Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
He that buildeth His stories - The word commonly means "steps," nor is there any reason to alter it. We read of "the third heavens II Corinthians 12:2, the heavens of heavens Deuteronomy 10:14; I Kings 8:27; Psalms 148:4; that is, heavens to which this heaven is as earth. They are different ways of expressing the vast unseen space which God has created, divided, as we know, through the distance of the fixed stars, into countless portions, of which the lower, or further removed, are but as "steps" to the presence of the Great King, where, "above all heavens" Ephesians 4:10, Christ sitteth at the Right Hand of God. It comes to the same, if we suppose the word to mean "upper chambers." The metaphor would still signify heavens above our heavens.
And hath founded His troop - (literally, band in the earth Probably, "founded His arch upon the earth," that is, His visible heaven, which seems, like an arch, to span the earth. The whole then describes" all things visible and invisible;" all of this our solar system, and all beyond it, the many gradations to the Throne of God. : "He daily "buildeth His stories in the heavens," when He raiseth up His saints from things below to heavenly places, presiding over them, ascending in them. In devout wayfarers too, whose "conversation is in heaven Philippians 3:20, He ascendeth, sublimely and mercifully indwelling their hearts. In those who have the fruition of Himself in those heavens, He ascendeth by the glory of beatitude and the loftiest contemplation, as He walketh in those who walk, and resteth in those who rest in Him."
To this description of His power, Amos, as before Amos 5:8, adds that signal instance of its exercise on the ungodly, the flood, the pattern and type of judgments which no sinner escapes. God then hath the power to do this. Why should He not?
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