Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 136:9

The moon and stars to rule by night. While the apparent revolution of the sun marks out the year and the course of the seasons, the revolution of the moon round the heavens marks out our months; and by regularly changing its figure at the four quarters of its course, subdivides the months into two periods of weeks, and thus exhibits to all the nations of the earth a "watch light", or signal, which every seven days presents a form entirely new, for marking out the shorter periods of duration. By its nearness to the earth, and the consequent increase of its gravitating power, it produces currents in the atmosphere, which direct the course of the winds, and purify the aerial fluid from noxious exhalations; it raises the waters of the ocean, and perpetuates the regular returns of ebb and flow, by which the liquid element is preserved from filth and putrefaction. It extends its sway even over the human frame, and our health and disorders are sometimes partially dependent on its influence. Even its eclipses, and those it produces of the sun, are not without their use. They tend to arouse mankind to the study of astronomy, and the wonders of the firmament; they serve to confirm the deductions of chronology, to direct the navigator, and to settle the geographical position of towns and countries; they assist the astronomer in his celestial investigations, and exhibit an agreeable variety of phenomena in the scenery of the heavens. In short, there are terrestrial scenes presented in moonlight, which, in point of solemnity, grandeur, and picturesque beauty, far surpass in interest, to a poetic imagination, all the brilliancy and splendours of noonday. Hence, in all ages, a moonlight scene has been regarded, by all ranks of men, with feelings of joy and sentiments of admiration. The following description of Homer, translated into English verse by Pope, has been esteemed one of the finest night pieces in poetry:

"Behold the moon, refulgent lamp of night,

O'er Heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light,

When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,

And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;

Around her throne the vivid planets roll,

And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole;

O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,

And tip with silver every mountain's head;

Then shine the vales; the rocks in prospect rise;

A flood of glory bursts from all the skies;

The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,

Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light."

Without the light of the moon, the inhabitants of the polar regions would be for weeks and months immersed in darkness. But the moon, like a kindly visitant, returns at short intervals, in the absence of the sun, and cheers them with her beams for days and weeks together. So that, in this nocturnal luminary, as in all the other arrangements of nature, we behold a display of the paternal care and beneficence of that Almighty Being who ordained "the moon and the stars to rule by night", as an evidence of his superabundant goodness, and of "his mercy which endureth for ever." —Thomas Dick (1774-1857), in "Celestial Scenery."