Psalms 135:6

135:5-14 God is, and will be always, the same to his church, a gracious, faithful, wonder-working God. And his church is, and will be, the same to him, a thankful, praising people: thus his name endures for ever. He will return in ways of mercy to them, and will delight to do them good.

Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he,.... In creation, producing into being what creatures he thought fit; in providence, doing according to his will in heaven and in earth; in grace, predestinating men to grace and glory, according to the good pleasure of his will, and calling by his grace whom he pleased: so Christ quickens whom he will; and the Spirit dispenses his gifts and grace severally to men as he pleases.

Sovereignty, or acting according to will and pleasure, is peculiar to the Lord; the heavens, the sun, moon, and stars, are at his direction, and act by the laws of creation, which are at his control; angels do his will, and not their own: the most arbitrary and despotic princes cannot do everything they please; but the Lord can and does, even everything; in heaven and in earth, in the seas and all deep places; in the formation of them, and filling them with inhabitants, and fitting them to perform the several ends and uses for which they were designed; as well as performing many wonderful things in them out of the ordinary course of nature, as did our Lord, or as were done when he was here on earth: a wonderful star appeared in the heavens, which guided the wise men to the place of his birth; unusual voices were heard from heaven at his baptism, transfiguration, and other times; the Spirit, with his extraordinary gifts, descended from hence after his ascension thither: surprising miracles were done by him on earth; the great work of redemption was finished here, where he glorified his divine Father; and throughout it he sent his apostles to publish his everlasting Gospel.

Psalm 135:6 . Whatsoever the Lord pleased — Either in the creation or government of the world; that did he in heaven and in earth — His power and jurisdiction are universal, and not like those of the heathen gods, confined, as their worshippers allowed, to their several countries; in the seas, and all deep places — In the visible seas, and in the invisible depths, both of the earth and of the waters. Here, then, the psalmist evinces the pre-eminence of Jehovah above the gods of the nations, by this consideration, that he at the beginning “created and formed those powers of nature whose operations in the heavens, the earth, and the waters, led the heathen world, after it had lost the knowledge of the Creator, to adore the creature as independent.”

Verse 6. - Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he (comp. Psalm 115:3 ). God's power is only limited by his own attributes of truth and goodness. He cannot contradict his own reason, or his own moral qualities. Otherwise he can do anything and everything. In heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places. This is intended as a complete division of space: (1) the heavens above the earth; (2) the earth and seas, in the middle sphere; and (3) the abysses, or depths below the earth, as far as they can be conceived of as extending. Psalm 135:6

Whatsoever the Lord pleased, either in, the creation or government of them, that did he in heaven and in earth; his power and jurisdiction is universal, and not like that of the heathen gods, which is confined to their several countries. In the seas, and all deep places; in the visible seas, and in those invisible depths, both of earth, and of the waters which are contained in the bowels of the earth.

6 . Whatsoever Jehovah pleased hath he done, In heaven, and in earth, in the seas and all deeps. The first line is identical with Psalm 115:3 b : the second is based on Exodus 20:4 . The deeps are “the waters under the earth,” the subterranean abyss of waters on which the earth was thought to rest. Cp. Psalm 24:2 ; Psalm 136:6 .

Whatsoever the Lord pleased - God is an absolute sovereign. He has formed a plan, and has carried it out. He has made the world as he chose, and he has ordered all its arrangements according to his own pleasure. As a universal sovereign, he has a right to universal adoration. See the notes at Psalm 115:3 . In heaven, and in earth ... - These are put for the universe; these are the universe. In these places - in all worlds - on the land and in the ocean - even in the profound depths of the sea, there is nothing which has not been placed there by his will, and which he has not arranged according to his eternal plan.

The praise itself now begins. כּי in Psalm 135:4 set forth the ground of the pleasant duty, and the כי that begins this strophe confirms that which warrants the summons out of the riches of the material existing for such a hymn of praise. Worthy is He to be praised, for Israel knows full well that He who hath chosen it is the God of gods. The beginning is taken from Psalm 115:3 , and Psalm 135:7 from Jeremiah 10:13 ( Psalm 51:16 ). Heaven, earth, and water are the three kingdoms of created things, as in Exodus 20:4 . נשׂיא signifies that which is lifted up, ascended; here, as in Jeremiah, a cloud. The meaning of בּרקים למּטר עשׂה is not: He makes lightnings into rain, i.e., resolves them as it were into rain, which is unnatural; but either according to Zechariah 10:1 : He produces lightnings in behalf of rain, in order that the rain may pour down in consequence of the thunder and lightning, or poetically: He makes lightnings for the rain, so that the rain is announced (Apollinaris) and accompanied by them. Instead of מוצא (cf. Psalm 78:16 ; Psalm 105:43 ), which does not admit of the retreating of the tone, the expression is מוצא, the ground-form of the part. Hiph. for plurals like מחצרים, מחלמים, מעזרים, perhaps not without being influenced by the ויּוצא in Jeremiah, for it is not מוצא from מצא that signifies "producing," but מוציא equals מפיק. The metaphor of the treasuries is like Job 38:22 .