Commentary on Psalms Volume 3 John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
though varying its course every diurnal revolution, returns annually to the same point. The planets, in all their wanderings, maintain their respective positions. How could the earth hang suspended in the air were it not upheld by God's hand? By what means could it maintain itself unmoved, while the heavens above are in constant rapid motion, did not its Divine Maker fix and establish it? Accordingly the particle,אףaph, denoting emphasis, is introduced — Yea, he hath established it.
2 Thy throne is stable Some read, is prepared, and this agrees well with the context. provided we take the two clauses as one sentence, meaning — O Lord, as thou art from eternity, even so thy throne is erected or prepared from that time For the sense which some have attached to the words, as if they contained a simple assertion of God's eternity, is poor; and the Psalmist evidently intends to say that as God is eternal in essence, so he has always been invested with power and majesty. The term throne signifies, by the figure synecdoche, righteousness, and office or power of government; it being customary to transfer such images taken from men to God, in accommodation to our infirmity. 4 By this ascription of praise the Psalmist effectually disposes of all the absurd ideas which have been broached, tending to deny or disparage the power of God, and declares, upon the matter, that God may sooner cease to be, than to sit upon his throne in the government of this world.
Psalm 93:3-5
3. The floods have lifted up, O Jehovah! the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods shall lift up their waves. 4. The waves 5 of the sea are terrible, by reason of the noise of great waters, Jehovah is
"Selon que ces similitudes-ci prinses des hommes ont de coustume d'estre appropriees a Dieu, pour le regard et la portee de nostre infirmite." — Fr.
The Hebrew word,משבריmishberey, here used for waves, means "waves" that "beat" against the shore or each other, and so are "broken," — "breakers." Accordingly, Mant translates, "Strong the breakers tossing high." Horsley gives a similar version. He reads the third and fourth verses thus, —
3. "The floods, O Jehovah! Raised The floods raised their voice; The floods lifted up their waves, With the sound of many waters. 4. Mighty are the breakers of the seal; Mighty on High is Jehovah!"
As to the fourth line, "With the sound of many waters," he observes, "This is the first line of the fourth, but should be joined to the third verse. And are not the floods here mentioned, the fluids of the indigested chaos, in wild irregular agitation, before the Creator had reduced it to form and order? Or rather, may they not be mystical, — the tumults of the rebellious people?"