Psalms 19:3

No speech nor language; their voice cannot be heard.

Silent voices

The Psalmist, like a true poet, had a keen eye and ear. He saw in the firmament the glory of God, and he heard, around him and beneath, a chorus of praise to the Most High. Two interpretations have been put upon this verse. The first, that there is no country or clime, “no speech or language,” where the voice of the firmament, etc., is not heard, seeing their “line” or instruction “is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.” The other is, that there is no audible voice, no sound that falls upon the ear. Addison writes, “What though in solemn silence,” etc.

I. Silent voices have often a most powerful influence.

1. They may move a man more than uttered words. The voices of nature, the music of the spheres, as it is called, is silence. Lectures have their place, but audible voices are not so soul-stirring as voices inaudible.

2. The spring, and every season of the year, brings many lessons, and yet “there is no speech or language, its voice is not heard.” No man ever heard, with his bodily ear, the language of either day or night, yet every day speaks of God’s infinite resources--of His goodness, of His power and glory--more articulate than any man could speak.

3. Solitude speaks to the soul. The mountain top, the dense forest, the restless sea; but their “voice is not heard.” The expression of human feeling is often more powerful when inarticulate.

II. In order to apprehend silent voices we must ourselves be silent. Put away distracting thoughts, and humbly listen only to God as He speaks to the soul and conscience. Men cannot even hear music unless they are still, silent, and undistracted. With the soul men hear God, and not with the physical ear, unless they are still and undistracted. It is very desirable that men should commune with God in their work, and be still before Him with their souls, and not with their intellects only. The active intellect is more often used against God than for Him. But God cannot be reached by intellectual processes any more than love, or than the beauties of a landscape can be explained by argument, or than music can be brought home to the soul by logical syllogism. (James S. Swan.)

The silent testimony

Language is always a difficulty, a snare, a temptation, an inconvenient convenience. It brings us into all our troubles; it is when we speak that we create heterodoxies; could we but be silently dumbly good--could we look our prayers, and cause our face to shine with our benevolence, and our hand do a quiet work of beneficence, how happy would the world be! Words do not mean the same thing to any two men; they may be accepted for momentary uses and for commercial purposes, but when it becomes a matter of life and death, time and eternity, truth and error, words are base counterfeits, that should be nailed to the counter of creation, as things by which a false commerce has been kept up amongst earnest and ardent men. Blessed be God for the silent testimony, for the radiant character, for the eloquent service. All history is silent; it is only the immediate day that chatters and talks and fusses about its little affairs. Yet the dead centuries are eloquent: the characters are all gone; the warriors are dead and buried, the orators have culminated their eloquence in the silence of death, the great solemn past is like a banquet hall deserted, but it is eloquent, instructive, silently monitorial. Silent history--great, sad, melancholy, impartial history--the spirit of the past should govern the unrest and the tumult of the present. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)