What Does Psalm 95:5 Mean in the King James?

The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.

Psalm 95:5 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

THE KEY

The verse moves from ownership to touch: the sea is his by making, while the ground takes shape under his hands.

THE MEANING

The water that can feel ungovernable and the ground you trust beneath your feet both belong to the same source. The world around you is made and shaped, not outside God’s reach.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The belief that solid ground is yours to command while the sea lies beyond any ordering hand dissolves here: both are claimed by the same maker.

THE ROOT

יָצָרוּ

yatsaru

GROWS FROM

יָצַר

yatsar

to form, shape, or fashion

“formed” in this verse is yatsaru. The verse uses one verb for making the sea and another for shaping the dry land. Yatsar carries the touch of a former at work: the land is not merely present, but shaped by God’s hands.

ALSO GROWS

yotser: former, potter

יֹצֵר

The same root names a potter, bringing the image of deliberate shaping into the land formed by God’s hands.

yetser: form, frame, or inclination

יֵצֶר

This branch can describe what is formed within a person; the root thus reaches from the shaping of the land to the shaping of an inner frame.

THE PATTERN

The maker’s claim extends across both the waters and the ground, leaving no part of creation outside its source.

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:10 · KJVThe separation and naming of land and waters show both domains taking their place within one act of creation.

A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

Psalm 24:1 · KJVThe LORD’s claim reaches beyond the ground itself to everything that fills it.

God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;

Acts 17:24 · KJVThe verse names God as maker and Lord of the whole created world, extending the same pattern across the New Testament.

THE THREAD

For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.

Isaiah 45:18 · KJV

Isaiah uses the same root, ⁨יָצַר⁩ (yatsar, to form), for the earth. It adds that the earth is formed to be inhabited, opening the shaped dry land here onto a place made for life.

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