He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways [are] everlasting.
Ver. 6. He stood, and measured the earth] Not Joshua, but God, brought his people into the promised land, and divided it among them, Psalms 78:55. Like as also he had divided the whole earth by bounds and borders to the various nations, Psalms 74:17, and doth still appoint men the bounds of their habitations, Acts 17:26 .
He beheld, and drove asunder the nations] He did it with his looks, as it were; that is, with very little ado. Let the Lord but arise only and his enemies shall be scattered, let him but frown and they fall before him. If Augustus could frown to death Asinius Pollio, and Queen Elizabeth her chancellor Hatton, what shall we think of God's bended brows?
And the everlasting mountains were scattered] i.e. Those kingdoms of the Canaanites that were held firm and immoveable as the mountains, yea, riveted as it were upon eternity, see Numbers 13:28,29; Numbers 13:33. These were scattered, dissilierunt, fell in pieces, and leaped this way and that way, as stones broken with a great hammer. God threshed these mountains, and beat them small, he made the hills as chaff, Isaiah 41:15. No worldly height could stand before him. By mountains here some understand kings and princes, as by hills those of inferior rank.
His ways are everlasting] Heb. His walks or journeys, that is, his government of the world by his power and wisdom, is perpetual, he never casteth off the care thereof. There are those who refer the word his to the Canaanites, who had of old possessed the land without disturbance (αυτοχθονες); but the former sense is the better.