they must be given the chance. Their processor is slow; they have to investigate every single thing in order to reach conclusions. We do not need that - we have the original blueprint, our Torah sources. They do not have the original blueprint, so they must observe and test until they arrive at a conclusion. In the past they said: there are no upper waters; what even are upper waters? Today, there is already research proving vast quantities of upper waters.
Incidentally, sometimes rain falls that comes directly from the upper waters. How so? An ice meteorite enters the atmosphere, where there is tremendous friction and intense heat. The primary investment in a spacecraft is to ensure it can re-enter the atmosphere safely, which is why it is tiled with special heat shields to withstand frictional heat. The Columbia lost a single tile and they assumed it would make it through, which tragically cost the lives of Ilan Ramon and the other astronauts. At any rate, this friction melts the icy meteorites, turning them into water that descends to us as rain. Not that this is the ordinary kind of rain, but such phenomena do exist.
The Malbim explains: The waters were beamed like a ceiling, which is the roof of a building, and above it lies the upper chamber of the building. For from that point upward belongs to the realm of the heavens, which is unsuited for the breathing of any living creature. In other words, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, as it were, beamed the upper part of the earth with water: the waters became a ceiling, and above them lies the "upper chamber" - that realm where breathing is no longer possible, beyond the atmosphere. And why is it called "His upper chambers" (aliyyosav)? Because it is the place to which the vapors ascend (aliyyah).
The vapors rise and gather there, in the region of precipitation - a place where they are confined and collected, condensing into thick vapors, which are the clouds. Water is naturally heavier than air, so water flows downward to the lowest point. Why, then, does water rise upward? Because it contains air, particularly warm air, and this air carries it upward.
The Malbim explains: In the beginning, the element of water was mixed with the element of air, and therefore it enveloped the entire earth. If you wish to visualize the world as it was at first: extremely thick vapor enveloped the entire globe. Through the light, the firmament was formed, and the vapors began to rise into the breathable sphere, which is the atmosphere. There they collect, and in the cooler, precipitative zone, the vapor turns into droplets. The droplets form rain, and rain no longer contains that buoyant air - once the air leaves the water, it is no longer vapor, and it falls downward by force of gravity. Thus, water that is unmixed with air falls down, like our water (our water also contains dissolved oxygen, but not in the way vapor does).
This is what the Midrash explains: A parable of ten inflated waterskins placed in a banquet hall. When the owner needed their space, he released the air from them. So too, the Holy One, blessed be He, drew the air out of the waters, causing them to gather together and contract. The waters that rose upward became clouds, descended, and gathered into the ocean, and then the dry land appeared.
Furthermore, in the verse: The thick clouds are heavy and their nature is to descend, but the Holy One, blessed be He, prevents them from falling by means of the wind that carries them. The wind bears the clouds, within which droplets form and rain falls. And as it were, the Holy One, blessed be He, rides upon those clouds, as it is written: "Behold, Hashem rides on a swift cloud." And "Who walks on the wings of the wind" - this chariot moves upon the wings of the wind; as it were, the horses pulling the chariot are the wings of the wind. The Holy One, blessed be He, directs the winds that move the clouds from place to place.
עֹשֶׂה מַלְאָכָיו רוּחוֹת מְשָׁרְתָיו אֵשׁ לֹהֵט׃ - "He makes the winds His messengers, flaming fire His ministers."
The Malbim explains: Rain falls for two reasons. The first is through the winds. The second is through electrical matter, which is the fiery element found in vapor. The winds move the clouds from place to place and cause them to condense. On the other hand, clouds contain negative and positive ions, and when they meet, an explosion occurs - this is thunder, and fire is generated - this is lightning. We all know that after thunder and lightning, rain usually begins. Through the discharge of the clouds, rain descends.
An angel (malach) is a messenger who travels from place to place; therefore, the Holy One, blessed be He, appoints the winds as messengers to lead the clouds: "He makes the winds His messengers." A minister (mesharet) is one who carries out his work; therefore, "flaming fire His ministers" refers to the electricity trapped there, which produces flaming fire when two clouds collide - the action of thunder and lightning that subsequently brings down the rain.
The Mabit, in his work Beit Elokim, derives a wonderful proof from here that the level of man is higher than that of angels. However, this is subject to a dispute: the Ibn Ezra holds that this cannot be said, for when Daniel saw an angel, his vigor turned into corruption - "his thoughts terrified him, and his knees knocked together" - he was utterly terrified. Meanwhile, nothing happened to the angel; he saw Daniel and was not frightened at all. This implies that the angel's level is higher than that of man.
On the other hand, we have sources showing that man is higher than the angels. We have previously cited the words of Rabbi Chaim Vital in Sha'arei Kedushah regarding the ministering angels' question: "What is one born of woman doing among us?" The idea is this: the Holy One, blessed be He, is at the center, and the closer one is to Him, the greater one's stature - the inner sphere is higher, while the outer ones are lower. The ministering angels suddenly saw Moshe situated between them and Hashem, meaning that they were on the outside and he was further inside. Over this they asked: How is it that one born of woman has suddenly come between us and Hashem; is he closer than we are? The answer is yes, because man was created from all the worlds combined, possessing all the spiritual powers, and he has free choice - he is on the level of "those who progress" (mehalchim), whereas the angels are on the level of "those who stand still" (omedim).
Some resolve the contradiction by distinguishing between permanent angels and temporary angels: the stature of Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel is indeed exalted above that of man, but a standard angel, one of "His ministers," is below the level of man. Certainly, this refers to a righteous person who fulfills the will of Hashem.
And this is the Mabit's intent from our verse: "He makes the winds [ruchot, also meaning spirits] His messengers" - an angel is on the level of ruach. Man, however, possesses nefesh, ruach, and also neshamah, and the neshamah is a part higher than ruach. Angels do not possess the level of neshamah, and certainly not chayah and yechidah, which are two levels higher still. Angels reach at most the level of ruach - which is admittedly a high level, for a gentile has only a nefesh, an animalistic soul which is the lower tier, and an animal has only a nefesh - but man also possesses a neshamah, a level superior to the angels.
יָסַד־אֶרֶץ עַל־מְכוֹנֶיהָ בַּל־תִּמּוֹט עוֹלָם וָעֶד׃ - He established the earth upon its foundations, that it should not collapse forever and ever.
Through this very process, the Holy One, blessed be He, established the earth upon its foundations - upon the site set and appropriate for it, which is the meaning of "Let the waters be gathered... and let the dry land appear." The Malbim elaborated on this in Parashat Bereishit, and it was also explored at length in the study of the Malbim on Sefer Iyov. The vapors that enveloped the entire globe condensed into rain and fell down, and the waters concentrated in one place - the ocean - and then the dry land became visible, which is called "earth," standing firm, "that it should not collapse forever and ever."
תְּהוֹם כַּלְּבוּשׁ כִּסִּיתוֹ עַל־הָרִים יַעַמְדוּ־מָיִם׃ - You covered it with the deep as with a garment; waters stood above the mountains.
Here the Malbim explains in detail how this unfolded. At first there was the deep (tehom), which is the part situated beneath the water, as it is written: "and darkness was upon the face of the deep." It was entirely covered by water, like a garment that envelops everything all around. Everything was dense vapor, covered in moisture and water, to the extent that the waters surrounded the mountains as well - "waters stood above the mountains." One should not confuse this with the Flood; rather, this refers to dense vapors that enveloped the entire globe and covered everything, even the mountain ranges.
מִן־גַּעֲרָתְךָ יְנוּסוּן מִן־קוֹל רַעַמְךָ יֵחָפֵזוּן׃ - At Your rebuke they fled; at the sound of Your thunder they hurried away.
יַעֲלוּ הָרִים יֵרְדוּ בְקָעוֹת אֶל־מְקוֹם זֶה יָסַדְתָּ לָהֶם׃ - They ascend mountains, they descend into valleys, to the place that You established for them.
Rashi explains that this rebuke is the command "Let the waters be gathered," and at that voice the waters hastened and gathered into the place He established for them. The Malbim explains the precise mechanics, showing that the phrases correspond in parallel: "At Your rebuke they fled" corresponds to "they ascend mountains," while "at the sound of Your thunder they hurried away" corresponds to "they descend into valleys."
To understand this, one must recognize the distinction between flight (menusah) and haste (chipazon). One who flees (nas) is running away from something: someone sought to strike him, so he fled from him. One who hastens (nechpaz) is rushing toward something: running to prayer out of eagerness to reach it. When one fears something, he flees from it.
Initially, the waters rose up to the firmament. This is contrary to nature, for the natural tendency of anything with mass is to seek the lowest point due to gravity. How did they rise? Hashem rebuked them, and by virtue of that rebuke and command they went to the place He commanded them, an action contrary to their nature. Thus, this was a flight: the rebuke was pursuing them, as it were, and they were fleeing from it, and by its power they ascended even over the mountains - "they ascend mountains."
Afterward, however: "At the sound of Your thunder they hurried away." Thunder breaks apart the clouds, initiating the rain and bringing the waters back down - "they descend into valleys." Here the text uses the terminology of haste (chipazon), for they are running toward their place: once they are above, gravity is in accordance with their nature, so they hasten on their own to descend and require no rebuke for this. Therefore, "they descend into valleys" is described with the term "they hurried away" - toward their natural place, "to the place that You established for them," which is the ocean.
It turns out that the Holy One, blessed be He, took all the moisture that filled the entire world and covered even the mountains, and concentrated it into the ocean: first, He drove everything upward against nature, where it condensed and gathered into droplets, and then it rushed downward by its own weight to the lowest place. Through this, the waters were gathered into one place and dry land appeared.
גְּבוּל־שַׂמְתָּ בַּל־יַעֲבֹרוּן בַּל־יְשֻׁבוּן לְכַסּוֹת הָאָרֶץ׃ - You set a boundary they may not pass, so they will not return to cover the earth.
Once the waters reached below, there was a danger that they would overflow their boundaries, so a limit had to be placed upon the sea. Hashem set a boundary around the sea so the waters would not cross it: "so they will not return to cover the earth" - so they would not revert to covering the earth as at the beginning of Creation. To be sure, this is not exactly like the beginning of Creation, when everything was vapor enveloping the globe; here it refers to waves - preventing tsunamis, ensuring that the waves are halted by the boundary Hashem set for the sea.
הַמְשַׁלֵּחַ מַעְיָנִים בַּנְּחָלִים בֵּין הָרִים יְהַלֵּכוּן׃ - Who sends springs into streams; they flow between the mountains.
From here, Scripture describes the benefit that reaches us from these natural laws, and how the Holy One, blessed be He, arranged everything with wisdom for the needs of His creatures. The Malbim explains: because the water ascends as vapor, it descends upon the mountains and filters into the ground, and from this, springs are formed. The springs flow down from the mountains into streams of water that gather between the mountains.
And what is a nachal? A nachal is a wadi, a ravine sunken into the ground. "And they shall break the heifer's neck there in the valley (nachal)" - does that require water? Rather, a nachal is simply the low ground, and only when water flows through it do we say there is water in the stream. This is the meaning of "Who sends springs into streams": Hashem sends the spring to flow in the low-lying place, in the valley, "they flow between the mountains."
יַשְׁקוּ כָּל־חַיְתוֹ שָׂדָי יִשְׁבְּרוּ פְרָאִים צְמָאָם׃ - They give drink to every beast of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
The water running through the streams gives drink to the beasts of the field, and in them the wild donkeys quench their thirst. And what are pera'im? The Radak explains: wild animals found in the wilderness that do not enter human settlements, as in the phrase, "a wild donkey accustomed to the wilderness" - they never enter a city. Consequently, they have no other source of drinking water, and had the Holy One, blessed be He, not established streams for them, they would have had nothing to drink. Therefore, He ensured there would be springs feeding into streams, so that the beasts of the field - whom no human takes care to water - will find water.
And the Malbim adds: the Holy One, blessed be He, did all this for the benefit of the living creatures He was destined to create. After all, we are speaking of the earliest stages of Creation, yet the streams were already prepared to give drink to every beast of the field, and even the wild donkeys would quench their thirst from them.
עֲלֵיהֶם עוֹף־הַשָּׁמַיִם יִשְׁכּוֹן מִבֵּין עֳפָאיִם יִתְּנוּ־קוֹל׃ - Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell; from between the branches they utter their voice.
"Upon them" - the Malbim explains that this refers to the mountains and streams, for the birds too need these waters. Notice the phrasing "from between the branches" (mibein ofayim): the alef is quiescent, and it is read not "ofa'im" but "ofayim," with a chirik under the yud. Someone reading this who is asked what "ofayim" means might assume, since the verse speaks of the birds of the heavens, that these are other species of birds. Yet Rashi explains: "from between the branches" refers to the boughs of trees, as the verse in Daniel says, "its foliage was beautiful" (apayeh shapir), meaning that the branches of the tree are lovely. Thus, upon the mountains and streams dwell the birds of the heavens, and from among the branches they raise their voice. There was therefore a preparation here for the habitat of land creatures, as mentioned regarding "the beasts of the field, the wild donkeys quench their thirst," and the birds too benefit from those same streams and mountains that the Holy One, Blessed be He, created.
מַשְׁקֶה הָרִים מֵעֲלִיּוֹתָיו מִפְּרִי מַעֲשֶׂיךָ תִּשְׂבַּע הָאָרֶץ׃ - He waters the mountains from His upper lofts; from the fruit of Your works the earth is satisfied.
From those upper lofts of the vapors that rise to the sphere of respiration, to the atmosphere, from which clouds are formed - from there the Holy One, Blessed be He, waters the mountains. "From the fruit of Your works," from the results of these works, "the earth is satisfied": the mountains are saturated by the vapors that rise to the heights, for the clouds are higher than the mountains and are thus able to water them, and the earth is satisfied by the general rainfall and by the streams that form from it.
And here we see Hashem's immense kindness. Imagine if there were no rain at all - was rain strictly necessary? "A river issues forth from Eden to water the garden"; rivers alone could have sufficed to water the world. Egypt, after all, was like the garden of Hashem: "where you watered with your foot like a vegetable garden." The sophisticated irrigation systems of ancient Egypt are well known, where they dug canals and watered the fields with them. Naturally speaking, then, having streams and rivers could have been entirely sufficient.
Yet had it been so, how would the mountains receive water? Could one carry water up into the mountains? Imagine what it would have meant five hundred or a thousand years ago to haul buckets up the mountains. In a flat land like Egypt, one draws water from the Nile and its canals, but how could one carry it up to the mountain peaks? What did the Holy One, Blessed be He, do? He created the water cycle - water rises upward as vapor and descends as rain from the clouds, like a shower pouring from above, watering everything from the mountaintops down to the valleys. This is an immense wonder that Hashem created, to which we have simply grown accustomed. And this is the meaning of the verse, "He waters the mountains from His upper lofts": the entire purpose is that rain should reach the mountains as well.
In these verses, King David describes the order of Creation as explained by the Malbim: the Holy One, Blessed be He, roofed His upper lofts with water and created the atmospheric sphere of vapor; He made the clouds His chariot and glides upon the wings of the wind; and He made the winds His messengers and flaming fire (thunder and lightning) His attendants to bring down the rain. The waters rose against their nature by the power of the Divine rebuke - "they fled," "they ascended mountains" - and descended as drops in accordance with their nature - "they hastened away," "they flowed down into valleys" - until they gathered into the ocean and the dry land appeared, with a boundary set for the sea that it might not return to cover the earth. From all this emerged the springs and streams that give drink to the beasts of the field, the wild donkeys, and the birds of the heavens, while the water cycle elevates water even to the high mountains. All is wisdom, all is lovingkindness, and we have merely grown accustomed to the wonder - and therefore, "from the fruit of Your works the earth is satisfied."