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Read the Bible

New International Version (1984 Edition)

Psalms 36:6

Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. O LORD , you preserve both man and beast.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Animals;   Blessing;   God Continued...;   Thompson Chain Reference - God;   God's;   Judgments, God's;   The Topic Concordance - Judges;   Preservation;   Righteousness;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Beasts;   Life, Natural;   Man;   Mountains;   Providence of God, the;   Righteousness of God, the;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Mountains;   Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - God;   Judgment;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Animals;   Charles Buck Theological Dictionary - Goodness of God;   Easton Bible Dictionary - Beast;   Judgments of God;   Sea of Glass;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Heaven;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - English Versions;   Greek Versions of Ot;   Guilt;   Life;   Psalms;   Sin;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Justification (2);   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Beast;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Psalms the book of;   Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types - Deep;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Faithful;   Great;   Judging;   Justice;   Languages of the Old Testament;   Psalms, Book of;   Text of the Old Testament;   Unchangeable;   Kitto Biblical Cyclopedia - Beasts;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Faith;  

Devotionals:

- Every Day Light - Devotion for February 26;  

Parallel Translations

Complete Jewish Bible
Adonai , in the heavens is your grace; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
Darby Translation
Thy righteousness is like the high mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: thou, Jehovah, preservest man and beast.
Easy-to-Read Version
Your goodness is higher than the highest mountains. Your fairness is deeper than the deepest ocean. Lord , you protect people and animals.
Hebrew Names Version
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God. Your judgments are a great deep. LORD, you preserve man and animal.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Thy lovingkindness, O LORD, is in the heavens; Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the skies.
American Standard Version
Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God; Thy judgments are a great deep: O Jehovah, thou preservest man and beast.
Bible in Basic English
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judging is like the great deep; O Lord, you give life to man and beast.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Thy righteousnes is like the mountaynes of God: thy iudgementes are a great deapth, thou sauest both man and beast O God.
Geneva Bible (1587)
Thy righteousnesse is like the mightie moutaines: thy iudgements are like a great deepe: thou, Lord, doest saue man and beast.
George Lamsa Translation
Thy righteouness is like the mountain of God; thy judgments are like a great deep; O LORD, thou preservest man and beast.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Thy righteousness is as the mountains of God, thy judgments are as a great deep: O Lord, thou wilt preserve men and beasts.
English Revised Version
Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God; thy judgments are a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest man and beast.
The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible
Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, Your judgments like the deepest sea. O LORD, You preserve man and beast.
Amplified Bible
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God, Your judgments are like the great deep. O LORD, You preserve man and beast.
World English Bible
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God. Your judgments are a great deep. Yahweh, you preserve man and animal.
Contemporary English Version
Your decisions are always fair. They are firm like mountains, deep like the sea, and all people and animals are under your care.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Thy righteousness, is like mighty mountains, and, thy just decrees, are a great resounding deep, - Man and beast, thou savest, O Yahweh!
Good News Translation
Your righteousness is towering like the mountains; your justice is like the depths of the sea. People and animals are in your care.
King James Version (1611)
Thy righteousnesse is like the great mountaines; thy iudgements are a great deepe; O Lord, thou preseruest man and beast.
King James Version
Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O Lord , thou preservest man and beast.
New Century Version
Your goodness is as high as the mountains. Your justice is as deep as the great ocean. Lord , you protect both people and animals.
New English Translation
Your justice is like the highest mountains, your fairness like the deepest sea; you preserve mankind and the animal kingdom.
New International Version
Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. You, Lord , preserve both people and animals.
New American Standard Bible
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; Your judgments are like the great deep. LORD, You protect mankind and animals.
New King James Version
Your righteousness is like the great mountains; Your judgments are a great deep; O LORD, You preserve man and beast.
New Living Translation
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the ocean depths. You care for people and animals alike, O Lord .
Lexham English Bible
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your judgments like the great deep. You save man and beast, O Yahweh.
Literal Translation
Your righteousness is like the hills of God; Your judgments are a great deep; O Jehovah, You preserve animal and man.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Thy rightuousnesse stondeth like the stronge mountaynes, & thy iudgment like the greate depe.
Update Bible Version
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; Your judgments are a great deep: O Yahweh, you preserve man and beast.
Webster's Bible Translation
Thy righteousness [is] like the great mountains; thy judgments [are] a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest man and beast.
Douay-Rheims Bible
(35-7) Thy justice is as the mountains of God, thy judgments are a great deep. Men and beasts thou wilt preserve, O Lord:
Revised Standard Version
Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God, thy judgments are like the great deep; man and beast thou savest, O LORD.
New Life Bible
You are as right and good as mountains are big. You are as fair when You judge as a sea is deep. O Lord, You keep safe both man and animal.
New Revised Standard
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your judgments are like the great deep; you save humans and animals alike, O Lord .
Christian Standard Bible®
Your righteousness is like the highest mountains; Your judgments, like the deepest sea. Lord , You preserve man and beast.
English Standard Version
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O Lord .
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Thi riytfulnesse is as the hillis of God; thi domes ben myche depthe of watris. Lord, thou schalt saue men and beestis;
Young's Literal Translation
Thy righteousness [is] as mountains of God, Thy judgments [are] a great deep. Man and beast Thou savest, O Jehovah.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; Your judgments are like a great deep. O Lord , You preserve man and beast.

Contextual Overview

5Your love, O LORD , reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. 6Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. O LORD , you preserve both man and beast.7How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. 8They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. 9For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. 10Continue your love to those who know you, your righteousness to the upright in heart. 11May the foot of the proud not come against me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away. 12See how the evildoers lie fallen- thrown down, not able to rise!

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest man and beast.
righteousness 71:19; 97:2; 145:17; Genesis 18:25; Deuteronomy 32:4; Isaiah 45:19,21-24; Romans 3:25
great mountains
Heb. mountains of God.
Exodus 9:28; 1 Samuel 14:15; *margins
judgments
77:19; 92:5; Job 11:7-9; 37:23; Isaiah 40:28; Jeremiah 12:1; Matthew 11:25,26; Romans 11:33
thou
104:14-35; 145:9; 147:9; Job 7:20; Jonah 4:11; Matthew 10:29,30; 1 Timothy 4:10
Reciprocal: Genesis 6:19 - two;  Genesis 8:1 - the cattle;  Genesis 9:10 - GeneralNumbers 22:32 - Wherefore;  2 Chronicles 35:24 - died;  Nehemiah 9:6 - preservest;  Psalm 19:9 - judgments;  Psalm 33:4 - all his;  Psalm 73:16 - When;  Psalm 97:6 - The heavens;  Psalm 104:27 - GeneralPsalm 119:142 - an everlasting;  Psalm 138:2 - and praise;  Proverbs 8:18 - durable;  Ecclesiastes 7:24 - GeneralEzekiel 1:16 - a wheel;  Ezekiel 10:10 - GeneralJoel 2:22 - afraid;  Jonah 3:3 - So;  Zechariah 6:1 - and the;  Romans 2:2 - judgment

Cross-References

Genesis 12:5
He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
Genesis 13:6
But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together.
Genesis 13:11
So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company:
Genesis 17:8
The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God."
Genesis 25:23
The LORD said to her, "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger."
Genesis 28:4
May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as an alien, the land God gave to Abraham."
Genesis 32:3
Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.
Ezekiel 27:13
" 'Greece, Tubal and Meshech traded with you; they exchanged slaves and articles of bronze for your wares.
Revelation 18:13
cargoes of cinnamon and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and bodies and souls of men.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Thy righteousness is like the great mountains,.... Or, "the mountains of God"; so called for their excellency, as the cedars of God, Psalm 80:10; or, as Gussetius observes, the greatest and highest mountains, which are here meant, reaching above the clouds and the region of the air, are the pillars of the palace of God, and a part of it; and therefore called his mountains with great propriety, to which his righteousness is compared: that is, either the righteousness of God in the government of the world, which is sometimes like the high mountains, not to be reached and accounted for in the present state of things, though always is, and is immovable as they are; or the righteousness of God, by which he justifies sinners, which may be said to be as the mountains of God, because of the dignity of his person, who has wrought it out; and because of the clear manifestation of it, the Gospel, and so visible, as high mountains; and because of the immovableness and duration of it;

thy judgments are a great deep; both in a way of providence, many of them being at present not to be traced, though before long they will be made manifest; and in a way of grace, such as the choice of some, and the leaving of others, the rejection of the Jews, and the call of the Gentiles; see Romans 11:33;

O Lord, thou preservest man and beast; in a providential way, upholding each in their being, and supplying them with the necessaries of life: some understand this figuratively, of God's saving Jews and Gentiles, wise and unwise, and particularly those who, through humility and modesty, as Jarchi says, compare themselves to beasts, because of their ignorance and stupidity, Proverbs 30:2.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Thy righteousness - Thy justice; that is, the justice of God considered as residing in his own nature; his justice in his laws; his justice in his providential dealings; his justice in his plan of delivering man from sin; his justice to the universe in administering the rewards and penalties of the law.

Is like the great mountains - Margin, as in Hebrew: “the mountains of God.” The name “God” is thus, in the Scriptures, often given to that which is great or exalted, as God is the greatest Being that the mind can form any conception of. So in Psalm 80:10: “The boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars,” in the Hebrew, “cedars of God.” Connecting his name with “mountains” or “cedars,” we have the idea of “strength” or “greatness,” as being especially the work of the Almighty. The idea here is, that as the mountains are the most stable of all the objects with which we are acquainted, so it is with the justice of God. It is as fixed as the everlasting hills.

Thy judgments - The acts and records which are expressive of thy judgment in regard to what is right and best; that judgment as it is expressed in thy law, and in thy dealings with mankind. The “judgment” of God in any matter may be expressed either by a declaration or by his acts. The latter is the idea now most commonly attached to the word, and it has come to be used almost exclusively to denote “afflictive” dispensations of His Providence, or expressions of His displeasure against sin. The word is not used in that exclusive sense in the Scriptures. It refers to any divine adjudication as to what is right, whether expressed by declaration or by act, and would include his adjudications in favor of that which is right as well as those against that which is wrong.

Are a great deep - The word rendered “deep” here means properly wave, billow, surge; then, a mass of waters, a flood, a deep; and the phrase “great deep” would properly refer to the ocean, its “depth” being one of the most remarkable things in regard to it. The “idea” here is, that as we cannot fathom the ocean or penetrate to its bottom, so it is with the judgments of God. They are beyond our comprehension, and after all our efforts to understand them, we are constrained, as in measuring the depths of the ocean, to confess that we cannot reach to the bottom of them. This is true in regard to his law, in regard to the principles of his government as he has declared them, and in regard to his actual dealings with mankind. It could not be otherwise than that in the administration of an infinite God there must be much that man, in his present state, could not comprehend. Compare Job 11:7-9; Isaiah 55:8-9.

O Lord, “thou preservest man and beast - literally, thou wilt “save;” that is, thou savest them from destruction. The idea is, that he keeps them alive; or that life, where it is continued, is always continued by his agency. The psalmist evidently sees in the fact here stated an illustration of what he had just said about the “greatness” of God in His providential agency and his general government. He was struck with His greatness, and with the incomprehensible nature of His power and agency, in the fact that he kept alive continually so many myriads of creatures upon the earth - so many hundred millions of human beings - so many thousand millions of wild beasts, reptiles, fish, birds, and insects - all dependent upon Him; that He provided for their needs, and that He protected them in the dangers to which they were exposed. And who can comprehend the extent of His law, and the wonderfulness of His Providence, in thus watching over and providing for the multitudes of animated beings that swarm in the waters, in the air, and on the earth?

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Thy righteousness is like the great mountains - אל כהררי keharerey El, like the mountains of God; exceeding high mountains; what, in the present language of geology, would be called primitive mountains, those that were formed at the beginning; and are not the effects of earthquakes or inundations, as secondary and alluvial mountains are supposed to be.

Thy judgments are a great deep - רבה תהום tehom rabbah, the great abyss; as incomprehensible as the great chaos, or first matter of all things which God created in the beginning, and which is mentioned Genesis 1:2, and darkness was on the face, תהום tehom, of the deep, the vast profound, or what is below all conjecturable profundity. How astonishing are the thoughts in these two verses! What an idea do they give us of the mercy, truth, righteousness, and judgments of God!

The old Psalter, in paraphrasing mountains of God, says, Thi ryghtwisnes, that es, ryghtwis men, er gastly hilles of God; for that er hee in contemplacioun, and soner resayves the lyght of Crist. Here is a metaphor taken from the tops of mountains and high hills first catching the rays of the rising sun. "Righteous men are spiritual hills of God; for they are high in contemplation, and sooner receive the light of Christ." It is really a very fine thought; and much beyond the rudeness of the times in which this Psalter was written.

Man and beast - Doth God take care of cattle? Yes, he appoints the lions their food, and hears the cry of the young ravens; and will he not provide for the poor, especially the poor of his people? He will. So infinitely and intensely good is the nature of God, that it is his delight to make all his creatures happy. He preserves the man, and he preserves the beast; and it is his providence which supplies the man, when his propensities and actions level him with the beasts that perish.


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