Psalms 147:16

It is sad when we reduce everything to an impersonal nature, as if these things must happen with no reference to anything in particular. But these verses show that God is actively and intelligently behind what men call nature.

And to Him the whole earth is in subjection. His commandment throughout it is hastened by the swiftest messengers. He gives the snow and scatters the frost; solidifies the water with His cold, and melts it back again with a warmer wind. Nature is plastic in His hand everywhere and owns its God.

The Lord speaks to the earth with firm decision, and it submits to His working. Snow is said to be like wool, a covering to keep the earth warm when cold weather comes (v. 16). If frost is called for, He provides it, or hail, at a time when He sees fit. Just as simply, He can by His Word melt snow and hail, and the wind helps this to make waters flow. Similarly, He can harden the hearts of those who harden themselves against Him, then can melt them down by His great love.

The snow and hail are laid up in storehouses — where? Not in some hidden place, in vast masses. Not merely in the invisible vapour filling the sky, as science now would say. Behind all that, those storehouses of mercy and of judgment are in the hand of God. His word produces them — the snow, to protect the grass in winter, and to cool and refresh in summer; the hail, in smiting plagues and sweeping judgments (Isa. 28:17). Cold acting on vapour makes snow, we are told, turning its molecules into crystals of lovely and varied form. Those forms are planned — by whom? Whose laws are fulfilled by these tiny crystals? The working of whose mind do they display?

Then there is the white frost of heaven that those of us who live in cold climates find on our car windows on some cold mornings. We may despise it as we clear it from our windows or shiver while we wait for the defroster to work. But it really is a blessing from the Lord, so that we do not freeze to death as energy leaves the earth. Frost is frozen drops of dew. God has given birth to each of those cold crystals that sparkle in the sunshine! He has sent them for us to enjoy!

Next to its coldness, and perhaps more striking than that, snow is the standard for absolute whiteness, for purity. Perhaps Job did not know that this whiteness comes from pure white light reflecting off the countless faces of its crystals. But what "treasures" of whiteness does God keep in store? He is light. The snow reflecting the sunlight shows how completely His essential righteousness is displayed in that work of redemption. That work lets Him say: "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow" (Isa. 1:18).

In verse 18 the psalm says God sends out His word and melts the snow and ice. In verse 19 it says He shows His word to Jacob, so that Jacob might feel the melting power of His word. Jacob was his name according to nature, whereas Israel was his name according to God's grace given to him.