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Selected Verse: Psalms 104:5 - New American Standard Bible©

Verse	Translation	Text
Ps 104:5	New American Standard Bible©	He established the earth upon its foundations, So that it will not totter forever and ever.
	King James	Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever.

Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse

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A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]
The earth is firmly fixed by His power.

A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]

The earth is firmly fixed by His power.

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]
Who laid the foundations of the earth - Referring still to the creation of the earth. The margin is, "He hath founded the earth upon her bases." The Hebrew word rendered in the margin "her bases" means properly a place; then a basis or foundation. The idea is, that there wes something, as it were, placed under the earth to support it. The idea is not uncommon in the Scriptures. Compare the notes at Job 38:4. That it should not be removed for ever - So that it cannot be shaken out of its place. That is, It is fixed, permanent, solid. Its foundations do not give way, as edifices reared by man. but it abides the same from age to age - the most fixed and stable object of which we have any knowledge. Compare the notes at Psa 78:69.

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]

Who laid the foundations of the earth - Referring still to the creation of the earth. The margin is, "He hath founded the earth upon her bases." The Hebrew word rendered in the margin "her bases" means properly a place; then a basis or foundation. The idea is, that there wes something, as it were, placed under the earth to support it. The idea is not uncommon in the Scriptures. Compare the notes at Job 38:4.

That it should not be removed for ever - So that it cannot be shaken out of its place. That is, It is fixed, permanent, solid. Its foundations do not give way, as edifices reared by man. but it abides the same from age to age - the most fixed and stable object of which we have any knowledge. Compare the notes at Psa 78:69.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]
In a second decastich the poet speaks of the restraining of the lower waters and the establishing of the land standing out of the water. The suffix, referring back to ארץ, is intended to say that the earth hanging free in space (Job 26:7) has its internal supports. Its eternal stability is preserved even amidst the judgment predicted in Isa 24:16., since it comes forth out of it, unremoved from its former station, as a transformed, glorified earth. The deep (תּהום) with which God covers it is that primordial mass of water in which it lay first of all as it were in embryo, for it came into being ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ δι ̓ ὕδατος (Pe2 3:5). כּסּיתו does not refer to תהום (masc. as in Job 28:14), because then עליה would be required, but to ארץ, and the masculine is to be explained either by attraction) according to the model of Sa1 2:4), or by a reversion to the masculine ground-form as the discourse proceeds (cf. the same thing with עיר Sa2 17:13, צעקה Exo 11:6, יד Eze 2:9). According to Psa 104:6, the earth thus overflowed with water was already mountainous; the primal formation of the mountains is therefore just as old as the תהום mentioned in direct succession to the תהו ובהו. After this, Psa 104:7 describe the subduing of the primordial waters by raising up the dry land and the confining of these waters in basins surrounded by banks. Terrified by the despotic command of God, they started asunder, and mountains rose aloft, the dry land with its heights and its low grounds appeared. The rendering that the waters, thrown into wild excitement, rose up the mountains and descended again (Hengstenberg), does not harmonize with the fact that they are represented in Psa 104:6 as standing above the mountains. Accordingly, too, it is not to be interpreted after Psa 107:26 : they (the waters) rose mountain-high, they sunk down like valleys. The reference of the description to the coming forth of the dry land on the third day of creation requires that הרים should be taken as subject to יעלוּ. But then, too, the בקעות are the subject to ירדוּ, as Hilary of Poictiers renders it in his Genesis, 5:97, etc.: subsidunt valles, and not the waters as subsiding into the valleys. Hupfeld is correct; Psa 104:8 is a parenthesis which affirms that, inasmuch as the waters retreating laid the solid land bare, mountains and valleys as such came forth visibly; cf. Ovid, Metam. i. 344: Flumina subsidunt, montes exire videntur.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]

In a second decastich the poet speaks of the restraining of the lower waters and the establishing of the land standing out of the water. The suffix, referring back to ארץ, is intended to say that the earth hanging free in space (Job 26:7) has its internal supports. Its eternal stability is preserved even amidst the judgment predicted in Isa 24:16., since it comes forth out of it, unremoved from its former station, as a transformed, glorified earth. The deep (תּהום) with which God covers it is that primordial mass of water in which it lay first of all as it were in embryo, for it came into being ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ δι ̓ ὕδατος (Pe2 3:5). כּסּיתו does not refer to תהום (masc. as in Job 28:14), because then עליה would be required, but to ארץ, and the masculine is to be explained either by attraction) according to the model of Sa1 2:4), or by a reversion to the masculine ground-form as the discourse proceeds (cf. the same thing with עיר Sa2 17:13, צעקה Exo 11:6, יד Eze 2:9). According to Psa 104:6, the earth thus overflowed with water was already mountainous; the primal formation of the mountains is therefore just as old as the תהום mentioned in direct succession to the תהו ובהו. After this, Psa 104:7 describe the subduing of the primordial waters by raising up the dry land and the confining of these waters in basins surrounded by banks. Terrified by the despotic command of God, they started asunder, and mountains rose aloft, the dry land with its heights and its low grounds appeared. The rendering that the waters, thrown into wild excitement, rose up the mountains and descended again (Hengstenberg), does not harmonize with the fact that they are represented in Psa 104:6 as standing above the mountains. Accordingly, too, it is not to be interpreted after Psa 107:26 : they (the waters) rose mountain-high, they sunk down like valleys. The reference of the description to the coming forth of the dry land on the third day of creation requires that הרים should be taken as subject to יעלוּ. But then, too, the בקעות are the subject to ירדוּ, as Hilary of Poictiers renders it in his Genesis, 5:97, etc.: subsidunt valles, and not the waters as subsiding into the valleys. Hupfeld is correct; Psa 104:8 is a parenthesis which affirms that, inasmuch as the waters retreating laid the solid land bare, mountains and valleys as such came forth visibly; cf. Ovid, Metam. i. 344: Flumina subsidunt, montes exire videntur.

Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65]
Who laid - Heb. he hath established the earth upon its own basis, whereby it stands as fast and unmoveable, as if it were built upon the strongest foundations. Forever - As long as the world continues. God has fixt so strange a place for the earth, that being an heavy body, one would think it should fall every moment. And yet which way so ever we would imagine it to stir, it must, contrary to the nature of such a body, fall upwards, and so can have no possible ruin, but by tumbling into heaven.

Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65]

Who laid - Heb. he hath established the earth upon its own basis, whereby it stands as fast and unmoveable, as if it were built upon the strongest foundations. Forever - As long as the world continues. God has fixt so strange a place for the earth, that being an heavy body, one would think it should fall every moment. And yet which way so ever we would imagine it to stir, it must, contrary to the nature of such a body, fall upwards, and so can have no possible ruin, but by tumbling into heaven.

Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826
יסד ארץ על מכוניה yasad erets al mechonepha, בל תמוט עולם ועד bal tammot olam vaed. "Laying the earth upon its foundations, That it should not be shaken for evermore." This image Bishop Lowth thinks evidently taken from the tabernacle, which was so laid upon its foundations that nothing could move it, and the dispensation to which it was attached, till the end purposed by the secret counsel of God was accomplished: and thus the earth is established, till the end of its creation shall be fully answered; and then it and its works shall be burnt up. On the above ground, the stability of the sanctuary and the stability of the earth are sometimes mentioned in the same words.

Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826

יסד ארץ על מכוניה yasad erets al mechonepha,

בל תמוט עולם ועד bal tammot olam vaed.

"Laying the earth upon its foundations,

That it should not be shaken for evermore."

This image Bishop Lowth thinks evidently taken from the tabernacle, which was so laid upon its foundations that nothing could move it, and the dispensation to which it was attached, till the end purposed by the secret counsel of God was accomplished: and thus the earth is established, till the end of its creation shall be fully answered; and then it and its works shall be burnt up. On the above ground, the stability of the sanctuary and the stability of the earth are sometimes mentioned in the same words.

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