Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 104:25

[So is] this great and wide sea, wherein [are] things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.

25. So is this great and wide sea ] R.V. rightly, Yonder is the sea, great and wide. It would almost seem as if the sea lay stretched before the Psalmist’s gaze as he composed his poem. Dean Stanley has pointed out that all the natural features of the Psalm are in sight from the cedar grove of Lebanon ( Sermons in the East, p. 217).

things creeping ] Or, things moving; cp. Gen 1:21; Psa 69:34. The word (used in Psa 104:20 of the stealthy movement of animals in quest of their prey) is not limited to reptiles properly so called. It may refer either to land animals or water animals, or may include both.

both small and great beasts ] Living creatures, both small and great.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

So is this great and wide sea … – Our translation here does not quite express the beauty and the force of the original; This sea! Great and broad of hands! There is the creeping thing – and there is no number; animals – the little with the great. The reference here is, undoubtedly to the Mediterranean Sea, which not improbably was in sight when the psalm was composed – as it is in sight not only along the coast, but from many of the elevations in Palestine. The phrase wide of hands applied to the sea, means that it seems to stretch out in all directions. Compare the notes at Isa 33:21. The creeping things refer to the variety of inhabitants of the deep that glide along as if they crept. See the notes at Psa 104:20. The word beasts refers to any of the inhabitants of the deep, and the idea is that there is an endless variety there. This reflection cannot but impress itself on the mind of anyone when looking on the ocean: What a countless number, and what a vast variety of inhabitants are there in these waters – all created by God; all provided for by his bounty!

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Psa 104:25

So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable.

The seas inhabitants

Since the psalmists days our knowledge of the grandeur of the seas, and of their marvellous fulness of life, has been vastly extended. The discovery of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans made the Mediterranean, that seemed to him a great and wide sea, a little inland lake. Modern science has explored all the waters of the earth, and revealed to us the wonderful forms that exist even at the most enormous depths in the sunless abysses. The last great Challenger Expedition round the globe brought home treasures of knowledge, and opened up new fields of speculation, which have engaged the profound interest of naturalists ever since. Recent years have made us almost as familiar with the productions of the deep as with those of the dry land, and have taught us that there is no field so rich in illustrations of the Divine wisdom and power as the great and wide sea. Fishes as a class partake of the grace of the waters. They are adapted to its motions. They are moulded by its requirements. A ship is built to suit the conditions of its home on the mighty deep, and is therefore the most compact and well ordered of mans works. And so a fish has the most exquisite adaptation and concentration. Fishes are in the sea what birds are in the air, amongst the most elegant of Gods creatures. They have similar beauty of colour and shape, and exhibit the same wonderful provisions and contrivances of Divine skill. (H. Macmillan, D.D.)

Life in ocean depths

It used to be an axiom that there was no life in the sea beyond a certain limit of a few hundred feet. It was learnedly and conclusively demonstrated that pressure and absence of light, and I know not what beside, made life at greater depths impossible. It was proved that in such conditions creatures could not live. And then, when that was settled, the Challenger put down her dredge five miles, and brought up healthy and good-sized living things with eyes in their heads, from that enormous depth. So, then the savant had to ask, how can there be life? instead of asserting there cannot be; and, no doubt, the answer will be forthcoming some day. We have all been too much accustomed to draw arbitrary limits to the diffusion of the life of Christ among men. Let us rather rejoice when we see forms of beauty, which bear the mark of His hand, drawn from depths that we deemed waste, and thankfully confess that the bounds of our expectation, and the framework of our institutions, do not confine the breadth of His working, nor the sweep of His grace. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 25. This great and wide sea] The original is very emphatic: zeh haiyam gadol urechab yadayim, “This very sea, great and extensive of hands.” Its waters, like arms, encompassing all the terrene parts of the globe. I suppose the psalmist was within sight of the Mediterranean when he wrote these words.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Creeping: this word is common to all creatures that move without feet, touching with their belly the element in which they move, whether they creep upon the earth or swim in the sea.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

So is this great and wide sea,…. One of the great and manifold works of God, made in his wisdom, and full of his riches and possessions, as the earth is; this is that collection of waters which God called seas, Ge 1:10 and is, as Kimchi observes, great in length, and wide and spacious in breadth; or “broad of hands” i, as in the original; or spacious in borders, as the Targum; it washing the several parts of the continent, and encompassing and embracing the whole earth with both arms as it were. Nor is it unusual with other writers to call the sea the great sea k, and to speak of an arm or arms of the sea l, as we do. Isidore says m, the great sea is that which flows out of the ocean from the west, and goes to the south, and then to the north, called so in comparison of other seas that are less, and is the Mediterranean sea, This is an emblem of the world, which may be compared to the sea for the multitude of nations and people in it, as numerous as the waves of the sea; for the temper of the inhabitants of it, being like the troubled sea, restless and uneasy, casting up the mire of dirt and sin; and for the instability of it, and the fluctuating state and condition of all things in it.

Wherein are things creeping innumerable; so that it seems there are reptiles in the water as well as on land; and indeed every creature without feet, and that goes upon its belly, in the element where it is, whether earth or water, is a creeping thing; of these swimming or creeping things the number is exceeding great, especially of the latter sort; fishes increasing much more than the beasts of the earth. Their species are innumerable; so their kinds or sorts are reckoned up by some one hundred and forty four n, by others one hundred and fifty three o, and by others one hundred and seventy six p; the Malabarians reckon, up 900,000 fishes, and 1,100,000 creeping things q. These are an emblem of the common people of the world, which are innumerable; see Hab 1:14.

Both small and great beasts; for there are creatures in the seas which answer to those on the dry land, both of the lesser and greater sort, as sea lions, sea horses, sea cows, sea hogs, c. these may represent the rulers and governors of the world, supreme and subordinate it is no unusual thing for great monarchies, and persons of great power and authority, to be signified by beasts rising out of the sea, Da 7:3.

i “latum manibus”, Montanus; “spatiosum manibus”, V. L. “amplum manibus”, Vatablus. k Virgil. Aeneid. 5. Lucretius, l. 6. l “Veluti par divexum in mare brachium transitum tentaturus”, Liv. Hist. l. 44. c. 35. “Nec brachia longos” &c. Ovid. Metamorph. l. 1. Fab. 1. v. 13, 14. m Origin. l. 13. c. 16. n Origin. l. 12. c. 6. o Oppianus in Halienticis. Vid. Hieron. in Ezek. 47. fol. 260. p Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 32. c. 11. q Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 4. p. 963.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

25. Great is this sea, and wide in extent After having treated of the evidences which the earth affords of the glory of God, the prophet goes down into the sea, and teaches us that it is a new mirror in which may be beheld the divine power and wisdom. Although the sea were not inhabited by fishes, yet the mere view of its vastness would excite our wonder, especially when at one time it swells with the winds and tempests, while at another it is calm and unruffled. Again, although navigation is an art which has been acquired by the skill of men, yet it depends on the providence of God, who has granted to men a passage through the mighty deep. But the abundance and variety of fishes enhance in no small degree the glory of God in the sea. Of these the Psalmist celebrates especially the leviathan or the whale (196) because this animal, though there were no more, presents to our view a sufficient, yea, more than a sufficient, proof of the dreadful power of God, and for the same reason, we have a lengthened account of it in the book of Job. As its movements not only throw the sea into great agitation, but also strike with alarm the hearts of men, the prophet, by the word sport, intimates that these its movements are only sport in respect of God; as if he had said, The sea is given to the leviathans, as a field in which to exercise themselves.

(196) The leviathan, which is described at large in Job 40:0., is now generally understood by commentators to be not the whale, but the crocodile, an inhabitant of the Nile. That it should here be numbered with the marine animals, need not surprise us, as the object of the divine poet is merely to display the kingdom of the watery world. Of these wide domains the sea of the Nile forms, in his view, a part. “ ים transfertur ad omnia flumina majora. Est igitur in specie Nilus. Jes. 19, 5; Nab. 3, 8.” — Sire. Lex. Heb. — See volume 3, page 175, note 1.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(25) So is . . .Better, Yonder is the sea great and broad. For a moment the poet, lost in wonder, love and praise, has forgotten his model, the Mosaic account of creation. But suddenly, as his eye catches sight of the seawe imagine him on some hill-top, commanding on the one hand the range of Lebanon, on the other the Mediterraneanthe words recur to him, Let the waters bring forth abundantly, &c

Creeping.See Psa. 104:20. Perhaps here, swarming.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

25. This great and wide sea “The words,” says Delitzsch, “properly signify that sea, yonder sea.” In speaking of it the psalmist advances to the fifth day’s work, (Gen 1:20-22,) and views it as a world of living creatures, and as a path of commerce.

Creeping Moving or gliding.

Beasts Living creatures.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments