Bible Strands
Psalms 65:9
You attend to the earth and water it; with abundance You enrich it. The streams of God are full of water, for You prepare our grain by providing for the earth.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses God within a corporate hymn of praise, situated between declarations of cosmic wonders and the description of agricultural labor. The speaker attributes the earth's fertility directly to divine action rather than natural cycles.
The words — The text employs פָּקַ֥דְתָּ (pa.Kad.ta) for "you visit" and תַּעְשְׁרֶנָּה (ta'.she.Re./nah) for "you make rich it," describing God's direct intervention to saturate and fertilize the ground. These terms frame divine provision as an active, deliberate process rather than passive rainfall.
The thread — This imagery of divine streams appears in Psalms 46:4 and Psalms 104:13, where water sources sustain God's dwelling and the earth. The motif culminates in Revelation 22:1, which depicts a river of water flowing from God's throne.
Why it lands — The verse requires the reader to recognize agricultural abundance as direct divine provision rather than autonomous natural law. It establishes that human sustenance depends entirely on God's active preparation of the earth.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water: thou preparest them corn, when thou hast so provided for it.
Cross-references
- Psalms 46:4 There is a river whose streams delight the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.
- Revelation 22:1 Then the angel showed me a river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb
- Psalms 104:13 He waters the mountains from His chambers; the earth is satisfied by the fruit of His works.
- Jeremiah 5:24 They have not said in their hearts, ‘Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives the rains, both autumn and spring, in season, who keeps for us the appointed weeks of harvest.’
- Psalms 68:9 You sent abundant rain, O God; You refreshed Your weary inheritance.
- Joel 2:23 Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God, for He has given you the autumn rains for your vindication. He sends you showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before.
- Deuteronomy 11:11 But the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks in the rain from heaven.
- Ruth 1:6 When Naomi heard in Moab that the LORD had attended to His people by providing them with food, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to leave the land of Moab.
- Job 5:10 He gives rain to the earth and sends water upon the fields.
- Psalms 147:8 who covers the sky with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth, who makes grass to grow on the hills.