Psalm 74:17

Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(17) All the borders of the earth—i.e., earth in all directions, and to its utmost bounds; as we say, “from pole to pole.”

Benson Commentary

Psalm 74:17. Thou hast set all the borders of the earth — Thou hast fixed the bounds, both of the habitable world in general, so that the seas, though they do encompass and assault them, yet are not, and never shall be, able to remove them, and of all the countries and people upon earth, whom thou hast confined within such bounds as thou hast seen fit. Thou hast made summer and winter — As the former clause of the verse shows God’s power and government over all places, so this displays his dominion over all times and seasons. And both together are fitly alleged as a motive to God, that he would, at this time, take care of his poor people, and restore them to their ancient land and borders, in which he had been pleased to set them.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

74:12-17 The church silences her own complaints. What God had done for his people, as their King of old, encouraged them to depend on him. It was the Lord's doing, none besides could do it. This providence was food to faith and hope, to support and encourage in difficulties. The God of Israel is the God of nature. He that is faithful to his covenant about the day and the night, will never cast off those whom he has chosen. We have as much reason to expect affliction, as to expect night and winter. But we have no more reason to despair of the return of comfort, than to despair of day and summer. And in the world above we shall have no more changes.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Thou hast set all the borders of the earth - Thou hast established all the boundaries of the world; that is, the boundaries of the earth itself; or the natural bonndaries of nations and people, made by seas, mountains, rivers, and deserts. The language in regard to the first of these - the earth itself - would be derived from the prevalent mode of speaking, as if the earth were a plane, and had limits - a common mode of expression in the Scriptures, as it is in all ancient writings, and in the common language of men, even of philosophers. In regard to the latter idea, the language would imply that God had fixed, by his own power and will, all the natural boundaries of nations, or that his dominion is over all the earth. There are natural boundaries, or arrangements in nature, which tend to break up the one great family of man into separate nations, and which seem to have been designed for that. Compare Acts 17:26. Over all these God presides, and he has his own great plans to accomplish by the arrangement.

Thou hast made summer and winter - literally, as in the margin, "Summer and winter, thou hast made them." That is, he has so made the earth that these various seasons will occur. The fact that there are different seasons of the year, or that the year is divided into seasons, is to be traced to the agency of God. He has so made the world that these changes will take place. Nothing is the result of chance; all things in the arrangements of nature are by his design.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

16, 17. The fixed orders of nature and bounds of earth are of God.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast fixed the bounds, both of the habitable world in general; so as the seas, though they do encompass and assault them, yet they shall never be able to remove them; and of all the countries and people upon earth, whom thou hast confined to such bounds as thou seest fit. And as this clause of the verse showeth God’s power and government over all places, so the next clause displays his dominion over all times and seasons; and both together are, fitly alleged as a motive to God, that he would at this time take care of his poor people, and restore them to their ancient land and borders, in which he had been pleased to set them.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Thou hast set all the borders of the earth,.... Of the whole world, and each of the nations, as of the land of Canaan, so of others, Deuteronomy 32:8, and even has fixed and settled the bounds of every man's habitation, Acts 17:26,

thou hast made summer and winter; see Genesis 8:22, which, taken literally, are great benefits to the world; and, figuratively understood, may represent the two dispensations of the law and Gospel; see Sol 2:11, and the different frames of God's people when under temptations, and clouds, and darkness, and when they enjoy peace and comfort; and the different state of the church, when affected with affliction, persecution, false doctrine, deadness, and formality, which is now greatly the case; but there is a summer coming, when it will be otherwise; see Luke 21:30.

Geneva Study Bible

Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

17. the borders of the earth] The divisions of land and sea (Psalm 104:9; Job 38:8 ff.; Jeremiah 5:22), and the apportionment of the land among the nations (Deuteronomy 32:8; Acts 17:26).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 17. - Thou hast set all the borders of the earth. The "borders of the earth" are the boundaries of land and sea, which are ascribed to God in Genesis 1:9 (comp. Job 26:10; Job 38:8; Psalm 33:7; Proverbs 8:29; Jeremiah 5:22). Thou hast made summer and winter; literally, summer and winter thou didst form them; i.e. they are the result of thy arrangement of creation. Psalm 74:17

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

With this prayer for the destruction of the enemies by God's interposition closes the first half of the Psalm, which has for its subject-matter the crying contradiction between the present state of things and God's relationship to Israel. The poet now draws comfort by looking back into the time when God as Israel's King unfolded the rich fulness of His salvation everywhere upon the earth, where Israel's existence was imperilled. בּקרב הארץ, not only within the circumference of the Holy Land, but, e.g., also within that of Egypt (Exodus 8:18-22). The poet has Egypt directly in his mind, for there now follows first of all a glance at the historical (Psalm 74:13-15), and then at the natural displays of God's power (Psalm 74:16, Psalm 74:17). Hengstenberg is of opinion that Psalm 74:13-15 also are to be understood in the latter sense, and appeals to Job 26:11-13. But just as Isaiah (Isaiah 51:9, cf. Psalm 27:1) transfers these emblems of the omnipotence of God in the natural world to His proofs of power in connection with the history of redemption which were exhibited in the case of a worldly power, so does the poet here also in Psalm 74:13-15. The תּנּיּן (the extended saurian) is in Isaiah, as in Ezekiel (התּנּים, Psalm 29:3; Psalm 32:2), an emblem of Pharaoh and of his kingdom; in like manner here the leviathan is the proper natural wonder of Egypt. As a water-snake or a crocodile, when it comes up with its head above the water, is killed by a powerful stroke, did God break the heads of the Egyptians, so that the sea cast up their dead bodies (Exodus 14:30). The ציּים, the dwellers in the steppe, to whom these became food, are not the Aethiopians (lxx, Jerome), or rather the Ichthyophagi (Bocahrt, Hengstenberg), who according to Agatharcides fed ἐκ τῶν ἐκριπτομένων εἰς τὴν χέρσον κητῶν, but were no cannibals, but the wild beasts of the desert, which are called עם, as in Proverbs 30:25. the ants and the rock-badgers. לציים is a permutative of the notion לעם, which was not completed: to a (singular) people, viz., to the wild animals of the steppe. Psalm 74:15 also still refers not to miracles of creation, but to miracles wrought in the course of the history of redemption; Psalm 74:15 refers to the giving of water out of the rock (Psalm 78:15), and Psalm 74:15 to the passage through the Jordan, which was miraculously dried up (הובשׁתּ, as in Joshua 2:10; Joshua 4:23; Joshua 5:1). The object מעין ונחל is intended as referring to the result: so that the water flowed out of the cleft after the manner of a fountain and a brook. נהרות are the several streams of the one Jordan; the attributive genitive איתן describe them as streams having an abundance that does not dry up, streams of perennial fulness. The God of Israel who has thus marvellously made Himself known in history is, however, the Creator and Lord of all created things. Day and night and the stars alike are His creatures. In close connection with the night, which is mentioned second, the moon, the מאור of the night, precedes the sun; cf. Psalm 8:4, where כּונן is the same as הכין in this passage. It is an error to render thus: bodies of light, and more particularly the sun; which would have made one expect מאורות before the specializing Waw. גּבוּלות are not merely the bounds of the land towards the sea, Jeremiah 5:22, but, according to Deuteronomy 32:8; Acts 17:26, even the boundaries of the land in themselves, that is to say, the natural boundaries of the inland country. קיץ וחרף are the two halves of the year: summer including spring (אביב), which begins in Nisan, the spring-month, about the time of the vernal equinox, and autumn including winter (צתו), after the termination of which the strictly spring vegetation begins (Sol 2:11). The seasons are personified, and are called God's formations or works, as it were the angels of summer and of winter.