Rightly Dividing God’s Word on the Shape of the Earth: Part 3

[Originally published as the second section of Untwisting Scripture: Refuting Flat Earth Falsehoods – Part 2, written by Jason Churchill]

Previously, we began a series of articles about the so-called flat/stationary-earth prooftexts in the Bible. There is an abundance of vocal flat/stationary proponents (FSIPs) that go around citing a handful of biblical verses, alleging that these verses are proof that the Bible depicts, indicates, or implies a flat and/or stationary world.

In this article, we’ll be looking at four of the most frequently cited passages by FSIPs as “proof” that the Bible indicates a stationary or unmoving earth. If you’ve been around the discussion for any amount of time, you’ll recognize them: Psalms 93:1, 96:10, 104:5, and its twin, 1 Chronicles 16:29–30.

Psalm 96:9–10

9 Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness;
tremble before him, all the earth!
10 Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!
Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved;
he will judge the peoples with equity.

You’ll immediately recognize the many similarities of this passage with Psalm 93:1. Both Psalms are about the condition of the world in relation to the Lord’s reign.

Both utilize synonymous parallelism along with the same parallel phrases “is established” and “shall never be moved.” Everything that was said above about the phrases “is established” and “shall never be moved” in Psalm 93:1 also applies here.

In their Commentary on the Old Testament, Keil and Delitzsch say,

As in 93:1… The world below, hitherto shaken by war and anarchy, now stands upon foundations that cannot be shaken in time to come, under Jahve’s righteous and gentle sway.¹

As Mark Futato comments, “96:10 cannot be shaken. For this image of the earth as unshakable from the time of creation onward, see 93:1 and 104:5.”²

In this Psalm, King David is celebrating as the ark of the covenant is brought up to Jerusalem, summoning Asaph and his brothers to thank and praise the Lord for His past, present, and future providential reign over all peoples and events (1 Chronicles 16:34). Nothing on earth has been, is, or ever will be outside of God’s control. The earth shall never be moved.

As Tremper Longman III says of this passage, “Because God is King and in sovereign control, the world is stable.”³

The next line of this poem, that the Lord “will judge the peoples with equity,” further confirms that this is the psalmist’s meaning. This line directly corresponds with the previous two, further proclaiming the Lord’s utter control over the world, its inhabitants, governments, and affairs.

Richard D. Phillips comments here,

The point is that despite the turbulent affairs of men, many of which arrogantly flout God’s rule, God nonetheless reigns sovereignly over all affairs.⁴

“Since Yahweh reigns, ‘the world is also firmly established.’ The powers of chaos cannot ‘overcome His creation, which He continues to uphold ‘by the word of His power’ (Heb. 1:3). ‘It shall not be moved.’ Moreover, as King, Yahweh not only rules; He also judges. He establishes the order of His kingdom and holds us accountable to it,”⁵ say Donald Williams and Lloyd Ogilvie about this verse.

Psalms 93 and 96 are about the Lord’s established reign over the world and the people of the world; it is firmly established and will never be usurped or undone or falter. The phrase “it shall never be moved” is unquestionably an idiom for the ongoing stability of the earthly realm under God’s reign. Its future course under God’s rule is as fixed and unalterable as the past is.

In The Preacher’s Complete Homiletic Commentary, James Wolfendale says this song of David depicts

…a reign of moral stability. ‘The world,’ shaken with revolutions, impaired with sin, ‘shall be stable,’ settled in government and free from invasions, ‘that it be not moved.’ Society is safe, social and political order secure.⁶

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Everything in the world system is established, settled, placed on the firm footing of the Lord’s unchanging rule. Just as Zion and the righteous are established and secure and upheld by Him in all those other passages!

As C.H. Spurgeon says in The Treasury of David,

“The world also shall be established that it shall not be moved.” Society is safe where God is king, no revolutions shall convulse his empire, no invasions shall disturb his kingdom.”⁷

There isn’t even the slightest hint of the Newtonian motion or stationarity of the physical world in the psalmist’s words here. To allege this is a perversion of the text.

Psalm 104:5

Psalm 104 is a song of praise to the Lord for His greatness as reflected by His provision in and dominion over creation. “Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great!” (v. 1)

In this psalm the writer poetically recalls various works of God’s providence as the reason for blessing Him. “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all”. (v. 24)

Conservative scholars and commentators differ over which particular works of God the psalmist is describing. Many think these are the works of creation in Genesis 1; others the works of God in creation and the flood; and still others a general description of how the Lord has and continues to work in human history.

Why the differing views? Because the passage is poetic and filled with an abundance of figurative language.

Amid this song of praise, we read in v.5:

He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved.

FSIPs allege that this verse means that the world is physically stationary. Is this indeed what the author is intending to convey here? Or is physical stationarity even a possibility here?

In interpreting this verse, we once again have the benefit of parallelism. This time the poet is incorporating synthetic parallelism where the phrase “so that it should never be moved” provides additional information about “He set the earth on its foundations” (the first cola).

You can see the close relationship of these two phrases. The second clause shows us the purpose for the action of the first clause. The Lord wills that the earth “never be moved,” and so He’s “set the earth on its foundations.”

What then does “He set the earth on its foundations” mean?

FSIPs allege that the foundations mentioned here are literal, solid, material structures that the physical world is placed upon. It’s like a house or building being built on a concrete foundation so that the building doesn’t move when the weather gets bad.

This is a valid and oft-used definition for the term foundations in Scripture. Indeed, Jesus used this very analogy in the NT (Matt. 7:24–27; Luke 6:47–49). But it’s certainly not the only definition or use. After all, Jesus wasn’t teaching His hearers to literally write His words on a physical rock or foundation. He was using the metaphor of a physical foundation to encourage His listeners to build their faith on the immaterial, abstract foundation of His words.

The Hebrew word translated foundations here is mā·ḵôn. Made from the word ḵôn (established) with the prefix mā. This word only occurs two other times in the Psalms.

Righteousness and justice are the foundation [mā·ḵôn] of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you. (Ps 89:14)

Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation [mā·ḵôn] of his throne. (Ps 97:2)

You’ll immediately recognize that these verses are incorporating an abstract concept of a foundation. No one believes that righteousness and justice are physical things upon which sets a material throne that God sits on.

As our church has preached through the book of Genesis this year, the main theme has been “Foundations.” This is because the foundations of human identity, ethnicity, marriage, ethics, covenant, and the Gospel are found in Genesis. Obviously, these foundations are abstract concepts, not physical structures.

So too are righteousness and justice. They have no extension in space or time. They are abstract realities upon which the nonliteral throne of God is established.

This also sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it? It summons us to recall Psalm 93:1–2.

“Your throne is established [kûn] from of old; you are from everlasting.”

All three of these verses are about God’s throne. You’ll recall that God’s throne is a metaphor for His sovereign rule. And just as God’s throne being “established” is a metaphorical abstract truth, so God’s throne having a foundation of righteousness and justice is also a metaphorical, abstract truth.

It then appears likely that the foundations of which the psalmist speaks here in 104:5 are His sovereign rule in righteousness and justice. And the fact that the earth is set on them, established on them, would then lead us to the same understanding of the phrase “should not be moved” as we’ve seen in the sixteen other occurrences in the Psalms.

So, what are these verses in Psalm 104 saying? J.A. Motyer summarizes,

[Verses] 5–9 apply the foregoing images of the Creator in relation to creation: he engineered its security, determined its condition, and, by his mere word, ordered it into its predetermined and lasting form.⁸

And how do the preponderance of biblical scholars and commentators interpret v.5? Here’s a sampling.

“Thus in creation He secured the earth ‘so that it should not be moved forever.’ This does not mean that the earth is eternal. It does mean that it will not ‘be moved’ (‘totter,‘ ‘slip,‘ ‘fall‘) into chaos or autonomy, because God made it, upholds it, and will keep it always.”⁹ —Donald Williams and Lloyd J. Ogilvie

“Here the prophet celebrates the glory of God, as manifested in the stability of the earth.”¹⁰ —John Calvin

“The psalmist asserts God’s decreed limits as the cause for the earth’s stability.”¹¹ —Richard D. Phillips

“Yet it is immovably firm and secure. How unsearchable is His wisdom, and how unlimited His power, who thus wonderfully sustains the world!”¹² —William Jones

“The language is, of course, poetical, but the fact is none the less wonderful: the earth is so placed in space that it remains as stable as if it ware [sic] a fixture.”¹³ —C. H. Spurgeon

Notice that each commentator renders the phrase “should never be moved” as having to do with the ongoing stability of the earthly realm based upon the assurance of God’s sovereign continuous upholding of it, just like in Psalms 93:1 and 96:10.

As William Barrick, Michael J. Oard, and Paul Price note,

Psalm 104:5b (‘so that it should never be moved’) presents a theme occurring in contexts like Psalms 93:1; 96:10; and 1 Chronicles 16:30, which all speak of the Lord’s sovereign rule over the earth. …The psalmist’s primary concern… consists of meditating on the sovereign God’s control over all creation at all times— from creation up to the psalmist’s own day.¹⁴

The phrase “should never be moved” is here understood in the same way it’s understood in the sixteen other occurrences in Psalms: as an idiom for ongoing stability. It once again has nothing to do with physical motion.

R. Fausset comments, “What is denied is not the earth’s motion, but the possibility of its being disturbed from the place in the universe which God has assigned it. …the earth, is firmly founded by God’s omnipotence.”¹⁵

There is simply no justification for FSIP claims that any of these passages either indicate or infer a physically stationary world. A straightforward understanding of these texts within their contexts reveals that the FSIPs’ predetermined definitions of these terms, phrases, and verses are completely unwarranted. They’re arbitrarily reading their preconceived cosmological definitions into these passages to justify their geostationary interpretations.

Footnotes

1. Keil, C. F. and F. Delitzsch. 1996. Commentary on the Old Testament: Psalms (p. 624). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.
2. Futato, M. and G. M. Schwab. 2009. “Psalms, Proverbs” (Cornerstone Biblical Commentary) (P. W. Comfort, Ed., p. 309). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.
3. Longman, T. III. 2014. “Psalms: An Introduction and Commentary” (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries Volumes 15-16) (D. G. Firth, Ed., p. 342). Nottingham, England: InterVarsity Press.
4. Phillips, R. D. 2020. “Psalms 73–106” (Reformed Expository Commentary) (p. 306). Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing.
5. Williams, D. 1989. “Psalms 73–150,” in The Preacher’s Commentary, Vol. 14 (L. J. Ogilvie, Ed., p. 189). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Inc.
6. Wolfendale, J. 1892. “1 and 2 Chronicles” in The Preacher’s Complete Homiletic Commentary New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 74–75.
7. Spurgeon, C. H. 1869. Treasury of David, Vol. IV. New York: Marshall Brothers, 183.
8. Wenham, G. J., et al. 1994. New Bible Commentary, 21st Century Edition (p. 553). Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press.
9. Williams, D. 1989. The Preacher’s Commentary – Vol. 14: Psalms 73-150 (L. J. Ogilvie, Ed., p. 235). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
10. Calvin, J. and J. N. Anderson. 2010. Commentary on the Book of Psalms, Vol. 4 (p. 148). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
11. Phillips, R. D. 2020. “Psalms 73–106” (Reformed Expository Commentary) (p. 398). Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing.
12. Jones, W. 1892. The Preacher’s Complete Homiletic Commentary: Psalms, Vol. II (p. 130). New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
13. Spurgeon, C. H. 1869. Treasury of David: Volume IV (p. 303). New York: Marshall Brothers.
14. Barrick, W., et al. 2020. “Psalm 104:6–9 likely refers to Noah’s Flood,” Journal of Creation, 34 (April): 102–109.
15. Fausset, A. R. 1984. A Commentary: Critical, Experimental, and Practical on the Old and New Testaments (Vol. III, p. 324). Eerdmans.