The heavens and the firmament, Remarks on Psalm 19:2

Psalm 19:2

The heavens declare the glory of God, And the firmament shows His handiwork;

Psalm 19:2

I briefly mentioned that one of my favorite verses in the Old Testament is Psalm 19:2. Let us look at the firmament in this blog, His Handiwork.

Let us start with our solar system. Now, in relative terms, if the sun was a soccer ball,  

·               Mercury would be a grain of sand

·               Venus would be a Bee-Bee

·               Earth would be a Bee-Bee

·               Mars would be a wild flower seed

·               Jupiter would be a large gum ball

·               Saturn would be a medium gum ball

·               Uranus would be a tiny marble

·               Neptune would be a tiny peanut

·               Pluto would be a grain of sand

But let us continue to look at the firmament, His Handiwork.

Let us look at the distances of our solar system.

Picture a child reconstructing a model of the solar system.  Setting a soccer ball down in the center of a large field, she will step these 10 paces and mark Mercury with a grain of sand.  She steps another 9 paces, and she places the Bee-Bee.  Steps another 7 paces, another Bee-Bee, aka the earth; another 13 paces, a wild flower seed; another 98 paces, the large gum ball; another 109 paces (or more than a football field), the medium gum ball; another 248 paces or two and a half football fields, a tiny marble; another 281 paces or almost three football fields, another tiny marble; and finally another 244 paces or two and a half football fields, a grain of sand representing is placed more than a half a mile from the soccer ball. 

Let us continue to look at the firmament, His Handiwork.

Let us look at our galaxy.

There are 1.0 x 10¹¹ that is 100,000,000,000 or 100 billion stars, in our galaxy alone. The closest star to our Sun is Alpha Centauri, which is about 4.5 light years away.  And since a light year is approximately 6 trillion miles, this nearest star is about 26.5 trillion miles away from our sun, much less our earth.

Let us continue to look at the firmament, His Handiwork.

Let us look his firmament.

The firmament references the multitude of stars, planets and celestial objects. It is said there are more stars than grains of sand on the Earth, estimated  1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 in number.  

Psalm 19:2

The heavens declare the glory of God, And the firmament shows His handiwork;