“He counts the number
of the stars; He gives names to all of them. Great is our Lord, and abundant in
strength; His understanding is infinite.”[1]
Reading this verse the other day startled me. Wow! What a
claim.
“He counts the number
of the stars; He gives names to all of them.”
So, how many are there God? A quick survey of some of the
Web sites that discuss these matters told me the answer. The most
straightforward answer is “We don’t know.”
Much verbiage is used to say this in different ways, although sincere,
dedicated people seek an answer. Two of my favorite comments were, "about
as many as the number of hamburgers sold by McDonald's,"[2] or the simple, “This is a lot of stars!”[3]
Truly, when you get into Septillions,
sextillions, powers of 10 , ‘a 7
followed by 22 zeroes’ and such, it really has no meaning to us. It simply means,
“This is a lot of stars.”
Does God know their names?
There are more than six billion
people on the Earth and they all have
a name. No individual knows them all, but in the “collective knowledge of
mankind,” (whatever that is), all 6 billion names are known.
But the collective knowledge of
mankind does not know how many stars there are or their names.
To help us understand how many, some
compare the stars to grains of sand. Sand is easier to estimate than stars
because it exists in a limited area. One site says the number of stars are
about the same as the grains of sand on earth. Another comments, “It's … about 10 times as many stars as
grains of sand on all the world's beaches and deserts.” Still another, “… source (BBC) stated that there are about
1,000 stars to every grain of sand on Earth!!”[4] So,
we see a wide swing here and we simply say,
“No wonder I get sand in my swimming suit.”
The Bible gives an indication that God
knows the number of the sands. “How
precious also are Thy thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I
should count them, they would outnumber the sand.”[5] His
thoughts toward you are more than that number. Could be a septillion! Going
back to our verse, “His understanding is
infinite…” while the number is not infinite.
So He knows how many grains of sand
there are. He knows how many stars there are. Jesus said, “the very hairs of your head are all numbered.”[6]
Sand. Stars. Hair. Numbering?!? Why
God?
The verse about numbering hair goes
on, “Therefore…”[7] Therefore
what? Therefore you are valuable.
So maybe the numbering is so that we
would know that His loving thoughts toward us are ‘a 70 followed by 22 zeroes?’
That’s more concern for you than all the hamburgers sold by McDonalds! That’s a
lot of love.
[1] Psalm
147:4-5 (New American Standard Bible)
[2] “How many stars are there in the Milky Way?”
Astronomer William Keel, http://www.faqs.org/faqs/astronomy/faq/part8/section-3.html
[3] “Ask an Astrophysicist,” Laura Whitlock,
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970115.html
[4] “How Many Stars are in the Universe?” http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_stars_are_in_the_universe#ixzz24eHWZQ9o
[5]
Psalm 139:17-18 (New American Standard Bible)
[6] Matthew
10:30 (New American Standard Bible)
[7]
Matthew 30:11 (New American Standard Bible)
