Psalm 95:5

The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

95:1-7 Whenever we come into God's presence, we must come with thanksgiving. The Lord is to be praised; we do not want matter, it were well if we did not want a heart. How great is that God, whose the whole earth is, and the fulness thereof; who directs and disposes of all!, The Lord Jesus, whom we are here taught to praise, is a great God; the mighty God is one of his titles, and God over all, blessed for evermore. To him all power is given, both in heaven and earth. He is our God, and we should praise him. He is our Saviour, and the Author of our blessedness. The gospel church is his flock, Christ is the great and good Shepherd of believers; he sought them when lost, and brought them to his fold.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The sea is his - Margin, as in Hebrew, "Whose the sea is." That is, The sea belongs to him, with all which it contains.

And he made it - It is his, "because" he made it. The creation of anything gives the highest possible right over it.

And his hands formed the dry land - He has a claim, therefore, that it should be recognized as his, and that all who dwell upon it, and derive their support from it, should acknowledge him as its great Owner and Lord.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

4, 5. The terms used describe the world in its whole extent, subject to God.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The sea is his, and he made it,.... He made it, and therefore it is, and all creatures in it; he sets bounds to it, and its waves, and restrains the raging of it at his pleasure, Matthew 8:26,

and his hands formed the dry land; the whole world, all besides the sea, the vast continent; he is the Maker of it, and all creatures in it; without him was nothing made that is made; and, being the Creator of all things, is the proper object of worship, John 1:2, as follows.

Geneva Study Bible

The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

5. Whose is the sea, for HE made it;

And the dry land, which his hands formed.

Cp. Psalm 24:1; Psalm 89:11.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 5. - The sea is his, and he made it (see Genesis 1:9; Psalm 104:24, 25). And his hands formed the dry land (see Genesis 1:9, 10). Psalm 95:5

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The adorableness of God receives a threefold confirmation: He is exalted above all gods as King, above all things as Creator, and above His people as Shepherd and Leader. אלהים (gods) here, as in Psalm 96:4., Psalm 97:7, Psalm 97:9, and frequently, are the powers of the natural world and of the world of men, which the Gentiles deify and call kings (as Moloch Molech, the deified fire), which, however, all stand under the lordship of Jahve, who is infinitely exalted above everything that is otherwise called god (Psalm 96:4; Psalm 97:9). The supposition that תּועפות הרים denotes the pit-works (μέταλλα) of the mountains (Bφttcher), is at once improbable, because to all appearance it is intended to be the antithesis to מחקרי־ארץ, the shafts of the earth. The derivation from ועף (יעף), κάμνειν, κοπιᾶν, also does not suit תועפות in Numbers 23:22; Numbers 24:8, for "fatigues" and "indefatigableness" are notions that lie very wide apart. The כּסף תּועפות of Job 22:25 might more readily be explained according to this "silver of fatigues," i.e., silver that the fatiguing labour of mining brings to light, and תועפות הרים in the passage before us, with Gussetius, Geier, and Hengstenberg: cacumina montium quia defatigantur qui eo ascendunt, prop. ascendings equals summits of the mountains, after which כסף תועפות, Job 22:25, might also signify "silver of the mountain-heights." But the lxx, which renders δόξα in the passages in Numbers and τὰ ὕψη τῶν ὀρέων in the passage before us, leads one to a more correct track. The verb יעף (ועף), transposed from יפע (ופע), goes back to the root יף, וף, to stand forth, tower above, to be high, according to which תועפות equals תופעות signifies eminentiae, i.e., towerings equals summits, or prominences equals high (the highest) perfection (vid., on Job 22:25). In the passage before us it is a synonym of the Arabic mı̂fan, mı̂fâtun, pars terrae eminens (from Arab. wfâ equals יפע, prop. instrumentally: a means of rising above, viz., by climbing), and of the names of eminences derived from Arab. yf' (after which Hitzig renders: the teeth of the mountains). By reason of the fact that Jahve is the Owner (cf. 1 Samuel 2:8), because the Creator of all things, the call to worship, which concerns no one so nearly as it does Israel, the people, which before other peoples is Jahve's creation, viz., the creation of His miraculously mighty grace, is repeated. In the call or invitation, השׁתּחוה signifies to stretch one's self out full length upon the ground, the proper attitude of adoration; כּרע, to curtsey, to totter; and בּרך, Arabic baraka, starting from the radical signification flectere, to kneel down, in genua (πρόχνυ, pronum equals procnum) procumbere, 2 Chronicles 6:13 (cf. Hlemann, Bibelstudien, i. 135f.). Beside עם מרעיתו, people of His pasture, צאן ידו is not the flock formed by His creating hand (Augustine: ipse gratiâ suâ nos oves fecit), but, after Genesis 30:35, the flock under His protection, the flock led and defended by His skilful, powerful hand. Bttcher renders: flock of His charge; but יד in this sense (Jeremiah 6:3) signifies only a place, and "flock of His place" would be poetry and prose in one figure.