Isaiah 40 (Part 12) – Isa 40:12 – God Has Very Big Hands

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Isa 40:12-17 – The Magnificence of God

Isa 40:12

1. In verse 12-17, Isaiah prophesies of the awesomeness and magnificence of God.
2. God is awesome (Rom 11:33).
3. God is omnipresent, being everywhere at one time (Psa 139:7-12).
4. All the heavens cannot contain God (2Ch 6:18).
5. God fills heaven and earth (Jer 23:24).

iii.    God sees everything (Pro 15:3; 2Ch 16:9).

1. God is omnipotent (Rev 19:6; 1Ch 29:11).
2. Omnipotent adj. – 1. Strictly said of God (or of a deity) or His attributes: Almighty, infinite in power.
3. God created the heaven and the earth (Gen 1:1), which declares His eternal power and Godhead (Rom 1:20), and glory (Psa 19:1).

iii.    The most marvelous of God’s works in the material world is the creation of man (Psa 139:14).

1. Fearfully – 1. So as to cause fear; dreadfully; terribly.

(i)     When serious implications of a thing are realized, a sudden feeling of fear and dread often follows.

(ii)   The complexity of the human body, when even moderately comprehended, reveals that the Creator of it is incredibly powerful and intelligent, which brings a feeling of fear over a child of God.

1. Wonderfully – 1. So as to excite wonder; miraculously; to a wonderful degree or extent; marvellously, astonishingly, surprisingly: often passing into a mere intensive = amazingly well or much; extraordinarily, exceedingly.
2. Marvellous adj. – Such as to excite wonder or astonishment; wonderful, astonishing, surprising.
3. Jesus Christ, whom Isaiah just finished prophesying of, is the omnipotent, Almighty God (1Ti 6:15-16; Rev 1:8).
4. Potentate – 1. A person endowed with independent power; a prince, monarch, ruler.
5. Almighty – All-powerful, omnipotent. 1. a. Orig. and in the strict sense used as an attribute of the Deity, and joined to God or other title.
6. Isaiah now describes God’s infinite power and might.
7. “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,…”
8. These are all rhetorical questions, to which the answer could only be, and obviously is, God.
9. God is so powerful that He can measure all of the waters of earth in the hollow of His hand.
10. Hollow – 1. A hollow or concave formation or place, which has been dug out, or has the form of having so been: c. a surface concavity, more or less deep, an excavation, a depression on any surface;
11. The hollow of the hand is the depression in the palm of the hand of a person that could hold about a teaspoon of water.

iii.    There is 321,000,000 cubic miles of water in the oceans.  Source: USGS

353. That’s about 353,500,000,000,000,000,000 (353.5 quintillion) gallons of water.
354. God has big hands.
355. Agur asked a similar question, which demanded the same answer, when he asked, “who hath bound the waters in a garment?” (Pro 30:4).
356. “…and meted out heaven with the span,…”
357. God is so powerful that he can measure the length of heaven with his hand (Isa 48:13).
358. Mete – 1. trans. To ascertain or determine the dimensions or quantity of; = measure v.
359. Heaven – 1. a. The expanse in which the sun, moon, and stars, are seen, which has the appearance of a vast vault or canopy overarching the earth, on the ‘face’ or surface of which the clouds seem to lie or float; the sky, the firmament.

iii.    Span n. – 1. a. The distance from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger, or sometimes to the tip of the forefinger, when the hand is fully extended; the space equivalent to this taken as a measure of length, averaging nine inches.

1. The known universe is estimated to be 93,000,000,000 (93 billion) light years in diameter. Source: Wikipedia
2. That’s about 550,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (550 sextillion) miles wide.
3. God has big hands.
4. “…and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure…”
5. God is so powerful and intelligent that He can measure how much dust is in the earth.
6. Comprehend – I. To seize, grasp, lay hold of, catch. 1. trans. To lay hold of, to seize, to grasp; to ‘catch’, entrap. Obs. II. To lay hold of with the mind or senses. 4. trans. To grasp with the mind, conceive fully or adequately, understand, ‘take in’.
7. It is estimated that 60 tons of cosmic dust falls to earth every day. Source: Popular Science Magazine
8. That is 21,900 tons of dust each year.
9. That is 131,400,000 tons of dust since God laid the foundations of the earth 6,000 years ago.
10. That is 262,800,000,000 (262.8 billion) pounds of dust.
11. A grain of dust weighs approximately 2.42 x 10^-13 lbs (1.1 x 10^-13 kg). Source: Space Math
12. Therefore, there is approximately 1,086,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1.086 septillion) grains of cosmic dust on earth (262.8 billion lbs / 2.42 x 10^-13 lbs per grain).
13. That’s a lot of dust!
14. And that is just the cosmic dust on earth.

iii.    God is powerful and intelligent enough to gather all that dust, measure it, and comprehend how much there is.

5. “… and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?”
6. God is so powerful that He can weigh the mountains in scales and the hills on a balance.
7. It is estimated that Mount Everest weights 357,000,000,000,000 (357 trillion) pounds. Source: Outside Online
8. That is just one of mountain out of the tens of thousands (or more) of mountains and hills in the earth.

iii.    God has a big scales and an even bigger intellect to measure such things.