the sky (as aloft · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
heavens
שָׁ֭מַיִםSha.ma.yim
H8064
the sky (as aloft · noun, common masculine plural absolute
LORD’s
לַיהוָ֑הla.Yah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · preposition + proper noun, a title
earth
וְ֝הָאָ֗רֶץve.ha.'A.retz
H776
the earth (at large · conjunction + definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
given
נָתַ֥ןna.Tan
H5414
to give · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
children
לִבְנֵיliv.nei-
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct
men
אָדָֽם'a.Dam
H120
ruddy i.e. a human being (an individual or the species · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 8:6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:
Psalms 89:11 The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine: as for the world and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them.
Genesis 1:28-30 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the…
Jeremiah 27:5-6 I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto…
Genesis 9:1-3 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
Deuteronomy 32:8 When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according t…
Psalms 144:5 Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.
Isaiah 66:1 Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the plac…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 115:9–end
In these verses,
I. We are earnestly exhorted, all of us, to repose our confidence in God, and not suffer our confidence in him to be shaken by the heathens' insulting over us upon the account of our present distresses. It is folly to trust in dead images, but it is wisdom to trust in the living God, for he is a help and a shield to those that do trust in them, a help to furnish them with and forward them in that which is good, and a shield to fortify them against and protect them from every thing that is evil. Therefore, 1. Let Israel trust in the Lord; the body of the people, as to their public interests, and every particular Israelite, as to his own private concerns, let them leave it to…
The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's,.... Not only the visible heavens, the airy and starry regions, which are within our sight; but the heaven of heavens, the third heaven, into which the Apostle Paul was caught, and heard and saw things not to be uttered; and which is, as the Targum expresses it,
"for the majesty of the glory of the Lord:''
he is the maker, owner, proprietor, and possessor of them all: but the third heaven is more especially the seat of his majesty; where he has prepared the throne of his glory, where he keeps court; where his ministers, his angels, wait upon him, observe his orders, and execute his will; and which he has prepared for his saints to dwell with him…
Psalm 115:16-18
16. The heavens, the heavens are Jehovah's: but the earth he hath given to the children of men. 17. O God! the dead shall not praise thee, nor those who go down to silence. 18. But we will bless God from this time, and for ever. Praise ye Jehovah.
16 The heavens, the heavens are Jehovah's In this passage the prophet extols the bounty of God, and his paternal regard for the human race, in that, though he stood in need of nothing himself, he yet created the world, with all its fullness, for their use. How comes it to pass that the earth is every where covered with such a great variety of good things, meeting our eye in all directions, unless that God, as a provident father of…
The Church Fathers
Rightly, therefore, does he who is intent on cleansing our heart follow up what He has said with a precept, where He says: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." If, therefore, the heart be on earth, i.e. if one perform anything with a heart bent on obtaining earthly advantage, how will that heart be clean which wallows on earth? But if it be in heaven, it will be clean, because whatever things are heavenly are clean. For anything becomes polluted when it is mixed with a nature that is inferior, although not polluted of its kind; for gold is polluted even by pure silver, if it be mixed with it: so also our mind becomes polluted by the desire after earthly things, although the earth itself be pure of its kind and order. But we would not understand heaven in this passage as anything corporeal, because everything corporeal is to be reckoned as earth. For he who lays up treasure for himself in heaven ought to despise the whole world. Hence it is in that heaven of which it is said, "The heaven of heavens is the Lord's," i.e. in the spiritual firmament: for it is not in that which is to pass away that we ought to fix and place our treasure and our heart, but in that which ever abideth; but heaven and earth shall pass away.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Heaven — (1.) Definitions. The phrase “heaven and earth” is used to indicate the whole universe (Gen. 1:1; Jer. 23:24; Acts 17:24). According to the Jewish notion there were three heavens, (a) The firmament,…
Passover — The name given to the chief of the three great historical annual festivals of the Jews. It was kept in remembrance of the Lord’s passing over the houses of the Israelites (Ex. 12:13) when the first…
Earth · Given to man — Given to man
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The voice of consolation is continued in Psa 115:15, but it becomes the voice of hope by being blended with the newly strengthened believing tone of the congregation. Jahve is here called the Creator of heaven and earth because the worth and magnitude of His blessing are measured thereby. He has reserved the heavens to Himself, but given the earth to men. This separation of heaven and earth is a fundamental characteristic of the post-diluvian history. The throne of God is in the heavens, and the promise, which is given to the patriarchs on behalf of all mankind, does not refer to heaven, but to the possession of the earth (Psa 37:22). The promise is as yet limited to this present world, wher…
The heavens belong to the Lord:’s: God’s exaltation begins in heaven (113:4), far above the gods of the nations. Of course, the earth also belongs to him (47:9; 95:4). • The dead cannot participate in God’s blessings. The living praise God in thanksgiving for his blessings (79:13).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 115:16
The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s: but the earth hath he given to the children of men.
The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's. There he specially reigns, and manifests his greatness and his glory: but the earth hath he given to the children of men. He hath left the world during the present dispensation in a great measure under the power and will of men, so that things are not here below in the same perfect order as the things which are above. It is true the Lord rules over all things by his providence, but yet he allows and permits men to break his laws and persecute his people for the time being, and to set up their dumb idols in opposition to him. The free agency which he…
