David said that God has subjected all things to men, including "What- ever passes through the paths of the sea" (Pss. 8:8).

ANALYSIS: The Hebrew word for "paths" carries the literal meaning of "customary roads."

FACT: David knew there were "paths" or "customary roads" in the sea, and that sea life "passed through these paths."

The American admiral Matthew Fontaine Maury is recognized as the father of today's science of oceanography. His other great accomplishment was the establishment of Annapolis Academy. A statue of Admiral Maury stands in the Boulevard of Heroes in Richland, Virginia. He holds charts of the sea in one hand, a Bible in the other, and on the base is the inscription "Path Finder of the Sea" Until Admiral Maury's efforts there were no charts of sailing lanes. One day during a temporary illness, his eldest son was reading to him from the Bible, and read Psalms 8:8.

Maury stopped his son and asked him to reread the passage. After hearing Psalms 8:8 again, Maury exclaimed that there must be paths in the sea if the Word of God says so, and he vowed to find them. Within a few years, he had charted the Atlantic Ocean's sea lanes and currents. His textbook Physical Geography of the Sea was the first on modem oceanography.

Since his discovery of the paths of the sea, commercial fishermen have learned that schools offish are frequently found passing through them in search of food that these currents carry along.

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