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Psalm 147:17

He hurls down his hail like pebbles. Who can stand before his cold?

15He sends out his commandment to the earth. His word runs very swiftly.
16He gives snow like wool, and scatters frost like ashes.
17He hurls down his hail like pebbles. Who can stand before his cold?
18He sends out his word, and melts them. He causes his wind to blow, and the waters flow.
19He shows his word to Jacob, his statutes and his ordinances to Israel.
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← Psalm 147:16Psalm 147:18 →
Notice

Hail falls like pebbles in God's hand, and the question about his cold exposes the limits of human strength before the Creator.

Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.

What changes in your picture of God when the hail is something he hurls?

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When has cold weather made your own limits clear to you?

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How does the melting in the next verse shape your reading of God's cold?

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Connect

Where else Scripture says this

6 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.

This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
Job 38:29–30Whose womb did the ice come out of? Who has given birth to the gray frost of the sky?Both passages use questions about frozen weather to draw attention to God's power and the limits of human understanding or strength.
Job 38:22–23Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,Hail appears in both passages, with questions that confront human limits before God's command of the weather.
Job 37:9–10Out of its room comes the storm, and cold out of the north.Both passages name cold as a force in the natural world, though the psalm stresses human inability to withstand it.
Psalm 78:47–48He destroyed their vines with hail, their sycamore fig trees with frost.Both texts attribute hail to God; Psalm 78 names the destruction it brought to vines and trees.
Exodus 9:23–25Moses stretched out his rod toward the heavens, and the LORD sent thunder and hail; and lightning flashed down to the earth. The LORD rained hail on the land …Both passages describe God sending hail to earth, with Exodus locating that act in the plague on Egypt.
Joshua 10:11As they fled from before Israel, while they were at the descent of Beth Horon, the LORD hurled down great stones from the sky on them to Azekah, and they died. …Both texts describe God hurling hail down; Joshua recounts its lethal force against those fleeing Israel at Beth Horon.
Where this verse fits

Praise and worship. sermon or Bible study notes.

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One step

Something small to carry out of this verse

Read the hail and thaw verses aloud together

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Encouragement

The cold here exceeds human strength. The next verse names the same God's command to melt it: both the freeze and the flowing water are under his rule.

Now put it in your words.

Start an entry on Psalm 147:17. Write what it stirs. Psalmlog sets your words beside Scripture and gives you one next step. Your first entry is free, no account needed.

Keep goingPsalm 147 · the whole chapter with its connection mapPsalms · every chapterBuild a reading plan through Psalms

Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).