Dan 5:23 And you have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven… And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which do not see or hear or know; and the God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified.
Medicines are used to cure, halt, or prevent diseases; ease symptoms. In addition, some regulate, preserve and sustain for a period of time or for a life time. Man’s need and dependent on certain medications is necessary but can be very expensive, not all can afford. Now picture if you will, what if God was to charge us for instance for every breath we each took, or for every beat the heart needed, who could afford? And what about if you factored in every organ in the body and if their daily functionality sick or not required a cost, not even the richest man could afford it.
Matthew Henry beautifully paints this verse. He writes “Our dependence upon God as our creator, preserver, benefactor, owner, and ruler; not only from His hand our breath was at first, but in His hand our breath is still; it is He that holds our souls in life, and, if He take away our breath, we die. Our times being in His hand, so is our breath, by which our times are measured. In Him we live, and move, and have our being; we live by Him, live upon Him, and cannot live without Him. The way of man is not in himself, not at his own command, at his own disposal, but His are all our ways; for our hearts are in His hand, and so are the hearts of all men, even of kings, who seem to act most as free-agents. Our duty to God, in consideration of this dependence; we ought to glorify Him, to devote ourselves to His honour and employ ourselves in His service, to make it our care to please Him and our business to praise him.” God holds our breath in His hands, apart from Him who can live? Jhn 1:4 “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”