Psalms 147:17

He casteth forth his ice like morsels. Such are the crumbs of hail which he casts forth, or the crusts of ice which he creates upon the waters. These morsels are his ice, and he casts them abroad. The two expressions indicate a very real presence of God in the phenomena of nature. Who can stand before his cold? None can resist the utmost rigours of cold any more than they can bear the vehemence of heat. God's withdrawals of light are a darkness that may be felt, and his withdrawals of heat are a cold which is absolutely omnipotent. If the Lord, instead of revealing himself as a fire, should adopt the opposite manifestation of cold, he would, in either case, consume us should he put forth all his power. It is ours to submit to deprivations with patience, seeing the cold is his cold. That which God sends, whether it be heat or cold, no man can defy with impunity, but he is happy who bows before it with childlike submission. When we cannot stand before God we will gladly lie at his feet, or nestle under his wings.

LOOKING out of our window one morning we saw the earth robed in a white mantle—in a few short hours the earth had been covered to a considerable depth with snow. We looked out again in a few hours and saw the fields as green as ever and the plowed fields as bare as if no single flake had fallen! It is no uncommon thing for a heavy fall of snow to be followed by a rapid thaw. These interesting changes are worked by God, not only with a purpose toward the outward world, but with some design toward the spiritual realm. God is always a teacher. In every action that He performs He is instructing His own children and opening up to them the road to inner mysteries. Happy are those who find food for their Heaven-born spirits, as well as for their mental powers in the works of the Lord's hand. I shall ask your attention, first, to the operations of nature spoken of in the text. And, secondly, to those operations of Divine Grace of which they are the most fitting symbols. I. Consider first, THE OPERATIONS OF NATURE. We shall not think a few minutes wasted if we call your attention to the hand of God in frost and thaw, even upon natural grounds. 1. Observe the directness of the Lord's work. I rejoice as I read these words, to find how present our God is in the world. It is not written, "the laws of nature produce snow," but, "HE gives snow," as if every flake came directly from the palm of His hand. We are not told that certain natural regulations form moisture into frost—no, but as Moses took ashes of the furnace and scattered them upon Egypt, so it is said of the Lord, "HE scatters the frost like ashes." It is not said that the Eternal has set the world going, and by the operation of its machinery ice is produced.

LOOKING out of our window one morning we saw the earth robed in a white mantle—in a few short hours the earth had been covered to a considerable depth with snow. We looked out again in a few hours and saw the fields as green as ever and the plowed fields as bare as if no single flake had fallen! It is no uncommon thing for a heavy fall of snow to be followed by a rapid thaw.

He casteth forth his ice - קרחו korcho, (probably hailstones), like crumbs. Who can stand before his cold? - At particular times the cold in the east is so very intense as to kill man and beast. Jacobus de Vitriaco, one of the writers in the Gesta Dei per Francos, says, that in an expedition in which he was engaged against Mount Tabor, on the 24th of December, the cold was so intense that many of the poor people, and the beasts of burden, died by it. And Albertus Aquensis, another of these writers, speaking of the cold in Judea, says, that thirty of the people who attended Baldwin 1: in the mountainous districts near the Dead Sea, were killed by it; and that in that expedition they had to contend with horrible hail and ice, with unheard-of snow and rain. From thls we find that the winters are often very severe in Judea; and in such cases as the above, we may well call out, “Who can stand against his cold!”

He casteth forth his ice like morsels - The word rendered morsels means properly a bit, a crumb, as of bread, Gen 18:5; Jdg 19:5. The allusion here would seem to be to hail, which God sends upon the earth as easily as one scatters crumbs of bread from the hand. Who can stand before his cold? - Or, hail. The word is the same, except in pointing, as the preceding word rendered ice. The idea is that no one can stand before the peltings of the hail, when God sends it forth, or scatters it upon the earth.