Psalm 119:91

We continue working our way through the octave of Psalm 119 entitled Lamed.  The verse we take up today is another of the four verses of this psalm in which none of the ten words occur that are used in it to refer to the Scriptures.  Nevertheless, the verse coheres with the overall theme of Psalm 119 extolling the written word of God.

Psalms 119:91  They continue this day according to thine ordinances: for all are thy servants.

In order to understand this verse we first need to determine the antecedents of the third person plural pronoun they, which is the first word of the verse.  The antecedents to this pronoun are the words heaven in verse 89 and earth in verse 90.  Heaven and earth continue this day according to God’s ordinances.

When we dealt with verse 89, we wrote of the word heaven as it refers to God’s abode, where the risen Saviour, the holy angels, and the departed saints reside.  However, the word heaven also refers to the firmament that God made on the second day.

Genesis 1:8  And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. 

This heaven includes outer space, where the sun, moon, and stars are located, and the earth’s atmosphere, where the birds fly.

Genesis 1:14  And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15  And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16  And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

Genesis 1:20  And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

With this information before us, we can begin to delve into today’s verse.  The heaven, or the firmament, and the earth continue this day according to thine ordinances.  God’s ordinances are His orders, His decrees as to how things are to be done, how things are to function.  The heaven and the earth function even to this day according to ordinances that God has appointed for them.  These ordinances are mentioned in the following passages:

Jeremiah 31:35  Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name:

36  If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.

Jeremiah 33:25  Thus saith the LORD; If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth;

26  Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them.

It is owing to the ordinances of God that we have day and night, that we have the four seasons, and that the raging sea can only go so far.  These things all function as they do because God has given them a decree that they obey.

Genesis 8:22  While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

Job 38:8  Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?

9  When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddlingband for it,

10  And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors,

11  And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?

So heaven and earth obey the ordinances God has given them.  They do so for all are thy servants.  Sun, moon, stars, skies, seas, yea, all nature are the servants of God fulfilling His decrees.  When you consider the regular motions of the sun, the moon, the earth, and the planets in space according to God’s word which ordered them, you see that God’s word is indeed settled in heaven.  And because heaven and earth obey these ordinances of their Maker, man can go about his activities with some degree of predictability.  He can rise in the morning, sow his fields, anticipate the harvest, schedule his activities, and retire at night.  Imagine the chaos that would occur if the heaven and the earth did not obey God’s ordinances.  We would not know when it might be day or night.  We could never be sure how to dress for the day since the weather would be so erratic.  Harvests would be unpredictable or not at all.  The waters might overwhelm the entire earth once again.  Thank God heaven and earth serve their Maker as He has appointed.  And because they serve their Maker so faithfully, man is provided for.

“Say not, my soul, ‘From whence

Can God relieve my care?’

Remember, that Omnipotence

Has servants everywhere.”  Thomas T. Lynch    

And notice in the above passages from Jeremiah how God draws an analogy between the constancy of the ordinances of heaven and earth and His promise to preserve His people.  Any promise we read in our Bible is as stedfast as those ordinances.  Therefore, the thought of today’s verse regarding the constancy of the ordinances of heaven and earth extends out to the constancy of every word of God.  That is why I say that this verse coheres with the overall theme of Psalm 119 extolling the written word of God. 

It is also interesting that the word ordinances is another word the Lord uses to refer to the commandments of His written word.  The same God that has decreed how the heaven and earth should behave has also decreed how we should behave (2Chronicles 33:8; 1Corinthians 11:2).

But how nature shames sinful man who defies the ordinances God has given him to obey!  James Neil commenting on this verse wrote the following words:

“Wilful man may dare to defy his Maker, and set at nought his wise and merciful commands; but not so all nature besides.  Well, indeed, is it for us that his other works have not erred after the pattern of our rebellion; that seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, with all their accompanying provision, have not ceased!  To the precepts imposed upon vegetation when first called into being on creation’s third day, it still yields implicit submission, and the tenderest plant will die rather than transgress.  What an awful contrast to this is the conduct of man, God’s noblest work, endowed with reason and a never-dying soul, yet too often ruining his health, wasting and destroying his mental power, defiling his immortal spirit, and, in a word, madly endeavouring to frustrate every purpose for which he was framed.”

I would like to close with a quote from Charles Spurgeon drawing from the thoughts of the first three verses of this octave:  “By that word which is settled may we be settled; by that voice which establishes the earth may we be established; and by that command which all created things obey may we be made the servants of the Lord God Almighty.”  To which I add, “May God grant it in Jesus’ name.  Amen.”