Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 147:17
He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold?
17. his ice like morsels ] Hail, like fragments or crumbs of bread.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
He casteth forth his ice like morsels – The word rendered morsels means properly a bit, a crumb, as of bread, Gen 18:5; Jdg 19:5. The allusion here would seem to be to hail, which God sends upon the earth as easily as one scatters crumbs of bread from the hand.
Who can stand before his cold? – Or, hail. The word is the same, except in pointing, as the preceding word rendered ice. The idea is that no one can stand before the peltings of the hail, when God sends it forth, or scatters it upon the earth.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 147:17
Who can stand before His cold?
His cold
In former days religious people were too much given to introducing the Deity directly into the workings of nature and the movements of history. The consequence was, that our forefathers made the Creator responsible for details, rather than for great leading principles and modes of action. In these last days there has been a marked recoil among thoughtful people from the old ideal. In certain intellectual quarters some have even gone to the other extreme; and, as usually happens in extremes, these cultured people of to-day have dropped into as great errors as their less cultured predecessors. As they represent Deity oftentimes, it would seem as if they had divorced Him from both nature and history; so that it is impossible to discover where His operation comes in, if it comes in at all. In the rich religious light of to-day it ought to be possible surely to bow before a God walking in the dignity of infinitely wise laws, and working in the silent majesty of infinite power; but also thinking, feeling, loving, in the interest of creatures on whom He has conferred a dignity first among living things.
I. His cold as a symbol of power. The power that can, in a few hours, bridge over the mightiest rivers with a pavement secure and stable, in strength and smoothness surpassing far the grandest of engineering feats; the power that can split up the rocks of the mountains, like cordwood under the axe of the feller; the power that can laugh at all known human powers, or forces arrayed against it; that must surely be a fit emblem of Him who sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and before whom the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers–Him who weigheth the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance. May we have the true religious vision to see Him, and the ear to hear His voice.
II. The wisdom displayed in His cold. Water alone among bodies expands under cold. That anomaly explains how a small quantity of water getting deep down into the crevices of a mountain will, on freezing, split up its adamantine rocks as easily as a child sunders the petals of a buttercup. It explains why ice floats and does not sink; why the clayey soils so retentive of moisture are pulverized in winter, and made ready for the harrow in spring; why myriads of insects secreted in the soil are killed off in the torpid state where their parents thought they had found a secure nest for them against the rigours of the cold; and why cold is the best disinfectant if it be intense enough–destroying instantly the germs of disease as they appear in decaying vegetation, or foul garbage, or in impure drainage. What foul and hurtful thing can stand before His cold? The greatest blessing of all, however, is to be seen in the freezing of the flowing river. Because water expands under cold its specific gravity diminishes in the process of freezing, and so frozen water floats upon the unfrozen and heavier water below. By that means the ice-pavement is formed, which, on the one hand, is of immense value both to animals and man, and, on the other, preserves for the finny tribes their natural habitat intact.
III. The goodness of His cold. That standing exception of water alone expanding under cold, while other bodies contract, is not the least of many clear tokens of our almighty, all-wise Fathers care and goodness in the operation of His cold. Indeed, we might call it the greatest material blessing we can enjoy in that connection, for it is essential to our very existence. Still, after all, it is in the spiritual blessings which the material blessings suggest that the best blessing lies for devout souls. What stimulus to our spiritual nature in the contemplation of the Deity putting forth His mighty power and exercising His mighty mind to protect and provide for His creatures, as well as to expand and elevate their thoughts by the grandeur of His power in the works of His providence.
III. The method of His cold. Silently in the stilly night, under the jewelled canopy of heaven, a giants hand is laid upon rippling stream and solid land. Then, without the slightest sound of contending forces, or cry of pain, the vastest display of power under the mighty heaven is presented to thoughtful mortals, when the morning breaks, and eager life, awaking to its daily toil, finds the throne of the ice-king set up once again. What need we more impressive to inform us of a present divinity than such a feat of Divine workmanship? What a sublime consistency in work proclaiming abroad the sublime worker! All silent might; resistless power revelling in silence. What a lesson here also of the Divine majesty! No noisy demonstration in His grandest works; no straining after effect; no giant-like effort to secure success. In all His wide dominion self-confident, self-possessed, and modest, the great God marches silently through all the seasons working wonders as He goes. (J. E. Hill, B. D.)
Who can stand before His cold?
Not we, say the frozen lips of Sir John Franklin and his men, dying in Arctic exploration. Not we, answer Schwatka and his crew, falling back from the fortresses of ice which they had tried in vain to capture. Not we, say the abandoned and crushed decks of the Intrepid, the Resistance, and the Jeannette. The highest pillars of the earth are pillars of ice–Mont Blanc, Jungfrau, the Matterhorn. The largest galleries of the world are galleries of ice. Some of the mighty rivers are at this moment lying in captivity of ice. The greatest sculptors of the ages are the glaciers, with their arm and hand and chisel and hammer of ice. The cold is imperial, and has a crown of glittering crystal and is seated on a throne of ice, with a footstool of ice and sceptre of ice. One-half of the industries of our day are employed in battling the inclemency of the weather. The furs of the North, the cotton of the South, the flax of our own fields, the wool of our own flocks, the coal from our own mines, the wood from our own forests, all employed in battling these inclemencies, and still every January, with blue lips and chattering teeth, answers, None of us can stand before His cold. I am glad that the God of the frosts is the God of the heat; that the God of the snow is the God of the white blossoms; that the God of January is the God of June. The question as to how shall we warm this world up is a question of immense and all-encompassing practicality. In this zone and weather there are so many fireless hearths, so many broken window panes, so many defective roofs that sift the snow. Coal and wood and flannels and thick coats are better for warming up such a place than tracts and Bibles and creeds. Kindle that fire where it has gone out. Wrap something around those shivering limbs. Shoe those bare feet. Hat that bare head. Coat that bare back. Sleeve that bare arm. It is useless to preach to bare feet, and to empty stomachs, and to gaunt visages. Christ gave the world a lesson in common sense when, before preaching the Gospel to the multitude in the wilderness, He gave them a good dinner. It is the powerful heater–is the glorious furnace of Christian sympathy. The question ought to be, instead of how much heat can we absorb? how much beat can we throw out? Warm greeting, warm prayers, warm smiles, warm Christian influence. There are such persons. We bless God for them. We rejoice in their companionship. I have been for twenty-seven years studying how to make the Church warmer. Warmer architecture, warmer hymnology, warmer Christian salutation. All outside Siberian winter, we must have it a princes hothouse. The only institution on earth to-day that proposes to make the world warmer. Universities and observatories, they all have their work. They propose to make the world light, but they do not propose to make the world warm. Geology informs us, but it is as cold as the rock it hammers. The telescope shows where the other worlds are, but an astronomer is chilled while looking through it. Chemistry tells us of strange combinations, and how inferior affinity may be overcome by superior affinity; but it cannot tell how all things work together for good. Worldly philosophy has a great splendour, but it is the splendour of moonlight on an iceberg. The Church of God proposes warmth and hope–warmth for the expectations, warmth for the sympathies. Oh, I am so glad these great altar fires have been kindled I Come in out of the cold. Come in, and have your sins pardoned. Come in by the great Gospel fire-place. That is the way the cold world is going to be warmed up by the great Gospel fire-place. All nations will come and sit down at that banquet. While I was musing the fire burned. Come in out of the cold, come in out of the cold! (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 17. He casteth forth his ice] korcho, (probably hailstones,) like crumbs.
Who can stand before his cold?] At particular times the cold in the east is so very intense as to kill man and beast. Jacobus de Vitriaco, one of the writers in the Gesta Dei per Francos, says, that in an expedition in which he was engaged against Mount Tabor, on the 24th of December, the cold was so intense that many of the poor people, and the beasts of burden, died by it. And Albertus Aquensis, another of these writers, speaking of the cold in Judea, says, that thirty of the people who attended Baldwin I. in the mountainous districts near the Dead Sea, were killed by it; and that in that expedition they had to contend with horrible hail and ice, with unheard-of snow and rain. From this we find that the winters are often very severe in Judea; and in such cases as the above, we may well call out, “Who can stand against his cold!”
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
His ice; either,
1. Pieces of ice, which God may be said to
cast forth, or to cast down, because he sendeth it, and ofttimes suddenly; or,
2. Great hailstones, which are of an icy nature and substance, and which are very properly
cast forth or cast down out of the clouds, and that like morsels or fragments, the particles being congealed in them.
His cold; the cold which he sometimes sends into the air is so sharp, that it would be intolerable, if men did not defend themselves from it by houses, clothes, fire, &c.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
17. morselsused as to food(Ge 18:5), perhaps here denoteshail.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
He casteth forth his ice like morsels,…. Divided like morsels, as the Targum; cut into pieces, like morsels of bread. This seems to have respect to hail stones, which sometimes fall like pieces of ice, and are very prejudicial to the fruits of the earth: this was one of the ten plagues of Egypt; and whereby also many of the Canaanites were destroyed in the times of Joshua, Ex 9:23; and there is an exceeding great storm of hail yet to come, very dreadful; see Re 16:21. This is expressive of the wrath, vengeance, and judgments of God upon men, by which he is known in various perfections of his nature; as his power, justice, and holiness, for which he is celebrated, Isa 30:30;
who can stand before his cold? which he has purposed and promised shall be; for he has said, that “cold and heat [shall not] cease, [as long as] the earth remains”; and which he appoints and orders to be, for “by the breath of God frost is given”, Ge 8:22; and this is sometimes and in some places so very vehement, that it is intolerable; men are obliged to keep within doors, to make them fires, and put on more clothes; and the “hands” of every man are sealed up from business; even “the beasts go into [their] dens, [and] remain in their places”, or get what shelter they can; see Job 37:7. And if there is no standing before his cold, who can stand before the heat of his anger, or his furious wrath and indignation, when it is poured out like fire? see Ps 76:7.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(17) Morsels.Or, crumbs. (Gen. 18:5; Jdg. 19:5.) Doubtless the allusion is to hail.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 147:17 He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold?
Ver. 17. He casteth forth his ice like morsels ] Or, shivers of bread. It is a witty saying of one from this text: The ice is bread, the rain is drink, the snow is wool, the frost a fire to the earth, causing it inwardly to glow with heat; teaching us what to do for God’s poor.
Who can stand before his cold
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
casteth: Psa 78:47, Psa 78:48, Exo 9:23-25, Jos 10:11, Job 38:22, Job 38:23
who can stand: Job 38:29, Job 38:30