Psalm 104:9

Verse 9. -- Thou hast set a bound, etc. A few feet of increase in the ocean wave that pursues its tidal circuit round the globe, would desolate cities and provinces innumerable... But with what immutable and safe control God has marked its limits! You shall observe a shrub or a flower on a bank of verdure that covers a sea cliff, or hangs down in some hollow; nay, you shall mark a pebble on the beach, you shall lay a shred of gossamer upon it; and this vast, ungovernable, unwieldy, tempestuous element shall know how to draw a line of moisture by its beating spray at the very edge, or on the very point of your demarcation, and then draw off its forces, not having passed one inch or hand's breadth across the appointed margin. And all this exact restraint and measurement in the motion of the sea, by that mysterious power shot beyond unfathomable depths of space, from orbs rolling in ether! a power itself how prodigious, how irresistible, yet how invisible, how gentle, how with minutest exactness measured and exerted. -- George B. Cheever, in "Voices of Nature to her Foster Child, the soul of Man," 1852.

Verse 9. -- A bound that they may not pass over.

Now stretch your eye off shore, over waters made To cleanse the air, and bear the world's great trade, To rise and wet the mountains near the sun, Then back into themselves in rivers run, Fulfilling mighty uses, far and wide, Through earth, in air, or here, as ocean tide. Ho! how the giant heaves himself, and strains And flings to break his strong and viewless chains; Foams in his wrath; and at his prison doors, Hark! hear him! how he beats, and tugs, and roars, As if he would break forth again, and sweep Each living thing within his lowest deep. --Richard Henry Dana (1787).

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 9. --