Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 104:5

The philosophical mode of stating this truth may be seen in Amédée Guillemin's work entitled "THE HEAVENS." "How is it that though we are carried along with a vast rapidity by the motion of the earth, we do not ourselves perceive our movement? It is because the entire bulk of the earth, atmosphere, and clouds, participate in the movement. This constant velocity, with which all bodies situated on the surface of the earth are animated, would be the cause of the most terrible and general catastrophe that could be imagined, if, by any possibility, the rotation of the earth were abruptly to cease. Such an event would be the precursor of a most sweeping destruction of all organized beings. But the constancy of the laws of nature permits us to contemplate such a catastrophe without fear. It is demonstrated that the position of the poles of rotation on the surface of the earth is invariable. It has also been asked whether the velocity of the earth's rotation has changed, or, which comes to the same thing, if the length of the sidereal day and that of the solar day deduced from it have varied within the historical period? Laplace has replied to this question, and his demonstration shows that it has not varied the one hundredth of a second during the last two thousand years."

Verse 5.

God of the earth and sea, Thou hast laid earth's foundations:

Because thy hand sustains,

It ever firm remaineth.

Once didst thou open its deep, hidden fountains,

And soon the rising waters stood above the mountains.

At thy rebuke they fled at the voice of thy thunder,

The flood thy mandate heeded,

And hastily receded:

The waters keep the place Thou has assigned them,

And in the hills and vales a channel Thou dost find them.

A limit Thou hast set, which they may not pass over;

The deep within bound inclosing,

Strong barriers interposing,

That its proud waves no more bring desolation,

And sweep away from earth each human habitation. —John Barton, in "The Book of Psalms in English Verse: a New Testament Paraphrase, "1871.