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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 33:6 - 33:6
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God's praiseworthiness (b) as the Creator of the world in the kingdom of Nature. Jahve's דְּבַר is His almighty “Let there be;” and רוחַ פִּיו (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; Isa 34:16, cf. Psa 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. נִד 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 Jos 3:13, Jos 3:15, cf. Exo 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. כֹּנֵס refers to the heap itself, not to the walls of the storehouses as holding together. This latter figure is not introduced until Psa 33:7: the bed of the sea and those of the rivers are, as it were, אֹוצָרֹות, treasuries or storehouses, in which God has deposited the deep, foaming waves or surging mass of waters. The inhabitants (יֹשְׁבֵי, not יֹושְׁבֵי) of the earth have cause to fear God who is thus omnipotent (מִן, 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 hexaëmeron or history of Creation, but which is also confirmed in human history (Lam 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, Psa 119:91.