What Does Psalms 95:5 Mean?

Ownership of the sea follows from the claim of verse 4: the sea belongs to the one who made it, and the dry land was formed by his hands. Here the horizontal dimension of creation joins the vertical — sea and land together filling out the whole surface of the earth. The sea in the ancient world was the most resistant, threatening, and uncontrollable of natural forces. Claiming ownership of it establishes that even the most resistant part of creation is not beyond the Lord's authority. The dry land was formed — actively shaped — by his hands.

The synthetic parallelism connects the ownership claim (it is his — the sea) with the creation account (his hands formed the dry land). Together they make the point twice, from two perspectives: ownership (it is his) and origination (he made it). What is his is his because he made it. Where he is maker, he is owner. And where he is owner, he is rightly worshipped as the great King of verse 3.

John 1:3's "all things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made" extends the creation-ownership logic of verse 5 to the Son as the agent of creation. Colossians 1:16-17 applies the same logic at the most comprehensive level: "all things were created through him and for him... and in him all things hold together." The seas of verse 5 are among the "all things" that Colossians says were made through, for, and held together in Christ — the creator and sustainer of the creation the psalm praises.