Psalm 33:9

For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

33:1-11 Holy joy is the heart and soul of praise, and that is here pressed upon the righteous. Thankful praise is the breath and language of holy joy. Religious songs are proper expressions of thankful praise. Every endowment we possess, should be employed with all our skill and earnestness in God's service. His promises are all wise and good. His word is right, and therefore we are only in the right when we agree with it. His works are all done in truth. He is the righteous Lord, therefore loveth righteousness. What a pity it is that this earth, which is so full of the proofs and instances of God's goodness, should be so empty of his praises; and that of the multitudes who live upon his bounty, there are so few who live to his glory! What the Lord does, he does to purpose; it stands fast. He overrules all the counsels of men, and makes them serve his counsels; even that is fulfilled, which to us is most surprising, the eternal counsel of God, nor can any thing prevent its coming to pass.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For he spake, and it was done - The word "done," introduced here by our translators, enfeebles the sentence. It would be made more expressive and sublime as it is in the original: "He spake, and it was." That is, Its existence depended on his word; the universe sprang into being at his command; he had only to speak, and it arose in all its grandeur where before there was nothing. There is here an undoubted allusion to the account in Genesis of the work of creation - where the statement is that all depended on the command or the word of God: Genesis 1:3, Genesis 1:6,Genesis 1:9, Genesis 1:11, Genesis 1:14, Genesis 1:20, Genesis 1:24, Genesis 1:26. Nothing more sublime can be conceived than the language thus employed in the Scriptures in describing that work. No more elevated conception can enter the human mind than that which is implied when it is said, God "spoke" and all this vast and wonderful universe rose into being.

He commanded - He gave order; he required the universe to appear.

And it stood fast - Or rather, "stood." That is, it stood forth; it appeared; it rose into being. The idea of its "standing fast" is not in the original, and greatly enfeebles the expression.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9. he spake—literally, "said."

it was—The addition of "done" weakens the sense (compare Ge 1:3-10).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

It was done; the work here mentioned, Psalm 33:6,7.

Stood fast; or, stood forth, as a servant at his master’s command; or, was or did exist.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For he spake, and it was done,.... Or "it was" (a), it came into being by a word speaking, almighty power going along with it; see Genesis 1:3;

he commanded, and it stood fast; every created thing continued in its being; not only all things were produced into being by his all commanding word and power, "nutu Jovis", as Maximus Tyrius speaks (b); but by the same all things are upheld and consist, Hebrews 1:3, Colossians 1:17. The poet (c) uses the same word of God in the creation of things; and is the phrase in Genesis 1:3 admired by Longinus (d): or this may refer to the implantation of the grace of fear in the hearts of his people; for as he speaks life into them in regeneration, commands light to shine in their dark heart, and says to them, when in their blood, Live; so by the mighty power of his word he commands the fear of him in them, and it continues.

(a) "et fuit", Pagninus, Montanus, Musculus, Gejerus; so Ainsworth. (b) Dissert. 25. (c) "Jussit et extendi campos", &c. Ovid. Metamorph. l. 1. Fab. 1. v. 43. (d) De Sublimi.

Geneva Study Bible

For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. For HE (emphatic) spake, and it was (cp. Genesis 1:3; Genesis 1:7, &c.); HE commanded and it stood; came into existence and stood there before Him ready to obey His commands; or simply, stood firm. Cp. Psalm 148:5; Psalm 119:90-91; Isaiah 48:13.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 9. - For he spake, and it was done; rather, and it was; the thing of which he spake at once existed. See the passage of Genesis which Longinus thought so striking an instance of the sublime, "And God said, Let there be light; and there was light" (Genesis 1:8). He commanded, and it stood fast; literally, and it stood. God's lightest word, once uttered, is a standing law, to which nature absolutely conforms, and man ought to conform (comp. Psalm 119:90, 91). Psalm 33:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

God's praiseworthiness (b) as the Creator of the world in the kingdom of Nature. Jahve's דּבר is His almighty "Let there be;" and רוח פּיו (inasmuch as the breath is here regarded as the material of which the word is formed and the bearer of the word) is the command, or in general, the operation of His commanding omnipotence (Job 15:30, cf. Job 4:9; Isaiah 34:16, cf. Psalm 11:4). The heavens above and the waters beneath stand side by side as miracles of creation. The display of His power in the waters of the sea consists in His having confined them within fixed bounds and keeping them within these. נד is a pile, i.e., a piled up heap (Arabic nadd), and more especially an inference to harvest: like such a heap do the convex waters of the sea, being firmly held together, rise above the level of the continents. The expression is like that in Joshua 3:13, Joshua 3:15, cf. Exodus 15:8; although there the reference is to a miracle occurring in the course of history, and in this passage to a miracle of creation. כּנס refers to the heap itself, not to the walls of the storehouses as holding together. This latter figure is not introduced until Psalm 33:7: the bed of the sea and those of the rivers are, as it were, אוצרות, treasuries or storehouses, in which God has deposited the deep, foaming waves or surging mass of waters. The inhabitants (ישׁבי, not יושׁבי) of the earth have cause to fear God who is thus omnipotent (מן, in the sense of falling back from in terror); for He need only speak the word and that which He wills comes into being out of nothing, as we see from the hexameron or history of Creation, but which is also confirmed in human history (Lamentations 3:37). He need only command and it stands forth like an obedient servant, that appears in all haste at the call of his lord, Psalm 119:91.