Psalms 104:25

25 There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number— living things both large and small.

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Psalms 104:25 in Other Translations

KJV

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

ESV

25 Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great.

NLT

25 Here is the ocean, vast and wide, teeming with life of every kind, both large and small.

MSG

25 Oh, look - the deep, wide sea, brimming with fish past counting, sardines and sharks and salmon.

CSB

25 Here is the sea, vast and wide, teeming with creatures beyond number- living things both large and small.

Psalms 104:25 Meaning and Commentary

Psalms 104:25

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, ( Genesis 1:10 ) and is, as Kimchi observes, great in length, and wide and spacious in breadth; or "broad of hands" ^F9, 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 ^F11, and to speak of an arm or arms of the sea ^F12, as we do. Isidore says ^F13, 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 ^F14, by others one hundred and fifty three ^F15, and by others one hundred and seventy six ^F16; the Malabarians reckon, up 900,000 fishes, and 1,100,000 creeping things ^F17. These are an emblem of the common people of the world, which are innumerable; see ( Habakkuk 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 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, ( Daniel 7:3 ) ( Revelation 13:1 ) .

FOOTNOTES:

F9 (Mydy bxr) "latum manibus", Montanus; "spatiosum manibus", V. L. "amplum manibus", Vatablus.
F11 Virgil. Aeneid. 5. Lucretius, l. 6.
F12 "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.
F13 Origin. l. 13. c. 16.
F14 Origin. l. 12. c. 6.
F15 Oppianus in Halienticis. Vid. Hieron. in Ezek. 47. fol. 260.
F16 Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 32. c. 11.
F17 Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 4. p. 963.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible