Context

Would you rather be "confident and excited" or "not disappointed?" The way you answer that question may have a lot to do with the context you are creating for your life. You do get to choose, you know.

East from West

In speaking of the breadth of the grace of God, Psalm 103 refers to ". . . as far as the east is from the west, . . ." Notice that if someone goes north long enough, sooner or later he starts going south. This, however, is not the case with going east or west; one can go east forever and never wind up going west.

How did the psalmist know this? By tradition, the Psalms were written by King David, who lived some time during the 10th century BC. At that time there was no knowledge of the shape of the world, so how could the psalmist have known that east and west never meet?

This is not the only place in the Scripture where the distance between east and west is mentioned. The distance between north and south is not mentioned. Interesting that the ancient Israelites possessed this kind of knowledge.