These verses give the reason for the command to praise Yahweh: all things and beings in the realms above were created by his command, and so they are his creatures, his servants. For verse 5 see similar statements in 33.6, 9. In verse 5b it should not appear that at Yahweh’s command someone else created the heavenly bodies, as both Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation and they were created might suggest. It would be better to say “For he created them by means of his command.” See Bible en français courant “for he had to speak only one word and they began to exist.”

In verse 6a the verb established may have the general sense of “create, make,” or the more restricted sense, as Good News Translation has it, “fixed in their places” (see the use of the verb in 93.1c; 96.10d). In the popular thinking of that time, all planets and stars were thought to occupy a fixed place in the sky. In languages which will not use the passive, one may say in verse 6a, for example, “He put them in their places forever.”

Verse 6b in Hebrew is “he gave an order and it does not pass,” which seems to mean “he gave an order that will not be abolished”; so New English Bible has “by an ordinance which shall never pass away” (also New International Version, Bible de Jérusalem, New Jerusalem Bible; see Good News Translation footnote). But the verb “to pass” can be understood to mean “to pass by, go beyond”; as applied to a law, it means “to transgress, disobey.” So Kirkpatrick translates “He hath given (them) a statute that none (of them) shall transgress.” Briggs, who supports this interpretation, comments: “This is the nearest approach to immutable laws of nature that is known to Heb. Literature.” In line with this interpretation Good News Translation has “and they cannot disobey”; Bible en français courant, a bit differently, “establishing for them a law that is not to be broken.” If for no reason other than that the first interpretation seems so prosaic, perhaps the second interpretation is to be preferred. In many languages the expression “a law that is not to be broken” will have to be recast to say something like “he made a rule they always have to follow” or “… a law they always have to obey,” which is the positive form of the Good News Translation rendering.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on the Book of Psalms. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1991. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .