6 To Him spreading the earth over the waters, For to the age `is' His kindness.
For He on the seas hath founded it, And on the floods He doth establish it.
And God saith, `Let the waters under the heavens be collected unto one place, and let the dry land be seen:' and it is so.
The maker of the earth by His power, The establisher of the world by His wisdom, Who, by His understanding, stretched forth the heavens,
Stretching out the north over desolation, Hanging the earth upon nothing,
Covering himself `with' light as a garment, Stretching out the heavens as a curtain, Who is laying the beam of His upper chambers in the waters, Who is making thick clouds His chariot, Who is walking on wings of wind,
He who is sitting on the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants `are' as grasshoppers, He who is stretching out as a thin thing the heavens, And spreadeth them as a tent to dwell in.
The burden of a word of Jehovah on Israel. An affirmation of Jehovah, Stretching out heaven, and founding earth, And forming the spirit of man in his midst.
for this is unobserved by them willingly, that the heavens were of old, and the earth out of water and through water standing together by the word of God, through which the then world, by water having been deluged, was destroyed; and the present heavens and the earth, by the same word are treasured, for fire being kept to a day of judgment and destruction of the impious men.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 136
Commentary on Psalms 136 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 136
The scope of this psalm is the same with that of the foregoing psalm, but there is something very singular in the composition of it; for the latter half of each verse is the same, repeated throughout the psalm, "for his mercy endureth for ever,' and yet no vain repetition. It is allowed that such burdens, or "keepings,' as we call them, add very much to the beauty of a song, and help to make it moving and affecting; nor can any verse contain more weighty matter, or more worthy to be thus repeated, than this, that God's mercy endureth for ever; and the repetition of it here twenty-six times intimates,
Psa 136:1-9
The duty we are here again and again called to is to give thanks, to offer the sacrifice of praise continually, not the fruits of our ground or cattle, but the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name, Heb. 13:15. We are never so earnestly called upon to pray and repent as to give thanks; for it is the will of God that we should abound most in the most pleasant exercises of religion, in that which is the work of heaven. Now here observe,
Psa 136:10-22
The great things God for Israel, when he first formed them into a people, and set up his kingdom among them, are here mentioned, as often elsewhere in the psalms, as instances both of the power of God and of the particular kindness he had for Israel. See Ps. 135:8, etc.
Psa 136:23-26
God's everlasting mercy is here celebrated,