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Psalm 104:23

Man goes out to his work, to his labor until the evening.

21The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their food from God.
22The sun rises, and they steal away, and lie down in their dens.
23Man goes out to his work, to his labor until the evening.
24LORD, how many are your works! In wisdom, you have made them all. The earth is full of your riches.
25There is the sea, great and wide, in which are innumerable living things, both small and large animals.
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← Psalm 104:22Psalm 104:24 →
Notice

“Until the evening” gives the workday an end, while the surrounding lines place human labor within the daily rhythms of the world God has made.

Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.

What does going out to your work look like in your life today?

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How does “until the evening” compare with the way your workday ends?

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What changes when you read this workday between the lions and the praise of God's wisdom?

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Connect

Where else Scripture says this

7 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.

This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
Genesis 3:19You will eat bread by the sweat of your face until you return to the ground, for you were taken out of it. For you are dust, and you shall return to dust.”Both describe human labor with an endpoint: evening in the psalm, and a return to dust in Genesis.
Ecclesiastes 5:12The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not allow him to sleep.The psalm describes labor lasting until evening; Ecclesiastes describes the sweet sleep of a person who labors.
Ephesians 4:28Let him who stole steal no more; but rather let him labor, producing with his hands something that is good, that he may have something to give to him who has …Both speak of human labor; Ephesians adds the purpose of producing good and having something to share.
Judges 19:16Behold, an old man came from his work out of the field at evening. Now the man was from the hill country of Ephraim, and he lived in Gibeah; but the men of the …The old man's return from fieldwork at evening matches the workday described in the psalm.
Job 24:5Behold, as wild donkeys in the desert, they go out to their work, seeking diligently for food. The wilderness yields them bread for their children.Both describe people going out to work, with Job naming their search for food for their children.
2 Thessalonians 3:8–12neither did we eat bread from anyone’s hand without paying for it, but in labor and travail worked night and day, that we might not burden any of you.Both describe sustained human labor, though the psalm marks evening as its endpoint and Paul describes working night and day.
Genesis 1:24God said, “Let the earth produce living creatures after their kind, livestock, creeping things, and animals of the earth after their kind;” and it was so.The link is limited to the creation setting: Genesis describes land animals, while the psalm places human labor among God's creatures.
One step

Something small to carry out of this verse

Set a stopping time for one workday

practicaloncelight
Encouragement

Your work may seem small against the sea and its countless creatures. Yet this psalm includes a human workday in its praise of the world God made in wisdom.

Now put it in your words.

Start an entry on Psalm 104:23. Write what it stirs. Psalmlog sets your words beside Scripture and gives you one next step. Your first entry is free, no account needed.

Keep goingPsalm 104 · the whole chapter with its connection mapPsalms · every chapterBuild a reading plan through Psalms

Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).