Commentary on Selected Psalms

                                Psalm 115:16-17 (KJB)

The first part of verse 16 makes a distinct difference between Heaven and the heavens. Genesis 1:1 is often misquoted when the word "heavens" is used instead of Heaven. God created Heaven, the abode of Himself and His angels, at the same time that He created the earth. God created the heavens; that is, the universe, long before He created Heaven and earth.

The second part of verse 16 teaches that God has given the earth "to the children of men," which can only mean every human who ever lived. God never gives temporary gifts. Whatever God gives lasts forever. Romans 11:29 (KJB). Since God can never lose anything He has ever created, and His love can never fail, and His Will, which can never be checked, is that all men become saved, then God has certainly created a plan to save the entire, living human race that He creates and loves. Ecclesiastes 3:14; I Corinthians 13:8; I Timothy 2:4; Luke 20:38 (KJB). God saves some humans by His grace, and He will save the rest of humanity confined to the regions of death when Christ appears to them in the end of the world and causes all of His living humans to repent and believe in Him as the Lamb of God their Savior. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14 (KJB). Christ will then use His fiery wrath against evil to dissolve their beings so that He can separate their repentant, living natures that He will resurrect and recreate to inherit His recreated earth, from their dead and evil natures that He will cast into the eternal lake of fire. Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5; Revelation 20:11-15; II Peter 3:9-13 (KJB).

Verse 17 relates that the dead do not praise the Lord. The dead go down into the silence of the lake of fire, not God's living humans. This prophecy agrees exactly with Revelation 20:11-15. John 5:28-29 (KJB