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7.He ruleth by his power over the world The Hebrew word עולם, olam, which I have translated the world, signifies occasionally an age, or eternity; (474) but the first sense seems to agree best with the context, and the meaning of the words is, that God is endued with the power necessary for wielding the government of the world. What follows agrees with this, that his eyes behold the nations Under the law, Judea was the proper seat of his kingdom; but his providence always extended to the world at large; and the special favor shown to the posterity of Abraham, in consideration of the covenant, did not prevent him from extending an eye of providential consideration to the surrounding nations. As an evidence of his care reaching to the different countries round, he takes notice of the judgments which God executed upon the wicked and the ungodly. He proves that there was no part of the human family which God overlooked, by referring to the fact of the punishment of evil-doers. There may be much in the Divine administration of the world calculated to perplex our conclusions; but there are always some tokens to be seen of his judgments, and these sufficiently clear to strike the eye of an acute and attentive observer.
(474) Our English version renders the word in this last sense. Hammond, with Calvin, prefers reading, “ the world.” “ עולם,” says he, “ ἄιὼν, as the English age, signifies not only time and duration, but also the men that live in any time, there is no question. And then מושל עולם, must here most properly be rendered ruling the world, or over the world; and so the Chaldee certainly understood, who read, ‘ exerciseth dominion over the world;’ and so I suppose the LXX. their ‘ δεσπόξουτι τοῦ ἀιῶνος,’ ‘ dominion over the world,’ doth import.” The Vulgate, in this instance not following the Septuagint, has “in aeternum,” “ ever.”